CASE STUDY: HIGHLAND CANINE TRAINING
How expanding online visibility translated to expanded offline success
Learn how years of strategy, planning and execution have helped cement Highland Canine Training’s position as one of North America’s premier dog training organizations.
ABOUT HIGHLAND CANINE TRAINING
Industry: Dog Training
Location: Various across North America
Website: https://highlandcanine.com/
True Boost Digital Partner Since 2019
Company Bio
With locations across the nation, Highland Canine Training is one of the premier dog training organizations in the United States.
Highland Canine was founded in 2006 by husband-and-wife team, Jason and Erin Purgason, initially specializing in training pet dogs with severe behavioral issues.
Over the past two decades, the company has experienced significant growth. Highland Canine now offers pet dog training at several locations across the United States, along with providing fully-trained service dogs and police & military K9s to teams around the world.
THE SITUATION
Early growth - but a dilemma
Highland Canine Training is a pet dog training organization that was formed in 2006. From the very beginning, Jason Purgason (President) had to take control of its online presence, including developing the company website and increasing Highland Canine’s online visibility through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As Purgason outlines, this wasn’t easy.
“I was spending every weekend – and most days and nights – putting some effort into developing pages, keeping up with algorithms and trying to optimize pages as best as I could. It can be a very intensive job. Trying to run the business and do that on the side was frustrating and a lot to keep up with.”
After a few years of growth, Purgason decided the time had come to outsource SEO and website development to third-parties. Yet this created more problems than it solved.
“It was horrible,” says Purgason. “Totally horrible. I hired companies over the Internet. I hired a local company here in Statesville – they were terrible too.
“It was always the same stuff – “we’ll get you rankings for all these keywords” – and yeah, they’re keywords that nobody’s searching for and aren’t relevant to my business.
“There was also a lot of “we’re doing technical stuff on the back end” – and I know there is a lot of back end stuff that can be done. But when you can’t articulate what you’re doing on the back end to benefit me on the front end, and then I don’t see those benefits – it’s pretty obvious you’re just taking my money and doing nothing.”
At the beginning of 2019, Purgason’s patience was wearing thin, but he knew that online visibility was a critical component of Highland Canine’s future growth. After his negative experiences in the past, what compelled Purgason to work with True Boost Digital?
“In dealing with True Boost, you spelled it out right up front – it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You said, “I’m not going to show you remarkable things in a month, but here’s a plan.”
“So you created a plan – stuck to the plan – and here it is, having evolved over the course of several years, and we’re seeing the results of it.”
THE STRATEGY
Unlocking potential with a multi-channel approach
As we initially worked with Highland Canine to form their digital strategy, it was apparent that there was untapped potential to attract new users – primarily through content marketing. Highland Canine had an offline reputation for knowledge and expertise that simply wasn’t being reflected in the online world. A heavy focus on high-quality, well-researched and laser-targeted blog content has proven to be a successful part of the strategy since 2019.
Our strategy has continuously evolved as the business has continued to grow, and adapted to ongoing changes pertaining to AI and other digital developments. At its core, our work has included:
- Producing comprehensive SEO strategies to improve search engine rankings and visibility
- Designing content strategies to achieve maximum engagement, increasing social and organic reach
- Optimizing and rewriting existing website content to improve conversion rates
- Creating engaging, compelling blog content across all business areas to improve brand authority
- Coaching Highland Canine staff members located across the United States through individualized programs to maximize local revenue streams
- Consulting on all facets of the organization’s digital efforts to build brand awareness
THE RESULTS
"True Boost Digital has done some pretty amazing things for our business and brands."
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is the strategic planning of design, content, development – that’s huge. I don’t think it’s something people understand. I think people really think that you go on the Internet and you create a few pages, and within hours, people are making your phones ring off the hook – and it doesn’t work that way.
Having a clear plan, having a clear strategy, being very methodical, and executing on that is critical – and you’re not getting that from 99% of people in the industry. That’s what sets True Boost apart.”
Partners with True Boost Digital Since 2019
In the early years of our partnership, Highland Canine Training saw a 7x increase in organic sessions, year-over-year. This growth was seen across all areas of their website (on both commercial and informational intent pages). This helped them to expand to over 25 locations across North America, including opening their doors to pet dog owners in Mexico and Puerto Rico. We have also worked with Highland Canine on other areas of their business, including their service dog and police/working dog divisions.
“The thing that businesses really have to understand is getting people to click on your website is great – but if they don’t do business with you, what good is it doing you?” says Purgason. “If they don’t like what they see – if they don’t trust you – if it’s not relevant content – they’re not going to do business with you, so you’re literally wasting all your money and effort on people who would never do business with you.
“You need something that’s lasting and long-term. You need to find somebody you can trust and who knows what they’re doing if you’re going to make that investment in optimization.”