Gow Forestry

Kevin Gow runs a forestry mulching and wildfire mitigation company in Green Bluff, WA — a hands-on, owner-operator business serving Spokane and the surrounding Inland Northwest. He had no website, no Google Business Profile optimized for search, and no way to capture leads online. All business came through word of mouth and referrals.

The problem: the forestry mulching market in Spokane is competitive. Multiple established companies were already ranking for commercial keywords like “forestry mulching spokane,” capturing the high-intent search traffic that Kevin was invisible to. Without a web presence, he was leaving money on the table every time someone searched for his exact service.

Kevin needed a partner who could:

• Build a professional, fast website that established credibility
• Rank for competitive local search terms in a crowded market
• Convert website visitors into phone calls (his preferred intake method)
• Cover the full Inland Northwest service area with location-specific content
• Educate potential customers on wildfire mitigation and defensible space
• Position him as the expert, not just another contractor

We approached gowforestry.com as a local SEO project first and a design project second. That meant:

• Keyword-targeted page titles and meta descriptions for every route
• Semantic HTML with proper heading hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3) on every page
• Internal linking structure that passes authority from high-traffic pages to service pages
• Schema markup for local business, services, and FAQ content
• A sitemap and robots.txt configured for efficient crawling
• Mobile-first responsive design (Google's primary ranking signal for local)

The site launched with a clear content hierarchy: homepage → services → individual service pages → service area pages → knowledge base. Each level targets progressively more specific keywords.

Instead of a single generic “services” page, we built dedicated pages for each of Kevin's service lines:

• Forestry Mulching — The primary commercial service, targeting “forestry mulching spokane” and related terms
• Defensible Space Creation — NFPA/Firewise-aligned content on Zone 0–3 vegetation management
• Lot Clearing — Targeting property developers, real estate, and new build site preparation
• DNR Cost-Share Assistance — Educational content on Washington State's up-to-50% funding program for wildfire mitigation

Each page includes detailed service descriptions, process explanations, benefit-focused copy, and strong CTAs. The DNR Cost-Share page in particular positions Kevin as a knowledgeable partner who helps clients navigate government funding — a differentiator none of his competitors offer.

We built individual service area content covering 16+ towns and communities across the Inland Northwest:

Spokane, Spokane Valley, Mead, Chattaroy, Colbert, Deer Park, Green Bluff, Liberty Lake, Newman Lake, Fairfield, Diamond Lake, Elk, Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls, and Blanchard.

Each service area section includes region-specific vegetation and wildfire risk context. This isn't templated location spam — it's genuinely localized content that demonstrates Kevin's knowledge of each micro-region. An interactive OpenStreetMap visualization shows the full coverage area.

Kevin does all project intake by phone — he wants to talk to every prospect directly. We designed the entire conversion funnel around this:

• Phone number prominently displayed in the header on every page
• Primary CTA is “Get My Free Quote” driving to a phone-first contact page
• “Call Kevin Gow” button on every major page
• “Text If After Hours” option for after-business-hours prospects
• No contact form friction — direct tel: link CTAs

For a hands-on owner-operator who closes jobs through conversation, removing the form and putting the phone front-and-center is the highest-converting approach.

Beyond the service and location pages, we built a knowledge section with educational forestry content. This serves two purposes:

1. SEO authority — Long-form educational content signals expertise to Google and attracts informational queries that funnel into commercial intent
2. Trust building — Prospects who read Kevin's content arrive at the phone call already educated and pre-sold

Ranking #1 for a competitive local keyword doesn't happen by accident. It's the result of a deliberate content architecture: the right pages targeting the right keywords with the right internal linking structure, backed by technically sound code that loads fast and crawls cleanly.

Most web designers build a pretty site and hope Google notices. We build sites that are engineered to rank from day one — with semantic HTML, schema markup, keyword-targeted content hierarchies, and a mobile-first approach that aligns with how Google actually evaluates local businesses.

Google's AI Overview citation is especially significant. It means Google's AI models identified Gow Forestry's content as authoritative enough to serve as a primary reference — not just a search result, but a source. That level of content authority is what separates a real SEO strategy from a template site with a blog.