Voigt’s Bus Service Boosts Brand and Business with Website Design and SEO

Originally Published March 2022

Voigt’s Bus Service is a 75-year-old bus company based in St. Augusta and Fridley, MN. Serving the greater Minnesota area, Voigt’s Bus Service provides school bus service to several central Minnesota and Twin Cities schools. They also run tour buses and coaches to destinations across the nation, casinos and entertainment venues across the Upper Midwest, and wedding services.

Cohlab Digital Marketing and Voigt’s Bus Service have worked together since 2015 for website maintenance, light SEO, and marketing duties. When they were ready to move on from their current website provider, for a modern website design with built-in SEO which they could edit themselves, they turned to Cohlab Digital Marketing.

Let’s break down what we did.

Voigt’s Bus Service Boosts Brand and Business with Website Design and SEO

Proposal

2015

Back in 2015, Cortney Voigt and the Voigt’s Bus Service team reached out to Cohlab Digital Marketing to assist with small changes to their website and SEO. Their existing website was built by a busing industry website builder and required coding knowledge to update.

Over the course of a few years, Voigt’s Bus Service and Cohlab Digital Marketing continued to partner on a Google Business Profile (fka Googe My Business) listing for their St. Augusta, Cold Spring, Fridley, and St. Cloud shops, helping with logos and other graphics, and minor website updates.

2021

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the bus industry particularly hard with school closures and restricted travel. Because of our prior relationship, Cohlab and Voigt’s agreed to pause our relationship for much of 2020. When 2021 began, Voigt’s Bus Service was ready to roar back onto the scene.

They first purchased a rival bus company in St. Cloud, Guardian Bus Company, and acquired their location and assets. A Google Business Profile listing was created for that location. Then the new Chief Operations Officer, Sam Rodriguez, decided it was time to revamp the website and focus more forcefully on SEO.

A virtual meeting was set up between Sam and the Cohlab team, where a proposal was presented. This proposal advocated for an entirely new website to be built in WordPress, utilizing advanced SEO techniques such as:

Execution

August 2021, New WordPress Website Design, Reputation Management, & Advanced SEO

After a series of interviews and information gathering, new rounds of keyword research were conducted, a new sitemap was authored, and a new homepage design was mocked-up.

Voigt’s Bus Service also hired a professional photographer/videographer to make the most of their new website and include their own imagery, personnel photos, and videos.

The keywords, sitemap, and designer were all fine-tuned as content was created, optimized, and edited for the entire website, including a new series of city-focused pages based on the location of their terminals, to drive geographically-specific searches:

  • St. Augusta, MN
  • Cold Spring, MN
  • Fridley, MN
  • St. Cloud, MN

After the sitemap, design, and content were approved, a development site was created on Cohlab’s servers to show Voigt’s Bus Service how the new WordPress website would look and react in real life. The content is included at this point, along with any photos and videos that were provided.

We also gathered together all of their existing social media and industry websites, such as Yelp, WeddingWire, The Knot, YellowPages, Google, Facebook, etc., and brought all of the reviews into our Cohlab.Reviews software so they could be displayed live (refreshed twice a day) on the website, and make leaving a review extremely easy for clients.

Due to use of specific industry software for request quotes and providing a portal for employees and clients, a few pages had to be cloned and redesigned in another website builders CMS and hosted with another provider.

Before Voigt’s Bus Service’s new website went live, we mapped a series of redirects from their old website, ensured our new hosting would be faster, ran a number of Google Lighthouse Audits to optimize the site, and fine-tuned any other performance or UX issues.

Home page of new 2021 website for Voigt’s Bus Service, featuring a large video at the top, request a quote form, full menu, and driver portal at top right.

Results

First, we’ll let Voigt’s Bus Service speak for themselves:

Sam Rodriguez, Chief Operating Officer
5-Stars | Google Review

“Amazing company with great attention to detail and strong desire for partner success! Digital marketing masters!”

Cortney Ely, Owner
5-Stars | Google Review

“Working with Heather and the rest of their crew has been AMAZING! They are the best in the industry. They’re innovative, intuitive, patient, and best of all a local small business. Most recently they helped with the overhaul of our new website, helping extend our business from St. Augusta to Cold Spring, Fridley, and beyond. Truly grateful to have Team Cohlab on our side! Thanks for all you do for us at Voigt’s Bus!”

Note: Did you enjoy that review? Check out more reviews from Cohlab clients!

Website Analytics | March 2021-Feb. 2022 (2021) vs. March 2020-Feb. 2021 (2020)

We’ll be looking at the 12-month period of March 2021-Feb. 2022, along with the previous year for that same period for comparison.

Note: City-related data is pulled via Zip Code, so may include some areas you expect – and others you don’t – of certain cities depending on whether there are multiple zip codes involved.

Overall Website Performance

2021 Overall Website Users: 10,329

2020 Overall Website Users: 6,490

Percentage Change: 59% Increase

2021 Users From Google Search: 5,839

2020 Users From Google Search: 3,896

Percentage Change: 49% Increase

Minneapolis Area Website Performance

2021 Minneapolis Users: 1543

2020 Minneapolis Users: 923

Percentage Change: 67% Increase

St. Cloud Area Website Performance

2021 St. Cloud Users: 736

2020 St. Cloud Users: 51

Percentage Change: 46% Increase
St. Paul Area Website Performance

2021 St. Paul Users: 274

2020 St. Paul Users: 186

Percentage Change: 47% Increase

Fridley Area Website Performance

2021 Fridley Users: 95

2020 Fridley Users: 81

Percentage Change: 17% Increase

Cold Spring Area Website Performance

2021 Cold Spring Users: 83

2020 Cold Spring Users: 23

Percentage Change: 260% Increase

Key Search Term Raking | March 2022 vs. March 2021

Brooklyn Park Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 4

2021 Terms: 0

Clearwater Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 6

2021 Terms: 2

Cold Spring Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 7

2021 Terms: 4

Fridley Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 8

2021 Terms: 5

Minneapolis Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 2

2021 Terms: 1

St. Augusta Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 9

2021 Terms: 7

St. Cloud Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 7

2021 Terms: 6

St. Joseph Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 6

2021 Terms: 4

Sartell Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 7

2021 Terms: 5

Sauk Rapids Area Key Search Term Rankings On First Page

2022 Terms: 8

2021 Terms: 6

ROI For Website Design, SEO

Through the partnership with Cohlab Digital Marketing, the Voigt’s Bus Service team was able to generate the following results from their website design and SEO in just one year:

  • ranking on the first page for 60% more key search terms in their target markets;
  • more than 3,800 additional website visits from Google; and,
  • more than 59% increase in visitors from Google Search overall!

Additionally, their website will continue to stay relevant in search results for a long time! They may need some maintenance: photos added, details updated, changes based on Google’s whims, etc. But they can take care of it in-house if they have the desire, or they can always come back to Cohlab for additional help. That means their ROI will only continue to grow as time goes on.

Thank you to Cortney Voigt, Sam Rodriguez, and the entire team at Voigt’s Bus Service for partnering with Cohlab Digital Marketing for your website design and SEO! We’re proud to serve local businesses and local communities. Get in touch with Logan Gruber near St. Cloud for your marketing and website needs near Saint Cloud and Fridley.

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