What it is
Contractor Gorilla is a marketing agency out of Granada Hills, Los Angeles, that builds websites and search programs only for contractors. In late 2013 it was a website shop, and a contractor who had moved into search work for other contractors cold-called Tellus Design and Build.
Tellus was a small green design-build firm with real television and magazine press and no search position. On a results page it was one of hundreds of Los Angeles general contractors a homeowner could not tell apart.
What Common Ground did
- Fowler wrote the search strategy himself and handed the agency the build, starting with a new logo and an interactive portfolio site a buyer could walk through to find projects like theirs.
- He picked the phrase to own, 'design build Los Angeles', because a homeowner searches the category and the city, not a contractor's name.
- Instead of one domain, the plan used one site per Tellus company and trade brand, six or seven sites in all, each with its own license, address and pages, all linked to Tellus Design and Build as the hub. Three more Tellus entities, Tellus Build, Tellus Design and Tellus Management, were formed in April 2015 beside the original company.
- Press became a deliverable. The agency ran a release cadence while Fowler stayed reachable, and two reporters came to call him regularly on green building, bathrooms, financing and interest rates.
- He commented steadily, under the Tellus name, on the articles already ranking in the category, so the firm showed up where buyers were already reading.
- In 2014 Fowler moved from client to advisor with an equity position in the agency, putting an operator's read on contractors inside its product while Tellus stayed a client. In 2017 he gave the equity up in exchange for trade work on Tellus projects: the work was worth more to him than the paper.
Results
- Tellus Design and Build held page one of Google for 'design build Los Angeles' for years, at times the first result, and held it after the advisory seat closed.
- Contractor Gorilla's published case study on the Tellus work reports 319 percent organic traffic growth and top positions for 25-plus competitive keywords.
- In 2017 the LA Clippers reached out to Tellus to redesign their practice facility.
- Fowler reviewed the agency at the time and said that if Tellus were not a regional business he would not be writing it, because he did not want the local competition getting the same results.
- The rule Fowler took from it: take a piece of a supplier when your judgment improves their product and you can see the result yourself; give it back when the work is worth more than the paper. The same presence-first approach runs through Common Ground's machine discoverability work today.
External links
- Public data room: Contractor Gorilla data room
Public record
Stories from this work
Every reporter's call is a backlinkTellus wanted to own search for its category in Los Angeles.Insider truth
Six cents a clickGreen building barely existed as a search term when Tellus opened.Insider truth
At a glance
| Project type | Search strategy and advisory |
|---|---|
| Industry | Contractor marketing and search |
| Seat | Advisor with an equity position |
| Ran through | Contractor Gorilla, the agency; Tellus Design and Build, the client |
| Dates | 2014 to 2017 |
| Duration | About three years |
| Location | Los Angeles, California |
| Public data room | Contractor Gorilla data room |
| Related pages | Tellus Design + Build, Jesse Fowler |
| Credit | Created by Common Ground |