The Challenge:
Trusted Locally, Invisible Online
Van's Rain Gutters has been installing, cleaning, and protecting gutters across South Jersey since 1948. The veteran-owned, three-generation operation has built the kind of community trust most contractors spend a lifetime chasing. But when a Gloucester County homeowner Googled "rain gutters near me," that reputation may as well have not existed.
National franchise brands and regional operators were dominating searches that should have been Van's bread and butter. The credentials, craftsmanship, and customer satisfaction were all there. The visibility, however, wasn't.
Epic's digital marketing team identified several bottlenecks:
- Issue 1: A website that wasn't built for local search, missing the content depth, structural signals, and architecture Google uses to rank local businesses.
- Issue 2: Invisibility beyond branded queries. Unless a customer already knew "Van's Rain Gutters" by name, the company didn't surface for service-based searches like "gutter cleanouts South Jersey."
- Issue 3: A Google Business Profile that under-communicates services, specialties, and service area, limiting Van's footprint on Google Maps (where most homeowners start their search).
- Issue 4: Zero presence in the educational searches happening before a homeowner is ready to call. Gutter materials, guard options, repairing vs. replacing - Van's wasn't part of those conversations.
The Solution:
Building the Whole System
Quality gutter work is about more than the gutters themselves. It's the hangers, pitch, downspouts, and splash blocks, all working together as one. Van's digital presence needed that same treatment.
Epic approached the engagement as a full-stack local search engine optimization (SEO) project: a complete digital foundation engineered to match the quality of the actual business behind it.
A Website Built to Be Found
We designed and built a new website from scratch, organized specifically to help search engines understand who Van's is and what they do. Dedicated service pages were structured to rank for their specific intent, from installation to gutter protection to cleanouts.
A service area page targeted Gloucester, Camden, and Burlington Counties by name, surfacing Van's when homeowners searched by their specific town. Trust signals (i.e., veteran-owned, licensed, insured) were woven throughout with contact info accessible on every page.
Optimizing the Front Door on Google
For most homeowners, a Google Business Profile is the first impression. So Epic rebuilt Van's profile to ensure it earned that moment - updating categories, services, and the business description to match the language real customers use.
Our team refined the service area to clearly communicate Van's full South Jersey footprint, laying the groundwork for ongoing review generation and photo updates.
Answering Questions Before the Phone Rings
The most effective thing a local service business can do online is answer the questions its future customers are already typing into Google. Epic built a content program around exactly that, regularly publishing articles that target real search queries, such as:
The Result:
Leads Are Flowing
The numbers below compare the six months before Epic's strategy was fully in market (October 2024 - March 2025) against the same six months one year later (October 2025 - March 2026).
Search Visibility
- 9,118 searches for heated gutters surfaced Van's in a single winter season
- 5× more impressions on articles, year over year
- 83 pages discoverable in Google search, up from a minimal footprint at the start of the engagement
- 91% of pages on the new site are confirmed indexed (21 of 23)
Appearing on Google for Searches That Matter
- "Gutter installation near me" in top results (previously not ranking)
- "Seamless gutters near me" in the top 3
- "Gutter cleaning near me" moved from page 4+ to a top-5 result
- "Gutters near me" is ranking for the first time
- "Gutters South Jersey" is competing where competitors previously dominated
Content Pulling Its Weight
- Leaf removal guide earned over 25,000 search impressions in a single season
- Heated gutters article hit 26,000+ impressions this past winter, up from roughly 1,500 the prior year
- The site now earns clicks across 35+ distinct search topics, up from around 10
Local SEO
Don't just be "in the ballpark" for local searchers — put your business at home plate.
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