FloControl lands major Cardiff contract

Burnley-based hydronic valve and pipeline products specialist FloControl has landed a significant five-figure contract with a new customer for the Dragon’s Heart Hospital in Cardiff.

The new win is the latest to come as a result of the firm’s investment in search engine marketing, a programme which began 18 months ago.

FloControl began as a kitchen-table operation more than a decade ago, and has since grown to become a leader in its sector, employing 18.

The business specialises in water-based heating systems for large-scale projects including hospitals, stadia, office and high-rise residential developments. The team takes a holistic view and creates bespoke, prefabricated assemblies designed to provide efficient indoor climate control that reduces costs and is environmentally-friendly.

However, until 2019, the company’s online presence didn’t match its hard-earned industry credentials.

Marketing manager Anke Taylor said: “Our company wasn’t showing up until the fourth page of Google results. We were basically invisible, which didn’t reflect our stature in our industry and could even have been hurting our reputation.

“We sell high-value products, so potential customers – often specifiers and contractors working on behalf of others – need to trust that we are as good as we say we are. But if you’re not showing up on the most popular search engine, it raises questions.”

After seeking out a search engine marketing partner, FloControl selected seoBusiness in 2019 due to the depth of analysis provided in the pitch.

“They did a lot of research and brought a lot of interesting ideas to the table,” said Anke. “It really showed how much they wanted to work with us.”

The project began in December 2019 and by the following January the results were evident, with visibility and volume of traffic increasingly dramatically.

“The search engine marketing has been so effective that it is almost embarrassing,” said Anke. “We aren’t just in the top spot on Google, we show up multiple times on the first page!”

Following the success of the project, FloControl began receiving inquiries and orders from companies that they hadn’t yet reached out to, or didn’t even know of yet.

Anke explained: “It can be a year or more between first visiting our website and placing an order, so attribution isn’t always straight forward, but we do know that inquiries have increased, and we know that we look much more professional with our first-page rankings.”

Anke does know for sure that the Cardiff project, a five-figure request for the Dragon’s Heart Hospital, came as a direct result of the investment in search engine optimisation.

Latif Kothia, director of seoBusiness said: “We are delighted that FloControl are seeing tangible benefits from their investment in search engine marketing. More and more business is being conducted online, especially since the start of the pandemic, so any company that isn’t highly visible is definitely missing out.”