rock creek

Intro

Improving digital
performance by 86%

Goals

The Ranch at Rock Creek is a luxury, all-inclusive guest ranch located in Philipsburg, Montana. As the world’s only Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star ranch, it offers upscale, authentic Western experiences.

With a clientele of high-net-worth travelers seeking exclusivity and adventure, their digital presence plays a crucial role in attracting and converting bookings year-round.

Despite a strong brand reputation offline, The Ranch at Rock Creek faced increasing competition in organic search and needed to improve its online visibility to sustain growth.

In just 6 short months…

organic visits

54%

54% increase in organic website visits

ranking terms

106%

106% increase in total ranking term

organic traffic value

48%

48% increase in organic traffic value

Bubble chart showing Rock Creek’s growth in organic traffic and traffic value, with an arrow highlighting movement toward 24K visits and $10K value.

Organic Search Performance

Since partnering together, The Ranch at Rock Creek has seen a 23% increase in its Google market share from the previous year, the largest growth among its competitors.

The lefthand graph displays growth in organic traffic and traffic value,  highlighting movement toward 24K visits and $10K value.

The backlink acquisition strategy was a crucial component of the SEO strategy’s success. TheRanchatRockCreek.com saw an increase of 324 linking domains and 3,500 total backlinks. These links send strong trust signals and have boosted the results considerably.

The righhand graph displays monthly backlink changes for Rock Creek from July 2024 to June 2025.

showing monthly backlink changes for Rock Creek from July 2024 to June 2025

Challenges

Before partnering with Method + Metric, The Ranch at Rock Creek was experiencing stagnant organic traffic and limited visibility across high-intent search terms.

  • The website was not ranking well for keywords related to its ideal content pillars.
  • The site architecture and on-page messaging did not align with the ideal visitor journey.
  • Several technical issues were impeding its overall performance, including sitespeed.
  • Online bookings had stagnated for several consecutive months.

Solutions

Method + Metric got to work focusing on these critical areas:

 

  • Build a keyword strategy around the key messaging pillars that resonate with their guests.

  • Optimize site architecture to better align with keyword targets and the ideal booking flow.

  • Improve technical performance through updates to the Robots.txt, XML sitemap, and page speed.

  • Optimize on-page elements, including meta tags, headings, internal linking, and calls to action.

  • Enhance the booking journey from first site visit to final reservation.

Why Method and Metric?

We are growth marketers with our eyes on the long view, helping you nurture your audience and establish long-lasting trust. This trust is the foundation for business growth, brand visibility, and quality leads.

We offer holistic solutions that work for you and obsess over the right search queries so you reach the most relevant people. Because SEO isn’t just about numbers- it’s about connecting you with the people who can most benefit from your work. Ultimately, we make SEO human.

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