Opportunity
A specialized civil engineering firm approached us to enhance their brand identity and strengthen recruitment. Based in a world-renowned mountain town celebrated for its outdoor lifestyle, the firm had a unique opportunity: beyond updating their website and social media, we could position them as the premier destination for ambitious, early-career engineers seeking a “work hard, play hard” lifestyle — exactly the kind of talent they aimed to attract.
Pains
When the client approached us, they were well known in the region by municipalities and resort developers for their civil, environmental, and water resources engineering—especially at high-profile ski resorts like Aspen. However, meeting growing demand was difficult due to hiring challenges. Living in a remote and expensive mountain town with a transient population made it hard to attract and retain top talent. Unless someone was truly drawn to the outdoor lifestyle, it was difficult to convince them to move to an area with high housing costs and a reputation for short-term stays.
They also faced stiff competition from the same firms on nearly every bid, making the race for large projects increasingly fierce. Their digital presence, however, didn’t reflect the mature, established firm they had become since launching over a decade ago. Many of their key team members had originally come from competitor firms—an asset internally, but one that could lead to being perceived externally as the younger, less experienced option.
Approach
Our goal was to position the firm as the premier civil engineering employer for professionals seeking both an adventurous outdoor lifestyle and a fulfilling career — the very traits shared by their most successful, long-term team members. We focused on four key initiatives: developing a visual identity and content strategy that balanced youthful energy with established expertise; implementing an SEO strategy to capture job seekers already searching locally; and launching an awards and PR campaign to build credibility and elevate brand awareness.
Visual identity and content strategy
We started by rebuilding their website and proposal materials with a refreshed visual identity. The new site embraced modern design principles—clean white space, large scrollable headers, and a strong emphasis on imagery and video—to showcase the depth and diversity of their work. Their proposals were redesigned with the same visual approach and integrated into PandaDoc, reducing proposal creation time from days to hours.
To support ongoing content efforts, we developed clear content pillars for social media, including project retrospectives, timely project updates, outdoor adventure and lifestyle, and employee recognition—ensuring consistency and strategic testing across platforms.
Online visibility: ranking for local queries and national job searches
Finding a job in a small mountain town is very different from job hunting in a city. In places like this, it’s often about who you know. Employers hiring from outside the area face added scrutiny—given the transient nature of life in an expensive mountain town, there’s always the question: Will this person actually stay? Will the time I invest in onboarding pay off, or will they leave for a competitor after a year for a small raise? For candidates, getting a job often means researching specific firms, watching their job boards, and reaching out directly.
That’s why showing up in Google searches—even for general service-related terms—is important for recruitment, even if the company isn’t expecting to generate new business from it. We built an SEO strategy that helped the client rank for broad terms like “civil engineering [location]” as well as for their competitors’ names, capturing job seekers who might be doing comparative research. This covered candidates who were already considering a move.
We also targeted top-of-funnel research terms, such as “best civil engineering firms to work for,” to reach people who hadn’t yet chosen a location but were exploring career options. Our approach combined on-site directories, blogging, and targeted landing pages to support this strategy.
Credibility through awards and local press
Finally, we focused on building credibility through local press and strategic award submissions. We began with a simple approach—maintaining monthly communication to identify and pitch small but meaningful stories that local news outlets would be eager to cover, such as leadership changes, service expansions, and client grant wins that supported infrastructure improvements.
Next, we developed an awards calendar to highlight key opportunities for recognition, including employee-survey-based awards that positioned the firm as a top contender for lists like Engineering’s Best Workplaces.
Implementation
We’ve had the pleasure of working with this client for over three years, with our engagement doubling as the firm grew and recognized the value of strategic marketing. As with all our clients, we remained agile—there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. We began with a website launch and social media management, gradually expanding into SEO, local press outreach, and award submissions.
As a B2B firm serving developers and municipalities, the focus was on brand awareness and public relations. That meant our efforts were intentionally long-term, designed to build credibility and deliver results steadily over time.
Results
- 190% year-over-year (YoY) increase in branded searches queries (people searching for their brand name online, a key indicator of brand awareness growth)
- 42.7K website users annually, a 79% YoY increase with 75% of users finding them organically
- 53 top 3 rankings and 131 first-page rankings on Google — including multiple variations of “best civil engineering companies to work for” ”best civil engineering consulting firms”, and “best places for civil engineers to work”
- New hires finding them on Google for local searches or competitor name searches