Ever find yourself in front of a row of recycling bins plastered with stickers that you just can’t decode? You’re dying to do the right thing and not just toss your trash, but between plastic #2, assorted milk cartons and questionable tin cans, it can be hard to make sense of it all. You’re not alone. This confusion is a widespread problem and it’s leading to the disintegration of the recycling system. Turns out, “recycling in the U.S. is starting to collapse and the largest recycling hauler in the U.S. has recently shut down 25% of their recycling plants.” Why? Because people are confused about how to sort recycling and, as a result, there are high levels of contamination.
But this is one problem that’s preventable!
Enter Recycle Across America!
Recycle Across America has a very simple mission: To standardize recycling labels so people recycle more and cross-contaminate less. The organization has identified the significant problem of inconsistent labeling and wants to help institute a uniform system that will increase recycling rates and decrease the chances that people will throw things into the wrong bins. But with such an important mission, how do they get the message across on a national level?
This is another problem that’s easy to solve!
Enter SEO (and Our Newest SEO Hero, Mitch Hedlund)
Michelle (“Mitch”) Hedlund works at Recycle Across America and is charged with the challenge of promoting their website and spreading their important message without a large budget. SEO became the key to her success, the tool that ultimately helped her share the organization’s mission with millions of Americans.
Through organic SEO, Mitch has been able to establish the organization and website as a highly-reputable, leading source of information about recycling. They have gained celebrity backing and reached a broad target market that includes, as she says, pretty much everyone! That means corporations, small businesses, schools, universities, cities, airports, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, recycling haulers, manufacturers and anyone that is interested in recycling and making recycling and closed loop manufacturing begin to thrive.
SEO Making a Difference
Recycle Across America’s standardized labeling system is dramatically improving the amount of recycling being collected and significantly reducing the amount of garbage thrown in recycling bins. According to Mitch, it’s gaining traction. The NY Times even called it, “One of the most important environmental fixes taking root today.”
To give them an extra bit of PR boost, RAA also has tons of celebrities helping them get the word out.
Meet Mitch Hedlund,
the SEO Hero Behind Recycle Across America
“The exponential growth of traffic to our site and the exponential growth of our mission. They definitely coincide.”
So How Did Recycle Across America Take Off?
It’s all about Google.
RAA first created a website back in 2010 and moved to the Wix platform in 2016. Since then, with thanks to Mitch’s SEO prowess, they have worked their way up to the top of Google SERPs for important terms like recycle facts, facts about recycling, recycling statistics.
These popular terms are bringing them tons of traffic and Mitch reported that most of her traffic comes either through Google or word of mouth. Given their established online presence and the amazing resources they offer on their website, it’s no surprise that RAA is ranking so well.
What Did Mitch Do to Help Them Rank?
It all started with their fantastic website. Recycle Across America has a beautifully designed, informative website with a clear purpose and a compelling argument. To bring in visitors, Mitch conducted keyword research and choose relevant keywords to target. She said it was immediately clear which words people would be searching for to find the kind of information that RAA offers.
Mitch makes sure these words are used throughout the website and she also created optimized tags and descriptions for every page on the site. The content on the site is super informative and RAA even has a regular blogger, Alexa Green, who writes engaging blog posts about relevant topics. Add in a few links from popular websites like BizEnergy.ca and LetsGoSolar.com and you can see why Recycle Across America has become so successful. The results have been impressive, not just in terms of the number of people on the website, but because the message is spreading quickly!
According to Mitch, “The exponential growth of traffic to our site and the exponential growth of our mission. They definitely coincide.” She is thrilled to know that Recycle Against America is now easy to find online and feels confident that she’s done a good job with SEO.
How Wix Has Helped Their Mission
"We LOVE how easy Wix made it to create a beautiful website ourselves!”. Switching to Wix last year was clearly a great decision for Recycling Across America. Mitch and the rest of her team are thrilled with the results and love Wix not only because of their SEO success, but also because of the design capabilities of the platform.
Mitch told us, “Wix has been a REMARKABLE tool to allow us to create a beautiful and powerful website all on our own. It has made a phenomenal difference in the control we have over our own website content, without needing a web designer or developer. This has been a game changer for our nonprofit organization!”
Mitch hears fantastic feedback about their website, perhaps because it does such a great job of conveying their mission and the solutions that RAA offers. Mitch describes Wix as “a great way to visually tell the story of our solution and the impact of it -- as well as all of the amazing and ever-growing number of celebrities and people and businesses that are now part of this mission.”
