Most sustainability brands talk _at_ people. Verde wanted to show up where people were already looking — and actually be worth finding.
They had the credentials, the certifications, the case studies. What they didn't have was visibility. Their site was buried on page three. Their content read like compliance documents. And their competitors — many with far weaker track records — were owning the conversation.
Search as storytelling
We didn't start with keywords. We started with questions — the real ones people type at midnight when they're trying to figure out if their supply chain is doing harm. What does "carbon neutral" actually mean? How do you audit a vendor? Is any of this real?
Verde had answers to every one of those questions. They just hadn't published them yet.
We built a content architecture around intent, not vanity metrics. Long-form guides that earn trust. Comparison pages that don't shy away from nuance. A resource library that treats the reader like an adult.
> "We stopped trying to rank and started trying to be useful. Turns out that's the same thing." > — Marco Oliveira, Head of Marketing
The AEO layer
Search is changing. AI-generated answers are pulling from a smaller and smaller pool of trusted sources. If you're not in that pool, you're invisible.
We restructured Verde's content for answer engine optimization — clear definitions, structured data, and content that machines can parse without losing the voice that humans connect with. The goal wasn't to game the algorithm. It was to be the source the algorithm trusts.
The results
Within four months, Verde went from page three to the featured snippet for 12 of their core terms. Organic traffic tripled. But the metric that mattered most to the team was inbound quality — the leads coming in now actually understand what Verde does, because they found them through content that explained it.
> "For the first time, our marketing feels like an extension of our mission, not a distraction from it." > — Ana Torres, CEO