Illustrative case study

A fictional business. The figures are a modelled scenario, not a client result.

← All case studiesThe Plains Almanac · North America · 16 months

Bluestem Grid · Utility-scale battery storage developer · Kansas City

How a battery-storage developer won landowner trust in 40 rural counties

+112

referring domains, earned county by county

Industry, Energy & Mobility · Authority plan (Digital PR & links) · 16-month model

Clay Junction — linked in month 1Platte Ridge — linked in month 2Osage Bend — linked in month 3Linn Prairie — linked in month 4Marais Flats — linked in month 4Coffey Hollow — linked in month 5Anderson Fork — linked in month 5Wabaunsee — linked in month 6Lyon Creek — linked in month 6Chase Hills — linked in month 7Morris Grove — linked in month 7Greenwood — linked in month 7Elk Run — linked in month 8Butler Plain — linked in month 8Marion Draw — linked in month 8Dickinson — linked in month 9Geary Bluffs — linked in month 9Riley Ford — linked in month 9Pottawatomie — linked in month 10Jackson Mill — linked in month 10Nemaha — linked in month 10Marshall Gap — linked in month 11Washington — linked in month 11Clay Center — linked in month 11Cloud Breaks — linked in month 11Republic — linked in month 12Jewell — linked in month 12Mitchell — linked in month 12Lincoln Divide — linked in month 13Ottawa Rise — linked in month 13Saline Fork — linked in month 13McPherson — linked in month 14Rice Plain — linked in month 14Ellsworth — linked in month 14Russell Butte — linked in month 15Barton Bend — linked in month 15Stafford — linked in month 15Reno Sands — linked in month 16Harvey — linked in month 16Sedgwick Line — linked in month 16
Counties linked
40/40
Referring domains
134
Landowner enquiries / month
24
Local-news citations
37

The challenge

A good lease offer, and a search result that told landowners to say no.

Landowners researching lease offers found mostly scepticism online and little about the developer itself.

Bluestem Grid develops grid-scale battery sites on leased farmland across 40 rural counties west of Kansas City. Every project starts at a kitchen table: a land agent leaves an offer, and the family searches the company name that evening.

What they found was a protest group, a forum thread and hearing minutes. The company had answers on safety, taxes and decommissioning — none of them were where a landowner would look.

Diagnosis · authority audit

Six findings from the field survey.

  1. LinksNo. 01

    22 referring domains, 15 of them directories

    The backlink profile was trade-show listings and energy directories. Not one link came from a source a farmer in Coffey or Lyon county would read.

  2. Branded SERPNo. 02

    Page one for the brand name was 6/10 opposition

    A county Facebook group, two forum threads and a zoning-meeting PDF outranked the company's own About page for “Bluestem Grid lease”.

  3. ContentNo. 03

    No page answered a landowner's first question

    Lease terms, decommissioning bonds, fire safety and property-tax impact lived in a 38-page investor PDF that Google had never indexed.

  4. LocalNo. 04

    Zero local-news citations in 40 target counties

    Weekly papers and county radio covered every hearing, but reporters had no data, no spokesperson page and no reason to link to the developer.

  5. TechnicalNo. 05

    Project pages blocked behind a staging noindex

    Eleven county project pages shipped with a leftover noindex tag and orphaned URLs, so the few good answers that existed could not rank.

  6. EntityNo. 06

    Three spellings of the company across the web

    “Bluestem Grid”, “BlueStem Energy” and an old LLC name split mentions, so Google never consolidated the brand as one entity.

The strategy

Be the most useful source in every county before the hearing.

Built on our Authority plan for digital pr & links: four tactics, each feeding the next — data gives reporters a story, guides give their readers somewhere to land, and every local link lights another county on the grid.

1

Digital PR

Gave regional editors a reason to call the developer before the opposition.

  • A spokesperson and press-kit page with plain-English project facts
  • Story pitches timed to county commission agendas, not national news
  • Agricultural trade press angles: drought-proof lease income
2

Data studies

Published the County Lease Ledger — modelled lease and tax figures for every county.

  • Per-county estimate of school-district tax revenue from storage sites
  • Lease-rate ranges per acre benchmarked against wind and solar
  • Open CSV and embeddable charts so local papers could cite it
3

Landowner guides

Turned the investor PDF into answers a landowner can find in one search.

  • Nine guides: lease terms, decommissioning, fire safety, noise, taxes
  • One indexed page per county with the nearest substation and contacts
  • FAQ and HowTo structured data, plus a printable kitchen-table version
4

Local news links

Earned links from the outlets that rural counties actually read.

  • A list of 61 weekly papers, county radio and co-op newsletters
  • Localised data cuts sent with each pitch — the county's own numbers
  • Corrections requests where coverage cited outdated project facts

Search: “bluestem grid lease” — page one, top four

Month 1

  1. facebook.com › groups

    Stop the Battery Plant — County Residents

  2. bluestemgrid.com

    About Bluestem Grid

  3. forum.agtalk.example

    Anyone signed with Bluestem? Red flags?

  4. county.example.gov › minutes

    Zoning Board Minutes (PDF)

Month 16

  1. bluestemgrid.com › landowners

    Leasing Your Land for Battery Storage — Guide

  2. regionalfarmnews.example

    Ledger: what storage pays in 40 counties

  3. bluestemgrid.com › decommissioning

    Decommissioning Bonds, Explained

  4. countyradio.example

    Storage projects and the school-tax question

The calendar · 16 months

An almanac of the engagement, month by month.

  1. 01Audit

    Backlink, branded-SERP and entity audit; noindex fixed on 11 project pages.

    1/40
  2. 02Audit

    Interviews with land agents: the 40 questions landowners ask first.

    2/40
  3. 03Foundations

    Name unified across 60 profiles; spokesperson and press-kit pages live.

    3/40
  4. 04Foundations

    First four landowner guides published with FAQ markup.

    5/40
  5. 05Ledger

    County Lease Ledger data collected and modelled for 40 counties.

    7/40
  6. 06Ledger

    Ledger launched; first regional ag-press pickup and 3 weekly papers.

    9/40
  7. 07Outreach

    County-by-county pitch calendar aligned to commission agendas.

    12/40
  8. 08Outreach

    County pages live for all 40 counties; remaining guides shipped.

    15/40
  9. 09Outreach

    Public-radio segment on tax revenue cites the Ledger.

    18/40
  10. 10Compounding

    Branded SERP now 8/10 owned or neutral results.

    21/40
  11. 11Compounding

    Ledger refreshed with new assessed values; second press wave.

    25/40
  12. 12Compounding

    Co-op newsletters syndicate the fire-safety guide.

    28/40
  13. 13Scale

    Decommissioning-bond explainer becomes the top cited asset.

    31/40
  14. 14Scale

    Western counties reached via state farm bureau coverage.

    34/40
  15. 15Scale

    Unlinked mentions reclaimed across 14 local sites.

    37/40
  16. 16Handover

    All 40 counties carry at least one local link; playbook handed over.

    40/40

Results · modelled

+112 referring domains, and a grid that reaches every county.

Referring domains

22134

M1M16

Landowner enquiries / month

624

M1M16

Local-news citations

037

M1M16

Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.

Ranking ledger · Google US, tracked weekly

Keyword positions before and after the 16-month model
KeywordIntentVol./moMonth 1Month 16
battery storage land lease kansasLandowner590483
bess lease rates per acreLandowner880—5
bluestem grid leaseBranded32071
is battery storage safe near farmsConcern1,300—4
battery storage decommissioning bondConcern260612
battery storage property tax countyResearch210—1
lease my land for energy storage missouriLandowner170336
battery storage noise acresConcern140—8

Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.

Authority · Digital PR & links

Get a plan like this

Earned links from the outlets your customers actually read, data they can cite, and answers that sit where the questions are asked.

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