Fuel docks aren’t known for their glamor.

The last time anyone made getting gas look attractive was the year 2001 when Derek Zoolander and his friends engaged in a gasoline fight. Fuel docks are a staple service, like ice and bait: forever unglamorous, always needed.

On the digital marketing side, search engine optimization (SEO) is also unglamorous. It is a vital service that often happens behind the scenes, is difficult to show the direct return on value, and requires months of building.

First, thank you to General Manager Charlotte Jacunski and Operations Manager Matt Williamson at Northshore Marina on Lake Travis in Jonestown, Texas for providing us with context and data, and giving us the go-ahead to publish an in-depth study of how a good SEO strategy coincided with an annual increase in fuel sales.

We’ll also put out the disclaimer that we cannot claim credit for every dollar that increased in 2025 at Northshore Marina’s fuel dock. A wide variety of factors contribute to annual fuel sales, including weather, price, market density, and seasonal boating demand. But the correlation is there, and today we create a map to show you that a pointed and well-executed SEO strategy can make a tangible bottom-line impact.

We all love a good fuel war

Let’s clarify that: We all love a good fuel war in the movies. The marina managers on a congested lake, competing with a half dozen fuel docks – not so much.

Northshore Marina is a “luxury experience” on Lake Travis. They’re a member of the VIP Marinas Group, dedicated to incredible customer experiences, and Northshore is an exemplary model for fostering real marina community. They host unique events (including a Docktoberfest where everyone shares German beers and foods) and they’ve now won “Outstanding Marina of the Year” from the Marina Association of Texas six times.

Lake Travis is a highly competitive environment for boat rental and day-on-the-water services. One can zoom in on Google and find a marina in almost every cove. According to March 2025 data from Moz’s keyword research tool, the search volume for “Gas on Lake Travis” and fuel-related keywords was hardly eye-catching. You’d see 20 monthly hits for “Gas on Lake Travis,” 10 monthly hits for “Gas Lake Travis,” and so forth with the keyword variations. However, volume swells with the boat traffic and traffic swells with the season. One or two hundred monthly search hits doesn’t sound like a monstrous number, but when you gauge that these are high-intent search queries and most of those searches will result in someone buying gas, it becomes relevant to stay visible.

We noticed through the SE Ranking keyword tracking tool in March 2025 that Northshore’s “Gas Lake Travis” rankings fell from 5th to 10th in a month. This doesn’t sound dramatic, but it means the difference between Google’s top-of-front page to hardly earning eyeballs. We had not previously targeted the fuel service for any content creation, and assessed that other marinas on the lake had stepped up their gas game. Entering April 2025 with a core marina service in flux, our approach was that we needed to be in the top three.

Taking action: Articles and pages to gas up the fuel docks

We implemented a “content blitz” on all things gas. We wove gas terminology into the website copy, and we wrote and published a “Gas on Lake Travis” website page in April 2025. The page is robust – over 1,000 words, and not meant to stuff keywords – we wanted to provide informative and actionable value. The page includes gas prices and information on local lake destinations.

We then layered Lake Travis gas terminology into a long-form deep-dive called “Simple safety tips for getting gas on Lake Travis.” Are you going to see “Simple safety tips” optioned into a Hollywood film? No, but Lake Travis boaters may legitimately learn something, and we added muscle to Northshore’s content authority.

Show me the money: What happened?

Four months later, Northshore had stabilized back at fourth, behind the heavyweight local tourism site of Laketravis.com, and one of Northshore’s sister VIP marinas at Sandy Creek (We also wrote the Sandy Creek article that sat there in first). For the remainder of 2025, the marina continued to gradually improve until it dominated “gas” searches in Google search results and on the Google local map pack. In November 2024, Northshore ranked 30th for the same keyword phrase. Entering 2026, Northshore Marina held the top position.

Yeah, but how did it affect the income?

We talked with Charlotte and Matt at Northshore and investigated if the rankings really had a correlation to improved income. An important piece of context was that Lake Travis had been in a prolonged Stage Two drought with exposed shoreline, and then experienced a devastating flood during the July 2025 Central Texas floods.

We will again caveat this segment by saying that General Manager Charlotte expressed that August to December 2025 was a rebound in good weather on Lake Travis. This is also the period of time when Northshore’s fuel rankings rebounded. We requested the hard data, and Charlotte (graciously) described the data that supported the strong organic search visibility:

Fuel sales are greater than 2024 by $36,837.48 [for] August – December. Most of that change we see in August and October…The weather surely increases the quantity of searches and the searches landing on our page increases the sales hopefully.

Sound SEO builds authority, traffic, and yes, revenue

We don’t promise X amount of return on investment when we embark on a creative SEO strategy. We use this example often, but if a first-time lake visitor searches Google and finds six similar marinas with similar reviews and amenities, they’re likely to choose the marina that has the most authority, trust, and convenience. The first impression happens in those split seconds when they see the marinas at the top. That’s what good SEO looks like: authority, trust, visibility. 

If it’s a hot afternoon and you find yourself in a lake-wide fuel war, know that your good SEO may have helped you win it.

Article by Hammer and Nail Marketing

WHAT IS HAMMER & NAIL?

Hammer and Nail Marketing is a boutique marketing firm that helps small to mid-sized marinas get noticed by boaters. If you’d like to focus on operating your marina without the additional responsibility of marketing, get in touch with us.

We’re boaters ourselves from a background of operating a family-run marina. From a group of experts who know the water, let Hammer and Nail Marketing help you be the waterfront your local boaters see every time they cast off.