Meet Stephen Vernon And base hit marketing
I ran marketing for a roofing company before I ever sold SEO to one.
I'm Stephen Vernon, the founder of Base Hit Marketing in Lynchburg, Virginia. Before Base Hit, I spent about four years as Chief Marketing Officer at Cenvar Roofing & Solar, a residential roofing and solar contractor with locations in several states. I've sat in the chair you're sitting in. I set the marketing budget, hired the agencies, and answered to an owner who wanted to know exactly what every dollar brought back.
Today I do SEO for service area businesses, with roofing as the specialty. A good share of the work is right here at home too, and you can see that on our SEO company in Lynchburg VA page.
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From project manager to CMO
I didn't start in marketing. I studied marketing and sales in college, with most of my focus on sales, and I interviewed at Cenvar for a project management role. That job had nothing to do with marketing. I learned the company's processes and ran jobs the way the owner wanted them run. In blue-collar work, being the person who actually follows the system gets noticed fast.
When the marketing seat opened up, I was offered it. I started as marketing manager, moved up to director of marketing, ran the company's new solar division as CEO for a short stretch, and then became CMO over roofing, solar and the other businesses under the Cenvar name.
Here's the honest part. On my first day I was managing two videographers and two content writers, and I had never heard the term SEO. It hadn't come up once in my college marketing classes. So I searched for an SEO consultant and hired the one ranking first, because that seemed like reasonable proof they knew what they were doing. Then I signed up with the Digital Marketing Institute and started getting certified.
Over the next few years I worked alongside Neil Patel's agency and Sterling Sky, and I learned as much from watching how good agencies operate as I did from any course.
What I learned from the buyer's side
Most of what shapes the way Base Hit works came from mistakes I made, or watched happen, while I was the client.
The PPC contract I didn't read closely enough
I hired a pay-per-click agency without understanding how they charged. It turned out they were taking 20 to 25 percent of our ad spend just to manage it, on what looked like a year-long contract. The CEO was not happy, and he had every right not to be. I kept my job and I never made that mistake again. It's why I think every business owner should ask exactly how an agency gets paid before anything is signed.
The roofing agency that gamed the map
We also hired a roofing-specific marketing company that promised a steady stream of leads. They set up Google Business Profiles at employees' home addresses to win on proximity, which meant the company would never own those profiles. They published blog posts on our site about local fairs and festivals that had nothing to do with roofing and no links to anything else. The leads never came, and we spent a long time cleaning those posts out. That's why I care about who owns your profiles and what gets published in your name.
The calls nobody called back
The number our owner cared about was cost per booked appointment, so we had to know where every lead came from. When we dug in, we found office managers were missing calls and not returning them fast enough. Not because they didn't care. They were busy with the customers standing in front of them, scheduling jobs and registering warranties. We set up call tracking, built a call center and tracked every lead source. At the end of each month we knew our cost per booked lead by source, and ownership used it to plan the next year's budget. That's why call tracking is one of the first things I set up with a new client.
What Base Hit stands for
This isn't a churn-and-burn marketing shop. I built Base Hit around three things.
Integrity before income
Do what's right, even when it's slower or harder.
Clarity over complexity
Explain things in plain language, share the data, and help people understand their own marketing.
Consistency over flash
Good SEO isn't magic. It's showing up and doing the work month after month.
They shape the vertical work too, which is why roofing SEO looks different here than it does at a general agency.
Why I started Base Hit
I never set out to start a company. I left Cenvar to lead SEO at a digital agency. When Cenvar decided to bring its SEO back in house, the idea was pitched to me: start my own business, keep doing work for that agency, and take Cenvar on as my first client. I did, and spent the last three months of that work training the person who took it over. That's how Base Hit began in 2025.
Since then I've worked with roofers, HVAC companies, a roofing and solar company, a bee removal company, a Christmas light installer, a counseling practice and local businesses around Lynchburg. Roofing is still where I go deepest, because it's the one industry where I've done the job from the inside.
Why “Base Hit”
I’m a baseball guy, and baseball was the first sport to really run on statistics.
The statistics tell a story most fans miss
A .300 hitter is excellent, and that same hitter doesn’t get a hit seven times out of ten. In the regular season everyone cheers for home runs. In the World Series, a single can win the game.
SEO works the same way
It’s slower than ads and a lot less exciting. Some months are singles. Keep putting good work on the board and it compounds, the same way interest does, and that’s how you start winning ball games.
Two swing marks, on purpose
The Base Hit logo has two swing marks on purpose: one misses and one connects.
What I won't do
Anything against Google's guidelines. If a tactic makes me queasy, it doesn't happen.
Promise rankings. Nobody controls Google, and anyone who guarantees a position is guessing.
Work for your direct competitor. My long-term goal is one roofing company per state, and I won't split my attention between two businesses fighting for the same map pack.
Take on a job the budget can't support. If you're looking for the most work for the least money, I'm not the right fit, and I'll tell you so.
Rooted in faith
When I'm not deep in analytics or Google Search Console, I'm usually with my wife and kids, playing board games, running around outside, or sneaking in a game of basketball or pickleball. Baseball still wins in my heart, but it's hard to find 18 guys.
Our weeks revolve around church, rest and time together. My faith anchors everything I do. I report first to my Lord and Savior, and Base Hit is one of the ways I get to live that out, serving people with integrity, clarity and care.
My mission is simple.
Serve
clients
With honesty and excellence.
Serve
my family
With time and presence.
Serve
God
Through the way I work.
The bigger vision
I want Base Hit to have an impact beyond marketing metrics. That means building a business that gives back, financially through our church and nonprofits, and practically by volunteering in our community. My long-term goal is for every SEO audit or project we complete to directly fund a day of giving.
Growth is good. But impact is better.
Awards
Consumer Ratings Institute
Consumer Ratings Institute
Credentials and background
Certifications
NP Digital
Digital Marketing Institute
Digital Marketing Institute
Digital Marketing Institute
Still learning
I attended LocalU in Nashville and Tech SEO Connect in Durham in 2025, and wrote up what I took away from each on the blog: LocalU Nashville recap and Tech SEO Connect recap.
Lynchburg roots
Lifelong Lynchburg resident, Liberty University alumnus, and a volunteer with Lynchburg Daily Bread.
Career
Let's build something steady.
If you're ready to take the guesswork out of SEO and build steady, consistent growth instead of chasing the next trend, I'd love to connect. Start with an SEO audit, or read what clients say in our customer reviews.
