800-454-9103
Local SEO & website case study
Organic traffic up 146% year over year
A two-location plumbing, HVAC and electrical contractor in the Southeast U.S. arrived from a previous agency with a site that needed rebuilding, a duplicate Google profile, and a dozen surrounding markets going to competitors. Fifteen months after launch, the numbers below are what changed.
Client identity withheld. All figures are actual, sourced from Semrush, Google's Business Profile Performance API and the client's CRM.
+146%
Organic traffic
217 → 534 monthly visits
+124%
Ranking keywords
378 → 847 total terms
+390%
Page-one keywords
10 → 49 in the top 10
July 2026 vs July 2025 — the same month year over year, which removes seasonality from the picture entirely. Source: Semrush, independent of any Ferocious Media reporting. First half 2026 vs first half 2025: organic traffic +54%, keyword footprint +76%.
The Challenge
A site worth rebuilding, and visibility split in half.
The contractor came to us from a previous agency. Beyond the website itself, four problems were holding organic performance down — and lead tracking was close to nonexistent, so there was no reliable baseline for what search was already producing.
More than a dozen surrounding markets had no localized service-area content or internal linking, so searches in those towns went to competitors.
No pages were earning Google review-star rich results, despite a genuinely strong review profile.
A duplicate Google Business Profile was splitting local visibility in the primary market.
Neither profile reflected the full range of services the business offered, and category data was incomplete.
Engagement Timeline
-
Nov 2024
Engagement begins; site migrated off the previous agency.
-
Feb 2025
Migration complete; full custom rebuild begins.
-
Apr 2025
New website goes live.
-
Oct 2025
Managed listings and review-response programs go live.
-
Q1–Q2 2026
Review schema, service-area expansion and seasonal content compound.
The Strategy
Rebuild the foundation, then compound on it
Delivered April 2025
Website rebuild
Rather than patch the inherited site, we rebuilt it on a dynamic page architecture that lets service and location pages be generated and maintained at scale — the structural prerequisite for everything that followed. Outdated service-area claims that had been misrouting inbound calls were cleared out, and old blog URLs redirected to preserve equity.
On-page & technical
Custom review schema across the reviews page and dozens of service and service-area pages, producing star ratings directly in search results. High-value titles and headings rewritten ahead of peak cooling season.
Google Business Profiles
Categories corrected and service lists completed on both profiles. Product listings and offer posts added, photos and service areas kept current, duplicate-listing removal pursued.
Service-area expansion
Service-area pages rewritten and genuinely localized across a dozen-plus surrounding markets, mapped against the areas the business actually serves.
Seasonal content
Service-area pages rewritten and genuinely localized across a dozen-plus surrounding markets, mapped against the areas the business actually serves.
Local Pack Visibility
From invisible on the map to a top-three position across half the grid
Rankings are scanned monthly across a 13×13 grid of 169 map points at one-mile spacing, for ten tracked service terms. Below are the actual scan exports, August 2026 against the July 2025 baseline. Drain cleaning appeared nowhere in the top 20 at baseline; plumbers newly ranks at 113 grid points and electricians at 81.
Tracked keyword
Baseline audit — Jul 31 2025
Avg rank 20 · 0% top‑3
Latest audit — Aug 5 2026
Avg rank 3.92 · 55.6% top‑3
Baseline audit — Jul 31 2025
Avg rank 14.72 · 27.8% top‑3
Latest audit — Aug 5 2026
Avg rank 4.66 · 63.9% top‑3
Baseline audit — Jul 31 2025
Avg rank 14.26 · 1.2% top‑3
Latest audit — Aug 5 2026
Avg rank 6.8 · 10.7% top‑3
Baseline audit — Jul 31 2025
Avg rank 4.76 · 40.2% top‑3
Latest audit — Aug 5 2026
Avg rank 4.05 · 51.5% top‑3
Top 3
4–7
8–15
16–20+
| Tracked term | Avg rank before | Avg rank now | Top-3 coverage now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drain cleaning | Unranked | 3.9 | 55.6% |
| Plumbers | 14.7 | 4.7 | 63.9% |
| Furnace repair | 4.8 | 4.1 | 51.5% |
| Electricians | 14.3 | 6.8 | 10.7% |
Average rank is out of 20; lower is better. Across all ten tracked terms, average local pack rank improved from 8.6 to 5.9 — measured across the full keyword set, not a selected subset. Plumbers newly ranked at 113 grid points; electricians at 81.
+128%
Maps impressions
116 → 264
+36%
Total profile impressions
1,027 → 1,396
+77%
Direction requests
73 → 129
+16%
Total customer actions
305 → 355
Google Business Profile Performance API, primary location, July 2026 vs July 2025. Maps and Search impressions combine mobile and desktop.
The Execution
Local SEO rewards upkeep, not clever one-offs
Across a single representative 90-day window on the primary profile, the logged completed actions came to 141 — roughly three every two days, sustained for three months, with a second location managed to the same standard.
Google recommends posting weekly. This profile posted at more than four times that rate.
More than 1,300 Google reviews at a 4.9 average, roughly 92% with an owner response.
Rankings scanned monthly, so movement is caught in weeks rather than found in a quarterly review.
Google-initiated profile edits monitored, preventing silent changes to categories, hours or service areas.
141
Completed actions in 90 days
Logged on the primary profile, May–July 2026
43
Profile posts
Every 1–3 days, without a gap
71
Review replies
Roughly 24 per month
16
Photo refreshes
Every 5 days
5
Review campaigns
Recurring
Attributed to Organic Search
The channel didn't just grow in traffic
Conversion and revenue tracking was implemented as part of the engagement and began reporting in February 2026. Comparing per-month averages across that window, the organic channel moved on every measure that matters.
+78%
Closed revenue from organic
+20%
Booked customers
+79%
Paying customers
+15%
Organic leads
Per-month averages, February–March 2026 vs April–June 2026, specific to the organic search channel rather than total company revenue. Per-month averages are used because the two periods contain different numbers of months. Some movement reflects normal seasonal cooling demand; the year-over-year figures above are the seasonality-neutral measure. Source: client CRM via Searchlight.
The Bottom Line
The sequence is the point
Organic clicks are getting harder to win across home services as more searches resolve without one, which is what makes growth of this shape worth understanding. The rebuild alone did not move rankings — traffic held flat through launch and the following summer. What moved the numbers was disciplined local profile management, localized service-area content and seasonally timed publishing, executed month over month on a site that could finally support it.
Ready for success?
Take the first step toward accelerating your business growth today!
