CASE STUDY · LOCAL VISIBILITY
From 10 calls a month to 160+, across four cities.
10 → 160+
monthly organic calls
3
new city markets established
$70
average paid cost per call
875
paid phone leads across the new markets
What happened
A plumbing company in a Minneapolis-metro suburb was doing solid work and getting 10 calls a month for it. Online visibility was close to nonexistent, and Google’s proximity-based ranking kept them locked out of the neighboring cities where the growth actually lived.
The engagement ran two tracks. Paid campaigns launched first, generating immediate calls while doubling as reconnaissance: exploratory keywords revealed which services and which nearby cities carried real demand. That data then drove the organic build: on-page optimization, locally relevant content, structured citations, and fully optimized Business Profiles in the three neighboring cities the numbers pointed at.
What changed
Organic calls grew from 10 a month to an average above 160 across the home market and all three expansion cities. Continuous optimization brought paid cost per call down to a $70 average, with 875 paid phone leads generated across the new markets while organic authority built. The paid channel eventually became the minor partner; organic carried the volume at a fraction of the cost.
Why it matters
Home service businesses hit this wall constantly: strong in their home city, invisible one suburb over, and opening physical locations is a brutal way to buy proximity. Structured local visibility work solves it without a lease. Situations like this respond especially well because demand is proven and the gap is structural, never reputational.
What this shows
Paid data guiding organic investment removes the guesswork that wastes most local SEO budgets. And a 16x call increase is what the Presence and Distribution layers look like when they’re actually fixed.