A small plumbing company was experiencing strong growth but was almost entirely dependent on word of mouth referrals. Attempts at SEO & Local Service Ads (LSA) with multiple agencies were failing to deliver meaningful results or measurable ROI.

LSA investment far exceeded other marketing investments, and while it was producing leads briefly, these began to fizzle out as Google sunset the ability to appeal irrelevant calls. The business had internal administrative staff to help with marketing and sought our assistance for ongoing consulting to improve their Local SEO performance and reduce reliance on Google Ads.

Plumbing is a home service, which means Local Pack performance is of paramount importance. What some people don’t realize, including SEO companies, is any local service business must have specifically local SEO strategy, which prioritizes:

1. Google Maps rankings
2. Organic rankings for local intent queries

Most customers for plumbers will find a business via Google’s Local Pack (your Google Business Profile)

This requires optimizations to both GBP and website. While this client had some SEO basics on their website, it was not optimized for geographic performance (which is what matters for local businesses)

We helped this client outline and implement a cohesive sitemap, content strategy, and action plan to improve Local Pack visibility – which wins about half of all search traffic for local intent queries, such as “plumbers near me”

Here’s an example of the Local Pack for that keyword:

In less than one year, our plan of action produced staggering gains in GBP performance, impressions, and local website traffic for high-value transactional keywords.

In 4 months, searches that delivered their GBP was up more than 400% year-over-year

Calls were up more than 160% 

At 8 months,

• Impressions were up over 8,000%
• Organic clicks were up over 900%

And there weren’t random blog keywords. The top gainers were transactional local queries, such as:

• Plumbers near me
• Local plumbers
• Plumbers Columbus
• Emergency plumber
• and more

Here’s just a few reported in Google Search Console:

*Local SEO Tip: You may be wondering why we celebrate impressions. Isn’t traffic what you want? Well, not necessarily. In Local SEO, impressions are much more important than typical SEO campaigns. That’s due to the existence of Google Business Profile and the Local Pack. Some customers who find you in the Local Pack never visit your website!  

But since your website is linked on GBP, those customers will still appear as impressions. In fact, early in this campaign, this client had more organic qualified leads than traffic! 🤯

Are Local Service Ads making you feel hopeless too? Quit depending on paid leads & PPC and start investing in organic business growth with Local SEO at Hoopless. We’re built on simple terms & bankable results (not vanity metrics or wordy jargon)

We’ve helped hundreds of businesses bring clarity to their marketing strategy, build local prominence, and start producing ROI. Contact us today for a free consultation & discovery call. We have nothing to hide, so we’re always happy to give some free actionable tips!