01 · The goal
Get found by the right homeowners
- Show up when homeowners search for painters nearby
- Answer every enquiry before a competitor does
- Grow the crew on steady, year-round work
Case study · Painting · Canada
How a Canadian painter
went from invisible
to Google's top 3.Invisible
to Top 3 on
Google Maps 🎨
A new website, a rebuilt Google profile and strategic SEO took this team from $285K to $740K+ a year.
- Annual revenue
- $740K+from $285K
- Inbound calls
- +160%41 → 107 / mo
- Google Maps top 3
- 14 / 18keywords
- Crew
- 8from 3
001 · Customer profile
The best painters in town, invisible on Google 🎨
This painting company had more than ten years of work behind it, a summer backlog and half the neighbourhood on referral. Homeowners searching on Google just couldn't find them.
02 · The challenge
Great work, #24 on the map
- A 2016 website taking 8.4 seconds to load
- Average Google Maps position of #24
- Callbacks taking 6 hours 40 minutes
- 27 reviews against competitors on 200+
03 · Our solution
Fix everything before the phone rings
- A new, fast website shipped in five days
- Google Business Profile and city pages rebuilt
- Instant replies and missed-call text-back
- A review engine that runs itself
What we ran
- Website Rebuild
- Local SEO
- Google Business Profile
- Service-Area Pages
- Speed-to-Lead
- Missed-Call Text-Back
- Review Engine
- Call Tracking
The work was never the problem. We fixed everything that happened before the phone rang, and calls grew 160% without a dollar spent on ads.
NEWDAY · Campaign summary
+160%Inbound calls per month
90sAverage first response
002 · The problem
The work was never the problem. The phone was 📉
Everything that happened before a homeowner picked up the phone was costing them jobs.
The business had a summer backlog, happy customers and a steady stream of referrals. The work was never the problem.
The problem was everything before the phone rang. A homeowner searching at 8pm found three competitors on Google Maps, tapped the first one, and the job was gone before this crew was ever considered. The leads that did come in often waited hours for a callback.
They were quoting whoever happened to find them, not the homeowners they wanted to work for.
When we audited the account, six things were quietly costing them jobs every week.
A site nobody waited for
Built on a 2016 template and 8.4 seconds to load on a phone. 71% of mobile visitors left before the first photo appeared.
Invisible where it counts
An average Google Maps position of #24 for "painters near me", while competitors with worse reviews sat in the top 3.
Leads landing in voicemail
The average callback took 6 hours 40 minutes, and roughly 4 in 10 enquiries never got a call back at all.
No proof at the moment of choice
27 Google reviews against competitors on 200+. The best crew in town looked like the smallest.
Losing the evening search
Most homeowners search after work. With no fast site and no instant reply, those leads went to whoever answered first.
No idea what was working
No call tracking and no form attribution, so every marketing decision was a guess.
Before
41 calls / month
Average Google Maps position #24, callbacks after 6h 40m.
- 8.4s website
- 27 reviews
- No call tracking
- Leads in voicemail
Month 8
107 calls / month
Top 3 on Google Maps for 14 of 18 keywords, first reply in 90 seconds.
- 1.1s website
- 180+ reviews at 5.0★
- Every call tracked
- Instant replies
003 · What we did
Four moves. Zero ad spend 🛠️
A site that loads and books, a profile that ranks, replies in seconds, and reviews that collect themselves.
-
01 · Foundation
Rebuilt the website in five days
We didn't redesign the old site, we replaced it. One page per service, one page per city they actually serve, and a quote form that's always in reach. Real photos of their own crews and their own jobs, shot on site.
- Mobile-first build, loads in 1.1 seconds
- Quote form above the fold on every page
- 7 dedicated service pages
- Real project galleries
- Tap-to-call that stays on screen on phones
- Licence, insurance and warranty badges
Website
Load time 8.4s → 1.1sMobile bounce 71% → 32%Form conversion 1.2% → 9.6% -
02 · Visibility
Climbed into the Google Maps top 3
Eighteen target keywords, mapped against every competitor nearby. We rebuilt the Google Business Profile properly, with the right primary category, every service listed, weekly posts and job photos going up as the crews finished. Then we cleaned up 46 directory listings that all disagreed on the phone number.
- 18 keywords mapped and tracked weekly
- A page for each of the 10 service cities
- Profile rebuilt: categories, services, Q&A
- 2–3 geo-tagged job photos a week
- 46 directory listings corrected
- Service keywords worked into review requests
Google Maps rankings
Avg. map position #24 → #2.4Top 3 keywords 0 → 14 of 18Profile views +412% -
03 · Speed
Cut response time to 90 seconds
Many of the leads they were already getting were dying in voicemail. Every form and every missed call now sends the homeowner an instant text and alerts whoever is on rotation. If nobody picks up within five minutes, it escalates. Nothing sits.
- Instant text and email on every enquiry
- Missed-call text-back within 30 seconds
- Leads rotated to whoever is on call
- Follow-ups at 5 min, 1 hr, 1 day and 3 days
- Every lead logged in one pipeline
- Weekly report on unbooked leads
Response
First response 6h 40m → 90sLeads never contacted 38% → 0%Quote-to-book rate 21% → 34% -
04 · Proof
Built a review engine that runs itself
A review request goes out automatically the evening a job is signed off, while the homeowner is still standing in a freshly painted room. Nobody on the team has to remember to ask, and nobody has to chase.
- Automatic request after every finished job
- A gentle reminder if there's no reply
- Every review answered within 24 hours
- Reviews shown on every service page
- Job photos paired with reviews
- Rating tracked month by month
Reviews
Google reviews 27 → 180+Google rating 5.0★
004 · The results
Eight months later, the backlog is four weeks 📈
Measured against the twelve months before we started. Every figure below is tracked, not estimated.
+160%Inbound calls per month41 → 107
$740K+Revenue, trailing 12 monthsfrom $285K
14 / 18Keywords in the Google Maps top 3from 0
90sAverage first responsefrom 6h 40m
180+Google reviews at 5.0★from 27
8Crew on payrollfrom 3
1.1sWebsite load timefrom 8.4s
$0Spent on paid adsall organic
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inbound calls / month | 41 | 107 | +160% |
| Booked jobs / month | 14 | 38 | +171% |
| Average job value | $3,180 | $3,760 | +18% |
| Avg. Google Maps position | #24 | #2.4 | +21.6 places |
| First response time | 6h 40m | 90s | −99.6% |
| Quote-to-book rate | 21% | 34% | +13 pts |
| Google reviews | 27 | 180+ | +150+ |
| Trailing 12-month revenue | $285K | $740K+ | +160% |
Results from one client. Every business starts from a different place.
005 · Timeline
Month by month. How it actually unfolded 🗓️
Local SEO isn't instant. Here is the honest month-by-month, quiet stretches included.
- Week 1
Audit & plan
A full teardown of the site, the profile and the competitors. Eighteen keywords chosen on search volume and job value. Baseline numbers locked before anything changed.
- Week 2
New website live
Live in 5 daysBuilt, migrated and shipped in five working days. Old links redirected and tracking installed from day one.
- Weeks 3–4
Profile & listings
Google Business Profile rebuilt from the ground up, 46 directory listings corrected and city pages published.
- Month 2
Automations switched on
First reply: 90sSpeed-to-lead, missed-call text-back and the follow-up sequence went live. The first movement on Google Maps came the same fortnight.
- Month 3
Onto page one
Calls +48%Nine keywords broke onto page one. The fourth painter was hired.
- Month 5
Into the top 3
Calls +112%Nine keywords in the Google Maps top 3, reviews past 100 and two crews running full-time.
- Month 8
Where it stands
Calls +160%14 of 18 keywords in the top 3, 180+ reviews at 5.0★, eight on the payroll and a four-week backlog. Still nothing spent on ads.
The takeaway
They were the best painters in town and #24 on Google. Now the phone rings before the last job is finished.
006 · Your turn
Same playbook. Your trade, your town 🚀
We only take on one company per service per city. Free audit first: you will see your real Google Maps position and what it is costing you, before you decide anything.
No contracts · No setup fee · Cancel any time