A Coast333 Case Study

Google Business Profile Optimization Case Study: How a Plumbing Company Nearly Doubled Local Visibility in 90 Days

A GBP-first strategy outperformed traditional website-focused local SEO in speed, call volume, and reported conversions.

Quick summary: In this Google Business Profile optimization case study, a local plumbing company’s average monthly discovery on Google nearly doubled, calls increased 46%, and clicks increased 75%, within 90 days of shifting to a GBP-first strategy that combined weekly posts, full product and service listings, active review management, and ongoing Q&A development.

Introduction

This Google Business Profile optimization case study started with a simple question: if a business already gets solid organic traffic from a website-focused local SEO approach, how much more is being left on the table by treating the Google Business Profile itself as an afterthought? For one local plumbing company, the answer turned out to be significant. Note: at the time this work was done, Google still called this tool “Google My Business.” Google renamed it Google Business Profile in 2021, but the platform and the strategy behind optimizing it are the same.

The Challenge

The client, a local plumbing company whose name is withheld for confidentiality, had always generated meaningful traffic through a traditional, website-focused organic SEO approach. But traffic and visibility coming directly from the Google Business Profile itself had stayed flat. Call volume from the listing was steady, not growing. The hypothesis was straightforward: if the profile itself, not just the website behind it, was properly optimized and kept active, calls, website visits, and ultimately new customers should increase.

Our Approach

Rather than assume the hypothesis was correct, the plan was to test it and measure the outcome directly. The strategy centered on five specific actions:

Full Google Business Profile optimization
Regular posting to the profile on an ongoing weekly basis
Building out a complete question and answer section on the listing
Fully developing the product and service listings on the profile
Active review management and response

The results would be validated against four sources: Google Business Profile insights reporting, organic keyword ranking reports, general analytics, and direct client feedback on conversions.

Execution

The campaign began in March 2020. Work included optimizing the core listing details, maintaining consistent name, address, and phone number information across the web (commonly called NAP consistency), posting to the profile weekly, fully building out the product and service listings, actively managing and responding to reviews with strategic keyword use, and developing a growing library of questions and answers directly on the listing.

The Results

The comparison below looks at average monthly performance across two six-month windows: January through June 2019, and January through June 2020. It’s worth being direct about one detail: the 2020 window includes January and February, two months before the optimization work began in March. That means these numbers likely understate the actual scale of change once the strategy was fully underway, since two of the six months in the “after” period were still operating under the old approach.

+98% Avg. Monthly Discovery

+46% Avg. Monthly Calls

+75% Avg. Monthly Clicks

Key results at a glance:

Average monthly discovery nearly doubled, from 1,184 to 2,342, a 98% increase
Average monthly calls increased 46%, from 56 to 82
Average monthly clicks increased 75%, from 328 to 574
An aggregate local ranking score that had been essentially flat for over a year began climbing sharply within weeks of the optimization work starting
Strong rankings for a competitive emergency service keyword held across a service area roughly four times larger than the immediate area around the business

What “Discovery” Means Discovery searches are searches where someone finds a business by searching for a category, product, or service, such as “emergency plumber,” rather than by searching for the business by name. A rising discovery number means more people who didn’t already know the business are finding it, which is generally a stronger growth signal than an increase in searches for the business by name alone.

Average Monthly Discovery: 2019 vs. 2020

Average monthly discovery searches nearly doubled year over year, a 98% increase.

Average Monthly Calls: 2019 vs. 2020

Average monthly calls increased 46%, even though the 2020 average includes two months before optimization began.

Average Monthly Clicks: 2019 vs. 2020

Average monthly clicks to the website or listing increased 75% year over year.

“Results are more rapid than traditional website-focused local SEO, and call volume responds faster, too.”

Ranking movement and geographic reach

Local ranking movement had been essentially flat for more than a year before this campaign began. Within weeks of the optimization work starting, an aggregate local ranking score began climbing sharply, a pattern that held through the rest of the tracked period.

Strong rankings on their own aren’t the full picture. What matters is whether that strength holds across a business’s actual service area, not just close to its front door. Rankings for a competitive emergency plumbing keyword were checked across two service areas on the same day: one covering roughly 49 square miles, and a second covering roughly 196 square miles, about four times larger. Rankings held strong across both, meaning the visibility gains from this campaign reached well beyond the immediate area around the business, into the wider territory the company actually serves.

What Business Owners Can Learn

A website-focused local SEO strategy and a Google Business Profile strategy are not the same thing, and strong performance on one doesn’t guarantee strong performance on the other.
Google Business Profile optimization tends to produce visible movement faster than website-only SEO, particularly in call volume.
Discovery searches, people finding a business by category or service rather than by name, are one of the clearest signs that visibility is genuinely expanding rather than just capturing people who already knew where to look.
Strong rankings near a business’s own address don’t guarantee strong rankings across its full service area. That has to be checked directly, not assumed.
Comparing performance across matched time periods, and being upfront about what those periods do and don’t include, matters more than a single headline percentage.

Key Takeaway After 90 days of Google Business Profile optimization, results moved faster than the business’s existing website-focused SEO ever had on its own, call volume responded quickly, and the client reported significantly higher conversions in a short window. That doesn’t mean website SEO doesn’t matter. It means the profile itself deserves the same ongoing attention.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Google Business Profile optimization different from traditional SEO?

Traditional local SEO focuses primarily on the website: content, technical structure, and backlinks. Google Business Profile optimization focuses on the listing itself: regular posts, complete product and service listings, review management, and ongoing question and answer development. In this case study, a GBP-first approach produced faster call volume growth than website-focused SEO alone had previously delivered for the same business.

How fast can Google Business Profile optimization show results?

In this case study, meaningful movement in local rankings began within weeks of starting, and after 90 days the business reported significantly higher conversions, along with a 46% increase in average monthly calls and a 75% increase in average monthly clicks. Results this fast are not guaranteed for every business, but a well-executed GBP optimization strategy tends to produce visible movement faster than website-only SEO.

What does Google Business Profile optimization actually include?

In this case study, the work included optimizing the core listing details, maintaining consistent name, address, and phone number information across the web, posting to the profile weekly, fully building out product and service listings, actively managing and responding to reviews with strategic keyword use, and developing a library of questions and answers on the listing.

Does ranking well near my office mean I rank well across my whole service area?

Not necessarily, which is why it’s worth checking. In this case study, rankings for a competitive emergency service keyword were tracked across two service areas of very different sizes on the same day. Rankings held strong across both, including the area roughly four times larger, which showed the visibility gains reached well beyond the immediate area around the business.

Final Thoughts

This wasn’t a case of replacing one strategy with another. The business already had a solid, website-focused SEO foundation. What changed the outcome was treating the Google Business Profile itself as an asset worth the same ongoing attention, rather than a listing that gets set up once and left alone.

If you’re not sure whether your own Google Business Profile is pulling its weight compared to your website SEO, that’s exactly the kind of question a Competitive Marketing Analysis is built to answer. It’s free, it takes a real look at where you stand, and there’s no pressure attached either way.