Case Study
Three jobs. One month. $55,200 from search alone.
How a brand-new roofing contractor went from a website Google could barely see to 15,000 quarterly search impressions, 600 ranking keywords, and $55,200 in closed work. No ads. No social media. Just search, and a system that answered the phone when nobody could.
Full disclosure before you read any further. Appalachian Exteriors is our co-founder Kylee's own company. She and her husband Dwayne run it in Adams County, Pennsylvania, where Dwayne is on site for every job. We built this system for our own family's roofing business before we ever sold it to anyone.
That is why this data is unusually complete. We have every number from day one, including the parts most case studies leave out. It is also why we are telling you up front instead of letting you find out later.
These are real results from one business over five months. We do not guarantee rankings, leads, or revenue, and results vary by market, trade, and competition. What we guarantee is the work, done every month.
The results
| Metric | At Launch | About 5 Months Later |
|---|---|---|
| Search impressions | 38 per week | 15,000+ per quarter |
| Ranking keywords | 6 | 600+ |
| Pages indexed | 3 | Full site |
| Average position | 6 keywords only | Under 30 across 600+ keywords |
| AI search presence | None | 220 AI Overview impressions plus ChatGPT referrals |
| Closed revenue | None | $55,200 in one month, three jobs |
| Marketing spend | None | No ads, no social, no paid anything |
In a single month this contractor closed three jobs worth $4,800, $14,400 and $36,000. Every one came from someone searching Google, and every one was captured by automated booking before a busy contractor could get to the phone.
Where they started
Appalachian Exteriors is a family-owned metal roofing and steel siding contractor serving Adams and Franklin County in South Central Pennsylvania. Like most newly launched contractors, they had real expertise and no way for anyone to find them.
This is a clean test. No paid advertising. No active Facebook or social presence. No business cards. No established word-of-mouth network to speak of. The website was the entire marketing effort, which makes the results a rare measure of what search alone can do.
What we were working with
- .A brand-new site with only a handful of pages indexed by Google
- .Template content left over from the build, including placeholder text from unrelated industries
- .Broken redirects, a duplicate staging subdomain splitting the site's authority, and 404 errors
- .No Search Console or Analytics tracking at all
- .No schema markup, no location pages, no blog
- .A Google Business Profile that was barely filled in, with one review
Competitors with older sites and more reviews held every position that mattered.
What we did
Fixed the foundation first
Resolved the broken redirects and killed the duplicate staging subdomain that was splitting authority. Cleared the 404s and the leftover template content. Set up and verified Search Console and Analytics 4. Submitted the sitemap and manually indexed every core page. Built and validated schema markup so Google and AI answer engines could actually read the business.
Built real local content
Built a page for each core service: metal roofing, steel siding, roof repair and replacement, roof inspection. Created a dedicated page for every major town and community served. Published weekly blog content aimed at the exact questions local customers actually type. Wrote everything in a direct, question-led style that works for both traditional search and AI answers.
Found the niche nobody was contesting
The data showed agricultural roofing, barns and pole buildings and farm structures, was both their top lead source and a category no local competitor was targeting. We built a content moat around it covering every major farm building type. That is a durable advantage, not a quick win.
Caught the leads the visibility created
Completed the Google Business Profile properly, services, service areas, categories, hours, photos. Set up weekly posts. Built a review generation process. And critically, missed call text back and automated booking meant that when the search program started producing calls, none of them leaked to a competitor while Dwayne was on a roof.
The part most contractors have never heard of
The content earned 220 impressions inside Google's AI Overviews and produced repeat referral traffic from ChatGPT.
Most local contractors have no presence in AI search at all. Homeowners are increasingly asking ChatGPT and Google's AI summaries who to hire instead of scrolling a results page, and the businesses that show up there are the ones whose pages answer questions directly.
The pages written with clear, direct answers performed best. That was not an accident, it was the whole approach.
Why it worked
Hyperlocal beats generic. Instead of chasing broad competitive terms, we targeted the specific towns the business actually serves, with a real page for each. High intent, far less competition.
Answer what customers actually ask. What it costs, how long it lasts, how to choose a contractor, what to do after a storm. That is what earns rankings and placement in AI answers.
Own the niche nobody wants. Agricultural roofing was sitting there uncontested and it was their best lead source.
Getting found is only half of it. Generating the call means nothing if nobody answers it. The system texted back every missed call in under 60 seconds. That is what turned visibility into $55,200 of booked work instead of three voicemails.
The same system, built for your business
One product. $450 a month. No setup fee, no build fee.
Your website, up to seven pages, built new. Your Google Business Profile set up properly and posted to every week. A CRM that texts back every missed call, follows up every estimate, and asks every customer for a review. AI that answers texts, web chat, email, and Facebook and Instagram messages. New pages and posts published every month.
Three month minimum. That covers the two months we spend building. Google usually takes another 8 to 12 weeks after that before the numbers move, so plan on real traction around month four or five. Anyone promising faster is guessing.
After three months it's month to month. Cancel any time.
It's not just roofers.
Every account also sends appointment reminders. Here's what that did for Shawn.
Before this, I'd drive out to a job and nobody would be home because they forgot. Or I'd be the one who forgot. Now my customers get a text reminder before every appointment, and it reminds me too. I'm not wasting trips anymore, and my customers notice. It just makes us look more put together.
Shawn, Gryphon Electric
Electrician