CASE STUDY: ANONYMISED CLIENT
Case study: position 6 to position 1 in seven weeks.
How we rebuilt the website of a regulated UK service company, and what it did to search. Work began in May 2026. Every figure is dated. The client is anonymised.
The results at a glance.
All figures are from Google Search Console and cover dates after work began in May 2026.
Google position for a core, high-value search
3 July to 19 August 2026click-through rate from Google
first week after the first rewritten pages went live, 23 to 29 September 2026existing pages rewritten in two weeks
21 September to 5 October 2026, 18 live by 3 Octobermore clicks a month from Google
155 in May to 257 in September 2026The client and the starting point.
The client is a regulated UK service company in the motor sector. Its website was being seen by Google but not chosen, and it was not catching the enquiries it did get.
What we found in May 2026
- In the three months before work began, Google showed the site 357,000 times, but fewer than one search in 400 led to a click (0.2%).
- 50 pages that Google had found were not indexed, 36% of the site.
- Duplicate addresses split ranking signals. Several key pages each loaded on two URLs, and one duplicate held a key page down at around position 40.
- Placeholder text and links to a development preview of the site were live on the public pages, and six links in the main navigation were dead.
- Most service pages were thin, dated and worded in a way that did not suit a regulated business.
- Enquiries were leaking: broken contact links in the header on every page, callback buttons that went nowhere, and no way to tell website enquiries from other marketing.
What we did.
Work began in May 2026. After three months of results the client moved to a 12-month agreement in August 2026.
Rebuilt the website
The three highest-value service pages came first (the first live on 12 June, all three by 3 July 2026), then a new design, a new homepage (live 10 September 2026) and a new header and footer across the site. Duplicate addresses were merged with checked redirects so Google sees one strong page per topic.
Technical SEO and trust
Cleaned the Google index and rebuilt the sitemap, added and tested structured data on key pages, registered the company name and logo with Google, removed crawl waste, cleared almost 90 spam comments, and found and removed a hidden third-party link. Trust details were checked at source and shown on every page.
Lead capture
Set up tracking for form submissions, phone clicks and messaging clicks, added a lead-source field so website enquiries are identified, closed every enquiry leak, and joined the enquiry form to the client’s case system. The callback promise was cut from five minutes to two.
Google Business Profile
Built the profile out fully in June 2026 with services, areas and assets, then added weekly posts from July, each written around a real search moment and linked with tracking.
The content programme
Rewrote 32 existing pages in two weeks, each built from evidence: what it already ranks for, what Google and AI Overviews show for the target search, what competitor pages leave out and what real people ask. Written for how people search, to the standard a regulated business needs.
Off-site
Reviewed 100 backlinks, found nothing harmful, and set out a compliant plan for earning links from trade bodies, partners and data-led press. No bought links.
Rankings, dated.
Positions are from live checks and Search Console. Search terms are described rather than named, to keep the client anonymous.
| Result | Figure | Date |
|---|---|---|
| A core, high-value service search | Position 6 at launch to position 1 | 3 July to 19 August 2026 |
| A related claim search | Position 1, held | 19 August, still held on 4 September 2026 |
| A comparison-style search | Average position 4.6 to position 2 | July to 19 August 2026 |
| A repair-related search | Position 2 | Live check, 5 October 2026 |
| A broad “company type” search | Appearances up 228% fortnight on fortnight | August 2026 |
| A vehicle-claim search | Appearances up 94% month on month | To 4 September 2026 |
| Google impressions | Up 18% (123k against 104k) | 30 days to 4 September 2026 |
| Click-through rate after the first rewritten pages | Doubled, 0.2% to 0.4%. Average position 30.6 to 23.1 | 23 to 29 September 2026, against a three-month baseline |
The click-through result is one week of data, so treat it as an early signal.
Rankings and clicks, over time.
These charts are rebuilt from the client’s Google Search Console monthly totals for web search. They are not screenshots. April 2026 is shown for context, the month before work began.
What we can see
- Clicks went from 155 in May to 257 in September 2026, the best month in the 16 months of data we have. August dipped to 178, so the climb was not a straight line.
- Average position improved from 35.9 in May to 28.5 in September. The site was already improving slowly before we started, so we do not claim the whole trend.
- An average position near 28 means the site is still on page three on average, mostly because it ranks well for a few core searches and low for many broad ones. There is room to grow.
- The charts show searches overall. The position 1 and 2 results in the table above are for specific high-value searches.
Where the conversions came from.
In Google Analytics 4, 104 of the 123 key events recorded between 5 October 2025 and 4 October 2026 (84.5%) came from organic search, which was 24.3% of sessions (3,135 of 12,917). Key events are the conversion actions set up in the client’s analytics. We do not say here what they are, to keep the client anonymous.
AI assistants such as ChatGPT sent 94 sessions in the same period. That is a small sample, but those visitors were the most engaged of any channel, at 79.8%.
How we work.
A one-page report to the client every week: what was done, what it did to search, and who owns what next. Every task is checked on the live site rather than taken on someone else’s word, and rankings are measured against a fixed baseline, so the client always knows what changed.
The next phase reaches people who do not yet know what to search for, with new guides built around their first questions.
How to read this case study.
- This is one client. Results depend on the market, the competition and where a site starts, so yours will differ.
- All figures come from Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4, or from dated live checks, and are shown as reported. They have not been independently audited.
- No lead or revenue figures are shown. Search results are evidence of progress, not of enquiries or income.
- Work began in May 2026, so changes before that date are not ours. The site was already improving slowly before we started.
- Search traffic is also affected by seasonality and Google updates, not only by SEO work.
More case studies.
Luxury London chauffeur company
Google clicks up 13.8x in six months, bookings from 1 to 42 a month, and over £50,000 in website revenue.
New UK home improvement site
A 21-page, 38,000-word guide site built from scratch in three weeks. Early results, reported as they stand.