The Challenge
This roofing contractor had built a solid local reputation over seven years — good work, fair prices, reliable crews — and had leaned heavily on that reputation to grow. But as their market became more competitive, word of mouth alone wasn’t filling the schedule the way it once had. Newer competitors with slicker websites and more Google reviews were capturing the homeowners searching online before the referral network had a chance to reach them.
They came to us with a specific frustration: they were already running Google Ads, spending approximately $3,200 per month, but leads had been declining for the past two quarters even as spend stayed flat. Their cost per lead had climbed from $38 to $74 over that period. They suspected their website was the problem but weren’t sure what to fix.
They were right. But the website was only part of the story.
The Full Diagnostic
Our audit revealed a situation we see frequently: a business where the advertising is doing its job but the infrastructure it’s sending traffic to is failing. Their Google Ads campaign was actually reasonably well-structured for a self-managed account — decent keywords, reasonable bids, geographic targeting that made sense. But when people clicked those ads, here’s what they encountered:
- A homepage that loaded in 9.2 seconds on mobile — the single biggest conversion killer in any paid campaign. Studies consistently show conversion rates drop by approximately 7% for every additional second of load time. At 9.2 seconds, they were losing the majority of paid clicks before the page even finished loading.
- No dedicated landing pages — all ad traffic went to the homepage, which served multiple audiences (residential, commercial, insurance claims, new construction) with no single clear call to action.
- Phone number not click-to-call on mobile — their primary contact mechanism was a phone number displayed as plain text that required the visitor to manually dial. On mobile, this is a significant conversion barrier.
- Google Business Profile ranking #11 — completely off the local pack. For roofing searches without an ad, they essentially didn’t exist.
- 31 Google reviews at 4.3 stars — below average for their category in a competitive market.
What We Did
Phase 1: Website Rebuild (Months 1–2)
We rebuilt their website on WordPress, engineering it specifically for speed and conversion. The new site loaded in 1.4 seconds on mobile — a 6.8-second improvement. Every page had a prominent, click-to-call phone number above the fold. We created five dedicated landing pages: residential roofing, commercial roofing, roof repair, roof replacement, and insurance claims — each page speaking specifically to that visitor’s intent rather than trying to serve everyone from one generic homepage.
We also rewrote the copy on every page with two goals in mind: ranking for relevant keywords, and converting visitors who arrived from both organic and paid sources. Vague copy like “quality roofing services at competitive prices” was replaced with specific content about their materials, their warranty, their crew, and their process — the things that actually differentiate a roofing company and give a homeowner a reason to choose them over the next result.
Phase 1 (Concurrent): Google Ads Restructure
While the new site was being built, we restructured their Google Ads campaign to mirror the new landing page structure — five campaigns, each pointing to the relevant dedicated landing page. We rebuilt the negative keyword list from scratch, removing significant budget waste we found on irrelevant searches (roofing materials, DIY roofing, roofing jobs/careers). Total campaign budget remained at $3,200/month.
When the new site launched, we connected each campaign to its dedicated landing page. Within the first two weeks, their Google Ads conversion rate improved from 3.2% to 11.7% — more than tripling the number of leads generated from the same ad spend.
Phase 2: Local SEO Build (Months 2–5)
With the website foundation solid and Google Ads performing, we turned full attention to local SEO. Their Google Business Profile was completely rebuilt: primary category corrected to “Roofing Contractor,” 19 services added, 52 photos uploaded (including job site photos, crew photos, and before-and-after roofing replacements), and a review generation system implemented.
Within 90 days, reviews grew from 31 to 89 at a 4.7-star average — a meaningful jump that both improved their Google Maps ranking and dramatically increased the conversion rate of people who found them organically. A potential customer comparing a roofer with 89 reviews at 4.7 stars against one with 31 reviews at 4.3 stars makes a predictable choice.
We built out location-specific content pages for each community in their primary service area, created a comprehensive blog covering roofing topics Idaho homeowners search for (hail damage assessment, winter roof preparation, how to file a roofing insurance claim), and earned links from the local home builders association and two local real estate agent websites.
By month five, they had broken into the Google Maps top three for their primary keyword — their first map pack appearance in the company’s seven-year history.
Results at 8 Months
- Total monthly leads: Grew from 43 per month to 163 per month — a 280% increase.
- Google Ads cost per lead: Dropped from $74 to $22 — same $3,200/month budget, 3.4x more leads.
- Organic leads: Grew from approximately 4/month (near zero) to 68/month — the Google Maps and organic channel now generates more leads than their paid campaign.
- Google Maps ranking: #3 for primary keyword, #1 for “roof repair” and “roofing contractor” variations in their area.
- Google Reviews: 112 reviews at 4.7 stars (from 31 at 4.3).
- Revenue impact: The company hired two additional crew members, purchased a second work truck, and for the first time had a consistent pipeline that allowed them to schedule work 3–4 weeks in advance rather than scrambling to fill the next week’s schedule.
The Key Insight
The most important lesson from this case study is one that applies broadly to home service businesses running paid advertising: your ads are only as good as the infrastructure they send traffic to. This roofing company was spending $3,200/month on advertising and generating 43 leads. We didn’t increase their ad budget by a dollar. We fixed their website, structured their campaigns properly, and built organic visibility alongside the paid campaign. The result was 163 leads from the same spend — plus 68 of those leads were now free.
Paid advertising can’t compensate for a slow website, a homepage with no clear call to action, or a Google Business Profile ranking #11. Fix the infrastructure, and the same dollars generate dramatically more business. Build the organic presence alongside it, and over time the marginal cost of each additional lead falls toward zero.
The owner put it this way: “We were paying for advertising that was working perfectly fine — it was getting people to click. We just didn’t realize we were losing almost everyone the moment they landed on our site. Fixing that was like turning a leaking bucket into a solid one. Suddenly everything we were pouring in was actually staying.”