Cedarbrook Pools
Pool builder & service · Phoenix
How a Phoenix pool builder beat the franchises across 14 valley suburbs
+197%
organic leads · 10 months
Fourteen suburbs, fourteen lanes. Watch a local builder swim past the national franchises, one month per lap, until every lane touches the wall inside the map-pack top three.
Map-pack position · lanes are suburbs
Month 0 of 10: 3 of 14 suburbs in the map-pack top 3.
01The deep end
National franchises dominated the map pack in every suburb outside the builder's home ZIP code.
Cedarbrook builds and services residential pools across the Phoenix valley from one yard in Arcadia. Close to home, the map pack knew them. Ten miles out, it did not: in Gilbert, Mesa, Peoria and Queen Creek the three map slots went to national franchise listings with dozens of locations, hundreds of reviews and big ad budgets.
That mattered because pool buyers search locally and call fast. A homeowner in Chandler typing “pool builder near me” picks from the three pins on the map, and Cedarbrook was never one of them. Leads came from paid search at a cost per lead that made the outer suburbs barely profitable.
- 1BlueCrest Pools of Gilbert4.6 · 412 reviews
- 2AquaNation Pool Co.4.4 · 980 reviews
- 3Sunwave Pools Franchise4.5 · 655 reviews
Cedarbrook Pools: position 16
- 1Cedarbrook Pools4.9 · 137 reviews
- 2BlueCrest Pools of Gilbert4.6 · 431 reviews
- 3AquaNation Pool Co.4.4 · 1,004 reviews
02Diagnosis · the pool inspection
Six leaks draining the lead pipeline.
Before swimming faster, we checked the water. A week-long local audit across the profile, the site, 140 directory listings and the phone line turned up six problems, each one keeping Cedarbrook out of lanes it should have won.
- LocalLeak 01
One profile, one radius
The Google Business Profile listed a single category and a 6-mile service radius around the Arcadia yard, so it was never eligible to show in Mesa, Gilbert or Peoria.
1 of 14suburbs in the service area
- ContentLeak 02
A footer full of city names
Service areas were a comma-separated list in the footer. No suburb had its own page, its own projects, permits notes or HOA guidance.
0suburb landing pages
- ReviewsLeak 03
Reviews arriving by accident
Reviews trickled in when a homeowner felt like it. The franchise listings averaged nine fresh reviews a month each; Cedarbrook averaged under one.
0.8/movs 9/mo franchise average
- CitationsLeak 04
Three addresses, two phone numbers
An old yard address and a retired number still lived on 31 directory listings, splitting the business's identity across the valley.
31inconsistent citations
- TechnicalLeak 05
A slow, heavy gallery
The project gallery shipped 14 MB of uncompressed photos on mobile. Largest contentful paint sat at 6.1 s on a mid-range phone.
6.1 smobile LCP
- MeasurementLeak 06
Calls nobody could attribute
Most pool enquiries start with a phone call, and every call came in on one untracked number. Paid, organic and map leads were indistinguishable.
0%of calls attributed
03The strategy · a four-leg medley
Four strokes, swum in order. Each one hands off to the next.
The engagement ran on our Local plan (local seo). Pages gave each suburb a reason to rank, the profile made Cedarbrook eligible to appear there, reviews made it the obvious choice, and call tracking proved which lanes paid.
- Leg 1 · Butterfly14 pages
Service-area pages
Fourteen suburb pages, each built around real local detail: soil and caliche notes, city permit timelines, HOA approval tips, finished projects in that suburb with photos and a map pin. Linked from a valley map hub, not a footer.
- Leg 2 · Backstroke52 posts
Google Business Profile
Service area rebuilt to cover every target suburb, primary and secondary categories split between construction and service, weekly project posts geotagged by suburb, and a Q&A seeded from the questions the office answers every day.
- Leg 3 · Breaststroke105 reviews
Review velocity
A review request sent by text at two moments that matter: the day the pool is filled, and after the first service visit. Crews earn a small bonus per mention of the suburb in a review. Every review answered within 48 hours.
- Leg 4 · Freestyle94% attributed
Call tracking
Dynamic numbers per channel and a dedicated number on the profile, with calls tagged by suburb and job type. Budget moved away from paid clicks in suburbs where the map pack now did the work.
04Ten laps · month by month
One lap a month. The count of lanes at the wall climbs every turn.
- Lap1
Audit & clean-up
Citation audit, NAP fixed on 31 listings, call tracking installed so every later gain is measurable.
3/14 in top 3 · 22 leads
- Lap2
Profile rebuilt
Service area widened, categories split, review requests switched on at fill day.
3/14 in top 3 · 24 leads
- Lap3
First four suburb pages
Fountain Hills, Scottsdale, Tempe and Biltmore go live with local projects and permit notes.
3/14 in top 3 · 27 leads
- Lap4
Gallery made light
Images recompressed and lazy-loaded; mobile LCP drops from 6.1 s to 2.0 s.
5/14 in top 3 · 31 leads
- Lap5
East valley wave
Chandler, Gilbert and Mesa pages launch; weekly geotagged project posts begin.
6/14 in top 3 · 36 leads
- Lap6
West valley wave
Glendale, Goodyear and Peoria pages; local sponsorships earn links from two youth swim clubs.
8/14 in top 3 · 42 leads
- Lap7
Budget rebalanced
Paid search paused on terms where the map pack now ranks top 3; spend moved to the outer suburbs.
9/14 in top 3 · 48 leads
- Lap8
Frontier suburbs
Surprise and Queen Creek pages, plus a new-build guide for master-planned communities.
11/14 in top 3 · 54 leads
- Lap9
Service lane
Weekly-service and remodel pages added for every suburb page, catching year-round demand.
12/14 in top 3 · 60 leads
- Lap10
All fourteen in
Every target suburb holds a top-3 map-pack position for its core pool builder query.
14/14 in top 3 · 65 leads
05Results · the scoreboard
Fourteen lanes touched the wall.
Suburbs in map-pack top-3
3 → 14
Organic leads / month
22 → 65
Blended cost per lead
−58%
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
Paid and organic combined, by month. 105 new reviews and tracked calls let budget leave the lanes the map pack already won.
Arcadia
#1 to #1
Biltmore
#2 to #1
Paradise Valley
#3 to #2
Fountain Hills
#8 to #1
Scottsdale
#9 to #1
Tempe
#12 to #2
Chandler
#14 to #2
Gilbert
#16 to #1
Mesa
#17 to #3
Glendale
#11 to #2
Goodyear
#18 to #2
Peoria
#19 to #3
Surprise
20+ to #3
Queen Creek
20+ to #3
Core queries, by lane
| Query | Searches / mo | Map pack | Organic |
|---|---|---|---|
| pool builder scottsdale | 1,300 | #9 → #1 | #18 → #3 |
| pool companies gilbert az | 880 | #16 → #1 | #41 → #2 |
| inground pool cost mesa | 720 | #17 → #3 | — → #4 |
| pool contractor chandler | 590 | #14 → #2 | #33 → #2 |
| pool remodel tempe | 480 | #12 → #2 | #22 → #1 |
| custom pools peoria az | 390 | #19 → #3 | — → #3 |
| pool builders queen creek | 320 | 20+ → #3 | — → #2 |
| pool service fountain hills | 260 | #8 → #1 | #12 → #1 |
— = not ranking in the top 100. Volumes and positions are modelled.
Your lanes are waiting
Get a plan like this
Local is our local seo plan for businesses that serve more towns than the map pack gives them credit for.
← Back to all case studies