SEO case studyLocal9 months
Ridgeback Climbing
Bouldering gym pair · Vancouver
Two bouldering gyms that went from hidden gem to the top of every Vancouver map search
Read it like a route: start holds at the top of the page, the grades get harder as you go, and the results are waiting at the top-out.
Start climbingThe problem
Big-box gyms dominated 'climbing gym Vancouver', and Ridgeback's class schedule lived inside a third-party booking widget Google couldn't read.
Ridgeback runs two community bouldering gyms, one off Main Street and one in East Van. Members loved them; Google barely knew they existed. Two national chains with ten times the floor space held the map pack for almost every climbing search in Vancouver.
Worse, the thing a first-timer actually searches for, an intro class on a weeknight, was locked inside a booking widget. To a crawler, Ridgeback had no classes, no times and no prices.
- ABig-box Climbing Co.4.3 ★ · Gym · Open
- BSummit Fitness Chain4.1 ★ · Gym · Open 24 hours
- CDowntown Rec Centre4.0 ★ · Recreation centre
Ridgeback: not in the three-pack; first seen at #9 below the map.
The audit
Before setting a route you read the wall. The audit graded each problem by how hard it would be to send, the same way a setter grades a boulder.
TechnicalGraded V5
The timetable was invisible
All 31 weekly classes rendered inside a third-party booking iframe. Google indexed zero class pages, zero times and zero prices; the only crawlable copy was 'Book now'.
LocalGraded V4
Two gyms, one blurry listing
Main St and East Van shared a primary category of 'Gym', one profile was set to service-area with no address, and NAP details disagreed across 14 of 41 citations.
ContentGraded V3
No page for the first-timer
Searches like 'intro to bouldering class' and 'kids climbing Vancouver' landed on a generic homepage. Route resets and comps were announced on Instagram only.
AuthorityGraded V3
Four local links vs. sixty
Ridgeback had 4 referring domains from Vancouver sites. The two big-box chains averaged 63, mostly from neighbourhood guides, schools and outdoor clubs.
The plan
Four moves, set in order, built on our Local plan. Each one unlocks the next: the profiles earn the clicks, the pages give them somewhere to land, the markup and links make it all stick.
Move 1
Google Business Profile
Split, verify, fill every field
- Primary category set to 'Rock climbing gym' on both profiles, 'Gym' moved to secondary
- Storefront addresses restored; hours, parking, accessibility and day-pass products added
- Weekly Posts for each route reset with fresh-hold photos, 2 per location
Move 2
Event schema
Every class and comp became an Event
- Server-rendered Event JSON-LD for classes, youth camps and the monthly bouldering league
- eventStatus, offers and location filled per gym, validated in Rich Results Test
- Past events retire automatically so the markup never goes stale
Move 3
Local link building
Earned links from the climbing community
- Route-setting open nights pitched to neighbourhood blogs and the city's what's-on guides
- School PE and university club partnerships with a listed partner page
- Sponsorship of a local crag clean-up, covered by two outdoor outlets
Move 4
Class booking pages
The widget moved below crawlable HTML
- One indexable page per class type per gym: what you'll learn, who it's for, price, times
- Booking widget kept, but loaded after the static timetable and FAQ
- Internal links from location pages and GBP 'Book' buttons to the matching class
The beta
The beta, move by move: 9 months, one hold at a time.
Month 1 · V0
Read the route
Crawl, citation and GBP audit across both gyms; booking widget traffic mapped in analytics.
Month 2 · V0
Split the profiles
Categories, addresses and hours fixed; 14 inconsistent citations corrected.
Month 3 · V1
Pages out of the iframe
Eight class booking pages shipped per gym with static timetables and FAQs.
Month 4 · V2
Events marked up
Event schema live for classes and comps; first rich results appear in week 15.
Month 5 · V3
Open nights
Route-setting evenings pitched locally; 12 new links land, school partnerships signed.
Month 6 · V4
Map pack crux
Both gyms break into the top three for 'bouldering Vancouver' in their neighbourhoods.
Month 7 · V5
Youth season
Kids camp and after-school pages launched ahead of the autumn booking wave.
Month 8 · V6
Crag clean-up
Sponsorship coverage adds outdoor-community links; league pages earn event snippets.
Month 9 · V7
Top-out
Map-pack share at 64%; review velocity and Posts handed to the front-desk team.
The crux
- ARidgeback Climbing Main St4.9 ★ · Rock climbing gym · Open
- BRidgeback Climbing East Van4.8 ★ · Rock climbing gym · Intro class tonight
- CBig-box Climbing Co.4.3 ★ · Gym · Open
The send
Visibility only counts if people walk in. New-member sign-ups from search went +152%, and intro class bookings +174%.
Local backlinks
38
Event rich results
26
Chalked
Every result, chalked onto a hold. Pick one to read the beta behind the number.
Hold 1 of 4 · beta
22% → 64%
Map-pack share
Share of tracked 'climbing' and 'bouldering' map searches where a Ridgeback gym appears in the local three-pack, across a 49-point Vancouver grid.
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
| Keyword | Before | After | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| bouldering vancouver | 9 | #1 | Map pack |
| climbing gym vancouver | 14 | #3 | Map pack |
| intro to bouldering class vancouver | — | #1 | Class page |
| bouldering gym near me (Mount Pleasant) | 11 | #2 | Map pack |
| adult beginner climbing lessons | 23 | #3 | Class page |
| kids climbing camp vancouver | — | #2 | Event result |
| climbing gym day pass vancouver | 18 | #4 | GBP product |
| bouldering league vancouver | — | #1 | Event result |
Top-out
V7 · Top-out · both hands on the lip
+152%
new-member sign-ups from search
Get a plan like this
Map pack, class pages, event markup and local links for venues that people book, built on our Local plan.