SEO case study · The GA4 report is a channel comparison
Organic became the biggest source of engaged visits for a family pet care business
A family-owned facility in West Palm Beach competing with national chains moved its traffic off paid and on to search.
1,490
engaged sessions, the most of any channel
62.45%
engagement rate, against 38.69% paid
2,386
sessions, against 1,884 paid
Measured over
The GA4 report is a channel comparison
What to notice
The GA4 channel report with Organic Search highlighted: 2,386 sessions and 1,490 engaged sessions at a 62.45% engagement rate. Read it against the Paid Search row, on 1,884 sessions and 729 engaged. Organic brings more visits and a far higher share of them stay.
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Who All Dogs Rock are
All Dogs Rock is a family-owned pet care facility in West Palm Beach: dog daycare, boarding, grooming, training and cat boarding, cage-free and supervised. It competes for the same local searches as national chains.
Why marketing mattered
A family business paying for every visit is competing with chains that can outspend it. Every booking that arrives from search instead of from an ad lowers the cost of the next one.
- Service
- SEO
- Sector
- Pet care, West Palm Beach
- Period measured
- The GA4 report is a channel comparison
- Figures from
- The GA4 channel report shown here is the screenshot from the deck this client received
What was not working at All Dogs Rock
The problem
Traffic leaning heavily on paid, and a family-owned facility competing for local searches against national chains with far bigger budgets.
- Traffic leaned heavily on paid search, which the chains could always outbid.
- Several pages chased the same local terms, so the ranking signal was split between them.
- The Google Business Profile was not set up to appear in the map results for the right searches.
Where things stood before the work began
The account was buying most of its traffic. The GA4 export shows paid search on 1,884 sessions with 729 engaged, against the organic channel that had not yet been built out.
Up against
- petparadise.com
- poshpethotel.com
- veryimportantpaws.com
- centralbarkusa.com
The businesses holding the searches this account needed, named in the deck the client received.
What we found, and why we started there
The thinking
Local intent, near me searches and city plus service combinations were the searches that produce bookings, and the fastest way to lose them is to have several pages compete for one. So each keyword was given one page. The Business Profile decides whether the business appears in the map results at all, so it was rebuilt before the website work. Tracking came first so the channel could be judged on calls and visits rather than sessions.
What the work set out to do
- Be found locally in West Palm Beach and the towns around it
- Reach page one for the searches that produce bookings
- Turn that visibility into calls and visits rather than sessions
- Reduce how much of the business depends on paid traffic
How we did it, step by step
- 1
One keyword per page, so the pages stopped competing
Local intent, near me searches and city plus service combinations, each mapped to a single page. Where several pages chase the same term, they split the signal between them and none of them wins.
- 2
A page for each service, and each nearby town
Daycare, boarding, training, grooming, cat boarding and the pet hotel, then boarding pages for Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, Riviera Beach and Palm Beach Gardens.
- 3
The Google Business Profile rebuilt
Correct name, address and phone, the right categories, a description written for what people search, and the services listed. This is the part that decides whether you appear in the map results at all.
- 4
Tracking connected before judging anything
Search Console and Analytics wired up, and calls and visits measured, so the channel could be judged on bookings rather than on sessions.
What got in the way
National chains with far bigger budgets
petparadise.com, poshpethotel.com, veryimportantpaws.com and centralbarkusa.com were competing for the same local searches. Outspending them was never an option, so the plan was to out-rank them on the specific town and service searches instead.
What the numbers show
The result
45.5%
of engaged sessions are organic
Organic is now the largest source of engaged sessions in GA4: 1,490 of 3,272, ahead of direct on 844 and paid search on 729. It engages 62.45% of the sessions it brings, against 38.69% for paid.
Organic went from an underused channel to the one producing the most engaged sessions, ahead of both direct and paid. For a family-owned facility competing against national chains, that shift moves the cost of a booking down every month it holds.
| Measure | Paid search | Organic search |
|---|---|---|
| Engaged sessions | 729 | 1,490 |
| Engagement rate | 38.69% | 62.45% |
| Sessions | 1,884 | 2,386 |
From the work to the outcome
- One page per service and town
- Organic 2,386 sessions
- 1,490 engaged, most of any channel
- Less of each booking bought from ads
How to read this, and what it does not prove
A GA4 channel comparison from the client’s own account, over the period the deck reports. The figures compare organic with paid, and organic pulling ahead is partly organic rising and partly paid being reduced, both of which were the aim.
This is a share of traffic, not a growth multiple, and the deck reports no percentage increase. Direct still brings more raw sessions than organic does; organic only leads on engaged sessions, which is the figure highlighted here. Organic pulling ahead of paid is partly organic rising and partly paid being reduced, and both happened over this period.
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What you can take from this
One keyword, one page
Where several pages chase the same term, none of them wins. Each service and each nearby town got exactly one page.
The Business Profile decides whether you appear at all
Correct name, address and phone, the right categories, and the services listed. That is the part that puts a business in the map results.
Connect tracking before you judge anything
Search Console, Analytics, calls and visits were wired up first, so the channel is measured on bookings rather than on sessions.