A national healthcare nonprofit was leaving most of its $10,000 Google Ad Grant unspent every month on a Dynamic Search Ads setup. We transitioned the account to Performance Max in October 2025. Monthly grant spend rose 165.738% to hit the full cap by April, clicks grew 439.206%, and website events increased 107.692%.
SEO + Content Case Study
From Migration to Momentum: How a Regional Home Builder Scaled Leads 37% With Technical SEO, Content Strategy, and Smarter PPC
Five years of integrated strategy turned a risky website migration into sustained growth, delivering record organic traffic, 514% more SERP features, and lead costs cut in half.
Results Highlights
+37%
form submissions
-44%
cost per lead
+514%
SERP features
The Client
Lombardo Homes is a family-owned custom home builder and land developer operating in Southeast Michigan and Missouri (St. Louis and Columbia). Their goal is to craft quality homes that fit their customers’ lifestyles in their specific markets.
When they first came to us in 2020, they’d worked with digital agencies before but weren’t seeing the lead generation they needed. They were about to migrate to a completely new website, and they needed a partner who could handle the transition without tanking their visibility, and ideally, one who could actually grow their business, not just maintain it.
The Challenge
Here’s what we were up against, though we didn’t know it would unfold this way at the time:
Challenge 1: The High-Stakes Migration
Lombardo had built a beautiful new website with interactive elements designed to engage home buyers. But anyone who’s been through a site migration knows the risk. One wrong redirect, one overlooked technical detail, and months of SEO equity vanishes overnight. Most sites see at least a temporary dip in traffic and rankings after migrating, but Lombardo couldn’t afford that—they needed leads to keep flowing.
Challenge 2: The Wasted PR Assets
Fast forward a few years into our partnership, and Lombardo had been running seasonal PR campaigns (Halloween and Christmas decoration surveys) that consistently earned high-authority backlinks from major media outlets, proving to be great for domain authority. But there was only one caveat: the content was built for press pickup, not for search. Once the news cycle moved on, so did the traffic. These campaigns were one-dimensional when they could have been doing double duty.
Challenge 3: The Efficiency Crisis
Meanwhile, their paid media efforts were suddenly slipping: A Broad Match with Brand Control campaign that had worked beautifully for a year started degrading. Performance peaked in April 2024, then declined month after month for over a year. By mid-2025, they were spending more and getting less.
The Strategy: Build, Amplify, Convert
Here’s where the story gets interesting. We didn’t solve all three problems at once with some master plan. Instead, we tackled each challenge as it emerged, with each solution building on the foundation the previous work had created.
Part 1: Building the Foundation
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The Technical Migration
Think of a website migration like open-heart surgery for your business. Everything that drives your visibility and traffic is connected to your site’s technical infrastructure: URLs, redirects, page structure, and tracking codes. Change one thing wrong, and the patient flatlines.
We approached Lombardo’s migration like we were defusing a bomb: slowly, methodically, and with multiple redundancies.-
What We Did
• Three complete technical audits – Two before launch, one immediately after. We weren’t taking chances.
• Comprehensive redirect mapping – Every old URL needed a new home. We mapped hundreds of redirects to ensure link equity flowed correctly.
• Template optimization – The new CMS was beautiful, but beauty doesn’t rank. We optimized templates for crawlability, page speed, and mobile experience.
• Tracking integrity – We rebuilt analytics and conversion tracking from scratch to ensure we wouldn’t be flying blind post-launch.
• New keyword research – We didn’t just port over old content. We researched fresh keyword opportunities and implemented SEO-optimized tags across the new site.
• Content strategy to avoid cannibalization – We recommended new on-site content structured to target different buyer intent stages without competing against itself.-
The Local SEO Play
While we were at it, we identified a major opportunity: Lombardo’s St. Louis division was barely visible on page one for local searches. Potential customers in that region were searching for exactly what Lombardo offered, but competitors owned the results.
We built a targeted local SEO strategy, creating geo-specific content, optimizing for location-based keywords, and structuring pages to capture “near me” and regional searches.
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Why it Mattered
Web migrations fail most often because of overlooked redirects or poor technical execution. Our triple-audit approach caught issues before they became problems. But more importantly, we didn’t just maintain their visibility—we improved it.
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The Results
Most websites experience at least a temporary dip after migration. Lombardo’s traffic went up. Immediately.
Between April 2020 (pre-migration) and August 2020 (four months post-launch):
• +85% organic sessions – Traffic didn’t just recover, it exploded
• +18% page one keywords – More visibility in the most valuable real estate in search
• +122% traffic to geo-targeted pages in just four months
• St. Louis division rankings jumped from page 2 to position #4 on page one
• Record organic traffic month-over-month – Not just a spike, but sustained growth
Looking at just one of their neighborhoods, lead volume nearly quintupled in the three months following migration.
“It literally was overnight,” Cervin said. “We switched the website and in a couple of days we were like, holy smokes.”
Between April, before we migrated their website, to August, Lombardo Homes’ website experienced an 85% increase in organic sessions. This remarkably increase in traffic is particularly noteworthy since most websites experience a slight, albeit temporary, dip in their visibility and traffic after migrating.
What This Created
The migration did more than preserve rankings; it built a technical foundation strong enough to support aggressive growth. The site was fast, crawlable, and structured to convert. That foundation would prove critical for what came next.
“I wanted a fresh start, a new website, a new agency, it was sort of a gamble to see what would happen — I don’t know how to be eloquent about this, but it was like magic. We migrated to this new site, the team handled everything, and literally overnight our leads blew up and they haven’t stopped since. It was amazing and vindicating. It was just beautiful.”
Melissa Cervin, Vice President of Marketing, Lombardo Homes
Part 2: Amplifying Visibility
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The Content Optimization Strategy
Four years later, we looked at Lombardo’s digital PR program and saw unrealized potential.
Their annual Halloween and Christmas decoration surveys were PR home runs, earning hundreds of high-authority backlinks from outlets like Forbes, TechCrunch, and major news sites. These campaigns tapped into something brilliant: homeowners care deeply about their houses, and during the holidays, that care extends to how they decorate them. It’s a natural connection to Lombardo’s brand as custom home builders.
The linkbuilding strategy was working beautifully. But here’s what we noticed: once those high-authority links were earned and the press cycle moved on, the content just sat there. The pages that had attracted all that link equity weren’t structured to convert the authority they’d built into ongoing visibility for Lombardo’s actual business.
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The Problem We Saw
Think of it like building a house with an amazing foundation but forgetting to add doors. The structural integrity was there: domain authority was climbing thanks to those Forbes and TechCrunch links. But the content itself wasn’t optimized to funnel that authority into visibility for what Lombardo actually does: build custom homes.
The pages lacked the structure, internal linking, and formatting needed to help Google understand how this seasonal content connected to Lombardo’s core business. We had powerful backlinks pointing to content that wasn’t working hard enough on-site.-
What We Did
We transformed these linkbuilding assets into SEO-optimized content that could leverage the earned authority and drive sustained brand visibility.
Strategic content restructuring:
• Hierarchical heading structure – Clean H1/H2/H3 organization that both users and search engines could scan easily
• Answer-first formatting – We surfaced key insights and data early, making the content more valuable and shareable
• Data visualization – Tables, charts, and scannable data blocks that made the survey results more engaging and easier to reference
• Schema markup implementation – Structured data that gives Google explicit context about the content type and organization
• Strategic internal linking – This was critical. We connected the seasonal content to Lombardo’s service pages, local market landing pages, and evergreen homebuilding content. This helped distribute the link equity from those high-authority backlinks throughout the site.
• SERP feature optimization – Formatted content to trigger People Also Ask, featured snippets, image packs, and AI Overviews; not for holiday decoration queries, but to increase Lombardo’s overall SERP visibility and brand presence
The goal wasn’t to rank for “best Christmas lights.” It was to take the authority these PR campaigns had built and channel it into greater visibility across Lombardo’s entire site, especially for their money pages around custom home building in Michigan and Missouri.
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Why It Mattered
Here’s the thing about domain authority: it’s only valuable if you know how to use it.
Those high-authority backlinks from major publications were boosting Lombardo’s domain credibility in Google’s eyes. But without proper on-page optimization and internal linking strategy, that authority wasn’t flowing to the pages that actually drive business (the ones about custom home construction, available lots, and local markets).
By restructuring the content and building strategic internal links, we turned seasonal PR wins into year-round authority distributors that strengthened Lombardo’s entire site.
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The Results
Over the six-month campaign window, the numbers told a clear story:
• +514% SERP features – Lombardo went from barely appearing in rich results to owning them
• +90% new users year-over-year visiting campaign-related URLs
• +76% sessions to campaign content
• +75% top 20 keyword rankings – Not just ranking, but ranking where it matters
But here’s what those numbers actually meant for the business: sustained brand visibility during peak home-buying research periods, with prospects discovering Lombardo through content rather than just paid ads.
The Traffic and Keyword Trends
What This Created
The SEO work built brand awareness at scale. More people were discovering Lombardo Homes through organic search, seeing them appear in multiple SERP features, and becoming familiar with the brand. This naturally increased branded search volume (people searching specifically for “Lombardo Homes”) because they’d encountered the brand through content.
That increased brand awareness was about to become very valuable.
“The customer service is amazing. Not just in this realm, compared to anything. I feel like I am the only client, and I know that I’m not. But the fact that I feel like I am and I feel like I have undivided attention that’s pretty stellar by the people there.”
-Melissa Cervin, Vice President of Marketing, Lombardo Homes
Part 3: Converting Momentum Into Revenue
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The PPC Efficiency Overhaul
While the SEO team was building visibility through content, the paid media program was managing the hemorrhaging efficiency.
In April 2023, we implemented a Broad Match with Brand Control strategy for Lombardo’s brand campaign. It worked beautifully—for about a year. Performance climbed steadily, peaking in April 2024.
Then it slowly started falling apart.
Month after month, we saw a steady decline. Form submissions dropped despite increasing spend. Cost per lead climbed. The strategy that had been a winner was now actively hurting performance.
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The Problem
Broad Match with Brand Control (BMBC) allows advertisers to use the broad match keyword setting but limit ad delivery to only show on searches that include the specific brands they’ve chosen. This was a great way to cast a wider net using broad match keywords while implementing guardrails to keep the searches brand relevant.
Over time, however, Broad Match latched onto the same branded search term, and stopped showing our ads for other relevant brand queries. This new limitation strangled branded traffic and caused average click costs and cost per acquisition to soar.-
What We Did
We stripped out the complexity and went back to fundamentals.
• Removed Broad Match with Brand Control – The expanded approach had run its course
• Reverted to Phrase Match keywords – More restrictive, more precise, higher intent
• Implemented manual CPC bidding initially – To regain control and gather clean data
• Transitioned to Max Conversions with target CPA – Once we had stable conversion data, we gave the algorithm better inputs to optimize against
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Why It Mattered
Brand campaigns aren’t just about protecting your branded traffic; they’re about controlling spend efficiency and maximizing conversions of people already interested in you.
By the time we made this change in June 2025, the SEO work from the previous months had increased brand awareness significantly. More people were searching for “Lombardo Homes” because they’d discovered the brand through content. With Phrase Match in place, our keyword targeting could more precisely match to those expanded searches.
The PPC fix meant we could capture that heightened brand interest efficiently instead of overpaying for it.
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The Results
The reversal was immediate and dramatic.
After implementing the Phrase Match strategy in July 2025:
• +37% form submissions – More leads despite less spend
• +33% phone calls – Increased high-intent conversions across channels
• –44% cost per form submission – Nearly half the acquisition cost
• –42% average CPC – Paying less per click while getting better quality traffic
• –23% overall spend – Doing more with less
Let that sink in: We increased leads by more than a third while cutting costs nearly in half.
Form submissions rose by about 36%, phone calls climbed roughly 33%, cost per form submission fell by approximately 44%, and average CPC dropped by about 42%.
What Made It Work
The PPC optimization didn’t happen in a vacuum. The SEO team had spent months building brand visibility and awareness through SERP features and evergreen content. By June 2025, more qualified prospects were searching for Lombardo by name.
The PPC fix meant we could capture that momentum efficiently, turning brand awareness into conversions at a cost that made sense for the business.
“They’ve been superstars through all of this. I couldn’t say enough good things about what they’ve done for us, for our business. I would emphatically recommend them to anyone looking for this.”
-Melissa Cervin, Vice President of Marketing, Lombardo Homes
What Made the Integrated Approach Work
Here’s the truth: We didn’t plan this as a perfectly coordinated five-year integrated campaign from day one. Each phase solved a specific challenge as it emerged.
But the results show something important: when technical SEO, content strategy, and paid media all work toward the same business goal, the effects compound whether you plan it perfectly or not.
The foundation matters:
The 2020 migration created a technical platform fast and stable enough to support aggressive growth. Without that foundation, the content optimization and paid media efficiency gains wouldn’t have been possible.
Content builds brand awareness:
The 2024-2025 SEO work transformed one-dimensional PR wins into evergreen traffic assets. Those SERP features didn’t just drive traffic, they built brand recognition and familiarity at scale.
Paid media converts awareness into revenue:
The June 2025 PPC optimization captured that heightened brand awareness efficiently. We weren’t just fixing an inefficient campaign, we were capitalizing on the momentum the SEO work had created.
The lesson?
Integrated marketing doesn’t require perfect coordination. It requires teams working toward the same business outcome (qualified leads at sustainable costs) and building on each other’s work rather than operating in silos.
Takeaways
1. Treat migrations as opportunities, not just risk management.
Most businesses approach site migrations defensively, trying not to lose what they have. We approached Lombardo’s migration as a chance to rebuild from scratch with SEO baked into the foundation. The result was record traffic growth instead of the typical post-migration dip.
2. Make your PR assets work twice as hard.
Earned media and backlinks are valuable, but if your content isn’t also optimized for search, you’re leaving traffic on the table. Structure your content to capture both press attention and ongoing organic visibility.
3. What works today won’t work forever.
The Broad Match brand strategy worked great for a year, then degraded for months. Paid media requires constant refinement; what drove efficiency last quarter might be wasting budget this quarter.
4. Measure what actually matters.
We didn’t celebrate keyword rankings or traffic spikes. We measured form submissions, cost per lead, and qualified phone calls; the metrics that directly impact Lombardo’s bottom line.
5. Integration creates compound effects.
Even without perfect coordination, our technical SEO work made the content strategy more effective, which made the paid media optimization more valuable. That’s the power of having all three disciplines under one roof, working toward the same goal.
The Bottom Line
Over five years, we helped Lombardo Homes transform their digital marketing from a collection of isolated tactics into a growth engine that compounds results.
We built a technical foundation strong enough to support aggressive growth. We turned seasonal PR wins into year-round traffic drivers. We fixed paid media inefficiencies and captured brand awareness at half the previous cost.
The result? A 37% increase in form submissions at 44% lower cost per lead, sustained organic traffic growth, and a partnership that’s lasted half a decade because we’re obsessed with the same thing Lombardo is: qualified leads that turn into happy homeowners.
“Between the new website and this new relationship and the time, effort and work that the team members put in, it literally has been like magic. I am absolutely blown away at the results that we’ve had, and I’m even more blown away by the customer service.”
Melissa Cervin, Vice President of Marketing, Lombardo Homes
Ready to Build Your Own Momentum?
If you’re tired of agencies that treat SEO, content, and paid media as separate universes, or if you’re about to migrate your website and can’t afford to lose visibility, let’s talk.
We’ve spent years proving that integrated marketing works when all three disciplines focus on one thing: measurable business growth.
Methodology & Data Notes
Data sources: Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, Google Ads campaign data
Attribution: Results are tied to specific channel interventions and measured against pre-implementation baselines for each phase. Cross-channel effects (such as SEO-driven brand awareness impacting PPC efficiency) are noted where timing and data suggest correlation.
All percentage increases and cost reductions are calculated from platform data comparing pre- and post-implementation periods for each specific intervention.
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