A month ago I published the PC Virus Tech rebuild case study and said the launch was not the result. The old site's Search Console export was the baseline, I would re-pull the same report once the new site settled, and I put two predictions in writing. Click-through rate and mobile phone calls would move first. Average position would take longer.
The numbers are in. PC Virus Tech is appearing more often and much higher in Google searches. Its average position improved from 47.9 to 15.3, and its restored Google Business Profile recorded 24 call clicks and 40 direction requests. The more interesting part is where that activity came from, and what the numbers still do not tell us.
The scorecard
Writing predictions down before the data shows up is useful mainly because it keeps you from rewriting them afterward. Here is how the three held up.
| Prediction | What happened | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Click-through rate moves first | 1.34% before, 1.26% after. Essentially flat. | Wrong |
| Mobile phone calls move first | 24 call clicks on the Google Business Profile, from a measured zero. Separately, 9 website visitors used the tap-to-call button. | Right on recorded call activity. How many became conversations and customers still needs confirming. |
| Average position takes longer | From 47.9 to 15.3 in the first month. | Wrong, and I will take it |
Search: Google found the new site fast
The comparison covers the old site from July 13 to September 13 against the new one from September 14 to October 12, adjusted to a 30-day rate so the windows are fair. Days distorted by automated rank checks are excluded from both periods, explained further down.
| Metric | Old site | New site, first month | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average position | 47.9 | 15.3 | Roughly page five to roughly page two |
| Impressions per 30 days | 1,335 | 2,380 | +78% |
| Click-through rate | 1.34% | 1.26% | Flat |
| Clicks per 30 days | 17.9 | 30.0 | Up, with a catch |
One caution about that first row. Average position is calculated across every search the site appeared in. A better average does not mean every keyword improved equally, and some of the jump comes from the site now showing up for searches it was not appearing in before.
The catch on clicks is worth showing too, because "clicks up 68%" is a true sentence that would leave you with the wrong idea.
The first two weeks after launch drew a burst of clicks, helped along by the launch posts sending people to search the business by name. The next two weeks settled right back to the old site's pace. Google is now showing the site more often and much higher up, and searchers have not yet started clicking it more often to match. Better rankings with flat clicks is a normal first month. It is also not a result yet, and I am not going to round it up into one.
Mobile remains the main way people reach the site. Across the full three-month report, which spans both the old and new sites, 43 of 67 Google clicks came from phones. That supports the phone-first design decision, though it does not by itself show the new site doing better on mobile.
The map did a lot of the work
The original case study was about the website, but the same project also restored PC Virus Tech's Google Business Profile, the listing that shows up in Google Maps and in the map results at the top of local searches. From May through August, it recorded zero activity. Then it came back.
The profile has recorded 83 interactions and 519 views since it was restored, and 75% of those views came from Google Search on a phone. Google recorded 40 direction requests to the shop on Colonial Road. For a walk-in repair business, that is about as close to "a customer is on the way" as any dashboard is going to get.
October is also outrunning September. Halfway through the month, call clicks and direction requests have already passed September's full-month totals.
Website clicks from the profile dropped in October, which looks bad until you think about it. A person with a frozen laptop who sees a phone number and a Directions button does not need to read the About page first. They call, or they drive. The profile is giving people the shortest path to the shop.
One honest limit here. The website rebuild and the profile restoration happened together. Both made the shop easier to find and contact, and I cannot cleanly assign every call or direction request to one or the other. The 24 profile call clicks and the 9 website tap-to-call visitors are counted separately, and some people may have used both.
What I left out, and why
Two things would have made these numbers look bigger. Both are out.
Every Friday since launch, the Search Console report has shown a spike of desktop impressions, ranging from about 400 to 2,300 in a single day, at positions one and two, for search terms that match the Google Business Profile's category names word for word. Those spikes produced almost no clicks. The pattern strongly suggests an automated rank check rather than people looking for computer repair. My rule was simple: any day with more than 250 impressions came out, before and after launch alike. That removed six days in total. Those days also carried 6 genuine clicks, so the click figures above are conservative. Left in, the new site would have shown 8,700 impressions a month at an average position of 5, which makes for a nicer chart and a less honest one.
The website visitor count gets the same treatment. GA4 counted 215 users in the first month, unfiltered, and at least 75 of them came from data-center cities like Council Bluffs, Iowa, Ashburn, Virginia, and Singapore. Location alone does not prove a visitor is a bot, but Council Bluffs is a fine town and it is not in Hawkins County. Visitors from the actual service area, Rogersville, Kingsport, Morristown, Church Hill, Surgoinsville, Mooresburg, Bristol and Johnson City, add up to about 38.
Call and direction numbers need their own caveat. Google counts a call as a tap on the call button, not a completed conversation, and some people tap twice. Those are records of intent, not a customer count.
What the first month says
The rebuild improved the site's visibility faster than I expected. What it has not done yet is turn that visibility into a steady increase in website clicks.
That is the next job, and more than one thing feeds it. Click-through rate depends on which searches the site appears for, where it ranks on each one, and how the titles and descriptions read in the results. Those are things a developer can keep working on. Reviews matter most for the map listing, where the calls are coming from. The shop now has review request cards with QR codes and a review page on the site. The reviews themselves have to come from real customers, which is the only way they count.
The goal was always for twenty years of doing right by Hawkins County to be easy to find, trust and call. It is easier to find. People are using the call and directions buttons. The trust part belongs to the customers.
What I'm watching next
The next look needs to answer three questions. Are people finding PC Virus Tech for its services rather than just its name? Are call clicks and direction requests holding up now that the launch attention has passed? And most important, is the shop seeing more customers because of it?
Rankings are useful. Calls are better. Customers are the result.
Is your business showing up in Google but nobody's calling?
Your website might not be the whole problem. That is what this project showed. The website needed work, but the Google Business Profile turned out to matter just as much.
If you are not sure where customers are finding you, I can help you look. We start with your website's search data and your Google Business Profile, figure out what is working and what is being missed, and decide what actually needs fixing. No pitch to rebuild everything. Sometimes the website is not the problem.
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