SEO Case Study · Organic Search & Lead Tracking

Moved the homepage onto page one and nearly tripled lead actions

On-page SEO work for Adoption Network across high-impression pages, measured on matched 30-day windows in Google Search Console and GA4. Real before-and-after data, including the pages that slipped.

+185%
lead actions (key events) site-wide, matched 30-day windows
+50%
organic sessions site-wide over the same window
10.3
homepage avg. search position, up from 15.4
30-day
matched before/after windows, pre vs post edit
The challenge

Search visibility that wasn't turning into leads.

Adoption Network ranked for thousands of adoption searches, but several high-traffic pages pulled impressions without the clicks, or the on-page lead actions, to match. The metric that matters here isn't rankings; it's key events: the form and contact actions that turn an expectant mother's visit into a lead.

My job was to find the pages where targeted on-page changes could move clicks and lead actions fastest, ship the edits, and prove the result with matched before-and-after data instead of guesswork.

My role

Solo on the SEO side: I ran the audit, prioritized pages, wrote and shipped the title, meta, H1 and intro changes in WordPress and AIOSEO, and built the tracking in Google Sheets. Template and code-level items were flagged and escalated to the dev team.

How I measured it

  • Baseline: April 1 to 30 (before edits)
  • Current: May 20 to June 18 (after edits settled)
  • Both windows exactly 30 days, so the comparison is clean
  • GSC for organic clicks, CTR, position; GA4 for sessions and key events
The workflow

A repeatable system, not a one-off cleanup

The process runs in batches every few weeks: audit, edit, track, then decide whether to monitor, re-edit, or move on.

01
Audit in GSC. Pull page-level impressions, CTR, and position to find visibility that wasn't converting to clicks.
02
Layer in GA4. Map each landing page to sessions, key events, and key-event rate to see which traffic drove lead actions.
03
Prioritize. Rank by CTR opportunity, position, and lead value, with birth-mother and expectant-mother pages weighted highest.
04
Edit on-page. Rewrite SEO titles, meta descriptions, H1s, intros, and CTA placement in WordPress and AIOSEO.
05
Track in Sheets. Log baseline vs current on matched date windows so every change is measured, not assumed.
06
Re-check and decide. Re-pull after the window closes, flag wins and declines, route each page to monitor, re-edit, or next.
Results

Lead actions nearly tripled. Sessions rose 50%.

Across the site, key events, the lead-related actions the business cares about, climbed from 414 to 1,182 between the two matched 30-day windows, while sessions rose from 16,276 to 24,419. The on-page pages I worked carried much of that lift.

Organic sessions+50%
Site-wide · Apr 1-30 vs May 20-Jun 18 · 30 days each
16,276 Before 24,419 After
Key events (lead actions)+185%
Site-wide · Apr 1-30 vs May 20-Jun 18 · 30 days each
414 Before 1,182 After

Key events by page

Lead actions on the pages I optimized, Apr 1-30 (before) vs May 20-Jun 18 (after). Bars scaled to the largest value (homepage, 704).

Homepage 220 704 Contact Us 44 132 Adoptive Parents 41 99 Before After
How I read these results
Site-wide sessions and key events span all traffic sources, so I treat them as business outcome during the work, not proof that on-page SEO alone caused every gain. The directly attributable SEO wins are in Search Console: the homepage moving to position 10.3, and cost pages earning more clicks at higher CTR. I also flag the pages that declined rather than quietly dropping them.
Spotlight

The homepage moved onto page one

The clearest organic win. After the title, meta, and intro rewrite, the homepage's average Search Console position improved from 15.4 to 10.3, climbing out of page two and onto the bottom of page one, while sessions and lead actions rose sharply.

Homepage · Apr 1-30 vs May 20-Jun 18

Average position: 15.4 → 10.3

Page 1Page 2+
● After 10.3● Before 15.4
5,704 ↑47%
GA4 sessions (from 3,877)
704 ↑220%
Key events (from 220)
9,014
GSC impressions (from 7,181)
Full transparency

Every page I touched, wins and misses

The full set on matched windows, including the two pages that slipped. Showing the misses is part of the job; deciding what to do about a decline is the skill.

PageSessionsKey eventsGSC clicksAvg. pos.Read
Homepage3,877 → 5,704220 → 704174 → 17515.4 → 10.3Win
Contact Us173 → 25844 → 1322 → 314.8 → 11.1Win
Adoptive Parents750 → 1,14341 → 993 → 135.5 → 6.3Win
How Much Adoption Costs513 → 6493 → 9460 → 5636.1 → 8.3Win
Criminal Background Checks324 → 3020 → 6316 → 3207.0 → 7.3Hold
Adoption Process Overview118 → 941 → 0126 → 9412.6 → 13.6Re-edit
Requirements to Adopt a Child408 → 3007 → 5411 → 1788.2 → 12.4Re-edit
Unplanned Pregnancy Options · birth-mother, priority48 → 180 → 027 → 1217.3 → 23.0Re-edit

Sessions and key events from GA4; clicks and position from Search Console. Every page measured on matched 30-day windows (April 1-30 vs May 20-June 18).

What I learned

Skills this built

  • Matching date windows so before/after comparisons are honest
  • Separating organic-search wins (GSC) from overall outcomes (GA4)
  • Surfacing low-CTR, high-impression opportunities in GSC
  • Connecting landing pages to lead actions, not vanity traffic
  • Shipping targeted WordPress and AIOSEO edits
  • Reading mixed results and deciding monitor vs re-edit
Next steps

Where this goes

  1. Re-edit the Unplanned Pregnancy page first; birth-mother leads are the top business priority
  2. Rework Requirements to Adopt, which lost half its clicks and dropped to 12.4
  3. Hold and monitor the pages still settling
  4. Roll the workflow onto the next batch of high-impression, low-CTR pages
  5. Refresh the data after the next 30-day window closes