Case study

A local soft serve, popcorn and fudge shop in Nebraska

4,128visits from search in our six months. More than double.

Up from 1,810 on the same dates a year before. And they kept climbing into winter.

Aug 2024 to Feb 2025

  • The business Soft serve, popcorn and fudge, with a small online store

  • The work A new online store, a blog and social posts

Blog
943

Visits from search that landed on a blog post. The year before: 0

Pages
218

Pages that got a visit from search, up from 38

Engaged
2,513

Engaged visits from search, up from 1,289

Posts
192

Blog posts we wrote for the new online store

Visits from search, with us and a year before

Line chart of visits from search, with us and a year before, Aug 8 2024 to Feb 7 2025, each point one month-long stretch of those days. The gray line is the same days a year before, Aug 8 2023 to Feb 7 2024. The last point, Jan 8 to Feb 7 2025, is 907, against 276 a year before.

Each point is one month of our dates, counted from the day we started. The gray line is the same days a year before.

Where they started

A summer business, and a website with no blog

The shop makes self-serve soft serve, gourmet popcorn and homemade fudge in Nebraska. Most of the business happens at the counter, with a small online store on the side.

The old website had no blog. On the same dates a year before we started, search sent 1,810 visits, and they fell off as winter came.

Visits from search, the same dates a year before
1,810
Of them, visits that landed on a blog post
0
Pages that got a visit from search
38

What we did

The work, in plain words

Against the season

Search visits climbed into winter

Rise from late summer to winter, with us
86%

480 visits from search in the first month of our dates, 891 in the last.

Drop over the same days, the year before
21%

350 visits, then 276.

Each pair covers the same days: the first and the last stretch of our dates, and the same days a year before. The year before, search visits fell from late summer to winter.

The blog

The posts kept earning visits after we left: 11,541 in the next year

Visits from search that landed on a blog post, our dates
943

The year before: 0.

Blog posts that got a visit from search
110

Out of 192 we wrote.

Visits from search to those same posts after we handed the site back
11,541

Feb 9 2025 to Jan 31 2026, after our six months ended.

Pages that got a visit from search
218

Up from 38 the year before.

The first visits from AI assistants like ChatGPT showed up in Sep 2024: 39 by the end of our six months. None of them bought anything online.

Many of the new visits came from outside Nebraska, from blog readers across the country. So we count visits from search, not people walking into the shop. The 11,541 visits came in the year after we handed the site back, to the same posts we wrote.

Visits from search

More than double, on the same dates

Visits from search, the same dates a year before1,810
Visits from search, our six months4,128

Engaged visits, the ones that stayed and looked around, went from 1,289 to 2,513.

The short version

What it added up to

  1. More visits from search. 4,128 in our six months, up from 1,810 on the same dates a year before.

  2. Up into winter. Up 86% from late summer to winter. The year before, down 21%.

  3. A blog that keeps paying. 192 posts in 11 weeks, 943 visits while we worked, and 11,541 more after we handed the site back.

Where every number came from

Every number, and its record

Each figure on this page comes from a saved record we can open on a call.

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