Six-figure commercial work, sold from a residential website.
A commercial re-roofing contractor bidding TPO and modified bitumen work, whose website spoke entirely to homeowners.
Ten months after launch.
Three figures from the engagement, each traced to the client's own reporting rather than ours.
Qualified commercial enquiries
Inbound commercial enquiries per quarter, counted as enquiries that reached a site visit. The residential enquiry volume was unaffected.
Average enquiry value
Average contract value of commercial enquiries generated through the new specification content, against a residential average near $19K.
Specification citations
Material and specification queries where the site is now the cited source, including TPO against EPDM and re-cover against tear-off.
FIGURES APPROVED IN WRITING BY THE CLIENT. COMPANY NAME WITHHELD UNDER A CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT.
The situation
The company did both residential and commercial work, but the site was entirely residential. Facility managers and property owners researching a re-roof found nothing addressed to them, so the commercial pipeline came only from relationships and the occasional bid list.
What the audit found
The commercial buyer researches differently. They search materials, systems, warranties, and lifecycle cost long before they search for a contractor. Thirty such queries had meaningful volume in the region and the answers being published came from manufacturers, not contractors, which meant no local company was in the conversation.
What we did about it
A commercial section with its own architecture. System pages for TPO, EPDM, modified bitumen, and metal, each with lifecycle cost and warranty terms. Comparison pages for the decisions a facility manager actually makes. A specification library, and project pages by building type rather than by suburb.
Where it landed
Commercial enquiries roughly quadrupled per quarter, and the ones arriving through the specification pages came in further along. They already knew what system they wanted and were asking about scheduling and warranty rather than starting from scratch.
A residential site, then two audiences served properly.
The residential side was left intact. The commercial side was built beside it.
One audience, one voice
Two architectures, one domain
FIGURES SUPPLIED BY THE CLIENT AND APPROVED IN WRITING. COMPANY NAME WITHHELD UNDER A CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT.
A second architecture, built alongside the first.
Paid Discovery
A 30-query commercial set, analysis of who answers those questions now, and a separate architecture for that buyer.
Commercial section, 26 pages
System pages, comparison pages, a specification library, and project pages organised by building type.
Launch without disturbing residential
Published as a parallel section with its own internal-link model, so residential rankings were left untouched.
Read another one.
Three more engagements, each with the figures approved in writing by the client.
Invisible in his own city
Twenty-two years in business, cited in no AI answer about roofing in a metro of 420,000. Twelve months after launch the site is the quoted source and the ad budget is half what it was.
Ninety-six pages, then thirty-four
Four metros under one brand, competing against themselves with near-identical service-area pages. Fewer pages, written per market, ended the cannibalisation.
The season won before it started
Out-of-state chasers arrive within days of every event. Twenty-four claims pages published four months ahead meant the first enquiry landed in fourteen hours, not eight days.
Questions about this engagement.
Why not build a separate domain?+
Because the authority already existed on this one. Two domains would have meant starting the commercial side from zero and maintaining two builds.
Did the residential side suffer?+
No. Residential enquiry volume held through the period, and the internal-link model keeps the two sections distinct.
How long before commercial enquiries moved?+
About five months. Commercial research cycles are longer, so the lag is longer than residential.