A General Contractor Niched Down to Basement Waterproofing and Booked $60,000 in Under 90 Days

Metric	Before	After
Revenue from the new brand	$0	About $60,000 in under 90 days
Estimates scheduled	0	21 (record of 5 in one day)
Close rate on estimates	n/a	Close to 80%
Pages indexed by Google	0	100

Period: March 2024 to June 2024, the first 90 days after launch. Numbers are reported as measured. We do not claim the work caused the change.

The situation

All Remodeling and Construction is a home renovation company in New Jersey with fewer than 10 employees. Its projects ran for months, often with revisions and scope changes, and nearly all of its work came by word of mouth. In early 2024 the referrals dried up, and there was no money set aside for marketing.

Rather than spend on ads for remodeling, the owner picked a niche: basement waterproofing. It is a high-demand service in the Northeast, the jobs are shorter, and demand jumps every time it rains. We agreed a partnership instead of a retainer. We would build the marketing, and the client would pay a share of the revenue it produced.

What we built

The brand was built from scratch in a few weeks, in the client’s name.

1. Company name chosen for search. We ran keyword research in Ahrefs and AlsoAsked and checked Google Trends for the terms homeowners use (for example “French drains”) before settling on the business name. The name had to read naturally and match what people type.
2. A niche website on WP Engine. Service pages, a location page for each city the crew works in, and an FAQ-based content plan built from the questions homeowners ask before they call.
3. The business registered with the state, so the Google Business Profile and the citations would match the legal name and address.
4. Google Business Profile set up, verified by video, and the first reviews collected.
5. Call tracking and recording with CallRail, so every call could be listened to and scored.
6. Citations and directory listings with Whitespark, matching the name, address and phone everywhere.

What happened in the first 90 days

The site ranked locally within weeks and Google indexed 100 pages. The phone started ringing with the first heavy rain. The client scheduled 21 estimates, with a record of 5 in one day during a wet stretch, and closed close to 80% of them. Revenue from the new brand went from $0 to about $60,000 in under 90 days.

Because the partnership was paid as a percentage of generated revenue, the client reported a return of more than 12 times what it paid out.

What we learned

Name research matters more than it looks. A new brand gets one chance at a name that matches search demand. Competitor analysis and keyword research took a week and shaped everything after it.

Video verification is the bottleneck for a new profile. Google’s video verification for a brand-new business took several attempts. Plan for it before launch, not during.

Referral-only contractors have the most upside. Most small contractors have no digital presence at all. In our later study of 9,700 contractor Google profiles, 14% of contractors already ranking listed no website. A niche brand with a real site, a verified profile and a few reviews can outrank established companies quickly.

What this means for your business

This was a partnership, not a plan, and we no longer trade marketing for revenue share. The same work (profile, citations, call tracking, location pages, reviews) is what the Growth plan delivers for $3,000 a month, in your name. If you are a remodeler thinking about a niche service line, the remodeling SEO page covers how we approach it. If you run a waterproofing or foundation repair company, see how this works for a waterproofing or foundation repair company. If you are weighing bought leads against building your own source, start with the contractor leads guide.