170% increase in calls and 145% jump in visibility within 3 months

Business Type	Electronics & Device Repair
Locations	Grant Avenue & Pembina Hwy, Winnipeg, MB
Goal	Improve Google Maps visibility and drive more local leads for both branches
Duration	3 months
Core Results	170% increase in calls, 145% growth in visibility, Top 3 ranking for “phone repair Winnipeg”

Mission Repair Centre is a trusted electronics repair business in Winnipeg with two locations — one on Grant Avenue and another on Pembina Highway. When I first connected with them, they were already doing good work but weren’t showing up consistently across Google for both addresses.
They wanted more local visibility, more calls, and more clarity between the two branches so Google — and customers — could clearly understand their service areas.

Key Actions Taken

• Rebuilt dual location pages with unique local context and service intent
• Conducted keyword & competitor mapping using Local Falcon and GMB Everywhere
• Updated primary & secondary GBP categories for better semantic alignment
• Implemented UTM tracking and review flow with geo-keyword mentions
• Added Local Business schema and locally relevant backlinks
• Improved internal linking and crawl flow between service + location pages

Initial Audit Findings

My first step is always to understand what’s holding visibility back. I started with a full local SEO audit and found several issues that were silently limiting growth:

• Both Google Business Profiles (GBPs) were competing with each other for similar search terms.
• The primary GBP categories weren’t aligned with the search intent of the top-ranking competitors.
• NAP data (name, address, phone) was inconsistent across citations and the website.
• The website didn’t have unique location pages — both branches shared the same content.
• Missing LocalBusiness schema markup and no internal linking between location and service pages.
• Reviews were uneven — one branch had more reviews, making the other look less trustworthy to Google.
• No UTM tracking on GBP URLs — meaning clicks from Google Maps weren’t being measured.

At this point, I had a clear direction:
we didn’t need more content, we needed clearer structure.

Competitor & Keyword Research

Next came the part I enjoy most — understanding the local search landscape.

Using a combination of Local Falcon, GMB Everywhere, and manual grid searches, I mapped who was ranking in each area.
I also ran local intent queries like:

• “phone repair Winnipeg”
• “laptop repair near Pembina Hwy”
• “MacBook repair Winnipeg”
• “electronics repair near me”

What stood out:
Competitors like uBreakiFix and Cell Mechanics were winning visibility by aligning their GBP categories directly with high-intent search terms — “Mobile Phone Repair Shop,” “Computer Repair Service,” etc.

I categorized the keywords into three layers:

Type	Example Queries	Intent	Notes
Core City	phone repair Winnipeg	Transactional	Main location-based service searches
Localized	phone repair Pembina Hwy	Local	Hyperlocal map visibility
Service-Based	iPhone screen repair Winnipeg	Product/Service	Lower competition, high conversion

This helped define exactly how to structure the website and the GBP profiles around real search behavior.

Building the Local SEO Architecture

Once I had the keyword and intent map, I rebuilt the website’s local architecture around clarity and entity understanding.

1. Dual Location Pages
Created unique pages for each branch:

• /locations/grant-avenue/
• /locations/pembina-hwy/

Each page included:

• Distinct content referencing nearby landmarks (“opposite Superstore on Pembina Hwy”).
• Embedded Google Map for the specific branch.
• Service list optimized for “service + location” queries.
• Internal links to relevant service pages (e.g., “MacBook Repair Winnipeg”).

2. Service + Location Optimization
Each core service page was restructured with intent in mind.

Before:

“Our Services”

After:

“Phone, Laptop & Tablet Repair in Winnipeg”

Meta descriptions, headings, and FAQs were all aligned to semantic keywords like “electronics repair in Pembina” or “Winnipeg laptop repair centre.”

3. Internal Linking Flow
I built a logical link path:

• Service pages linked to the nearest location page.
• Location pages linked back to the homepage and other services.
  This helped Google understand hierarchy and relationships between entities.

Google Business Profile Optimization

This was the most impactful change.

• Changed the primary category from “Electronics Repair Shop” to “Mobile Phone Repair Shop” after analyzing competitor dominance.
• Added secondary categories: “Computer Repair Service,” “Tablet Repair Service.”
• Used UTM-tracked URLs for each GBP so we could finally measure traffic sources.
• Added geo-tagged photos with EXIF data embedding Winnipeg coordinates.
• Updated business descriptions to include contextual keywords (“serving the Grant Park and Pembina Hwy communities”).
• Implemented a simple review flow — QR codes and follow-up messages encouraging customers to mention the specific location name in their review.

After a few weeks, reviews naturally started including place names like “Pembina” and “Grant,” which helped reinforce entity signals.

Local Authority & Backlinks

To strengthen local relevance, I:

• Added LocalBusiness schema with separate JSON-LD for each branch.
• Created consistent citations on Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, Yelp, and YellowPages.
• Built a few local backlinks from Winnipeg blogs and business directories mentioning “Mission Repair Centre Pembina Hwy.”

Tracking & Results

Once everything was in place, I monitored progress using Local Falcon, GBP Insights, and Google Search Console (filtered by UTM).

Within 3 months:

Metric	Before	After
GBP Calls	40/month	108/month
Website Clicks	92/month	225/month
Direction Requests	53/month	145/month
Visibility Score (5km radius)	24%	68%

The Pembina Hwy location started ranking in the top 3 map results for nearly all key searches within its radius, while the Grant Avenue branch improved steadily without overlap.

Key Lesson

This project proved something I’ve seen across local SEO again and again:

Google rewards clarity, not volume.

By separating locations, aligning categories, and clarifying the structure — we didn’t just rank higher; we made it easier for Google to trust what each location does and where it’s meant to serve.

Today, both branches of Mission Repair Centre dominate their respective areas, each showing as a top result for “phone repair near me” in Winnipeg — and the growth continues month after month.