Case study · our own business
What happened when we ranked our own business
Fuel Up Energy Cafe, Bolingbrook, IL. August 20 – September 14, 2026 — 26 days. Every number below is read straight from the rank-map history, with dates and grid sizes shown. We've included what didn't move, because that's the part that tells you how the system works.
The setup
- Business
- Fuel Up Energy Cafe, Bolingbrook, IL
- Window
- August 20 – September 14, 2026 (26 days)
- Measurement
- Rank maps run through the same tool we use for clients; grid sizes noted per table
- Starting point
- An existing site with no in-body internal links at all, and profile categories the site had no pages for.
An existing website with some history — not a brand-new domain. No paid links had been placed when the September 7 scans ran; the first link orders went out September 4–7 and were not yet live.
What moved
Six search terms: where they started, where they stand
Average rank across the grid (lower is better) and the share of grid points where the business was in the top three. These are the non-town-modified terms — the harder ones. Read the note under the table before the numbers.
| Search term | Starting read · September 1, 202613 × 13 grid — 169 points, about 450 km² | Current · September 14, 20269 × 9 grid — 81 points, about 219 km² |
|---|---|---|
| smoothies | avg rank 15.76 · top-3 at 8.88% of points | avg rank 4.37 · top-3 at 45.68% of points |
| smoothie shop | avg rank 18.02 · top-3 at 0.59% of points | avg rank 4.44 · top-3 at 43.21% of points |
| acai bowl | avg rank 19.96 · top-3 at 0.00% of points | avg rank 4.79 · top-3 at 34.57% of points |
| health food restaurant | avg rank 13.49 · top-3 at 0.59% of points | avg rank 6.01 · top-3 at 29.63% of points |
| açaí shop | avg rank 18.06 · top-3 at 0.59% of points | avg rank 5.17 · top-3 at 23.46% of points |
| juice shop | avg rank 19.99 · top-3 at 0.00% of points | avg rank 5.80 · top-3 at 18.52% of points |
A note on the two grids
The two columns come from different grid sizes. The September 1 scans used a 169-point grid over roughly twice the area, which naturally includes more far-away points and reads lower. The September 14 scans use the 81-point grid we now run for everyone. We don't compute a percentage change between them, because it would overstate the movement. Read them as two honest snapshots, not a before/after formula.
On the identical 81-point grid, the September 7 and September 14 scans agree closely (for example, “smoothies” at 45.68% top-3 on both dates, average rank 4.74 → 4.37), which is what a real position looks like rather than a one-day spike.
Town-modified terms on August 31, 2026 (81-point grid, about 345 km²)
Eleven days into the engagement, the town-modified searches for the categories live on the profile were in Google's top 3 at 84–100% of grid points. The one category not live on the profile — coffee shop — stayed at 0%.
- “acai shop bolingbrook”100% top-3
- “juice shop bolingbrook”100% top-3
- “smoothie shop bolingbrook”98.77% top-3
- “smoothies bolingbrook”98.77% top-3
- “health food restaurant bolingbrook”83.95% top-3
- “coffee shop bolingbrook”0% top-3
What didn’t move
The part that makes it evidence, not a testimonial
Two categories — Coffee Shop and Donut Shop — got the identical website treatment in the same window: hub pages built, full internal linking, one of them even indexed in Search Console. Both sat at 0% top-3 on every scan we ran, from the first read through September 14. The one thing they were missing was a live category on the Google Business Profile. Same site, same weeks, same tactics. That's why the profile comes first in everything we do.
This is why the profile is step one in everything we do — not because a course said so, but because we watched identical work produce nothing without it. Google’s own help center says categories are what connect a profile to the searches customers make; this was that rule, measured.
What was done
The work, dated
The same sequence we run for clients: profile, structure, content, links, tracking — the whole of what we do for plumbers in Chicago.
Site gap analysis, technical audit, and a profile structure audit (Aug 20–21)
Five category hub pages — the first in-body internal links the site had ever had (Aug 26 – Sep 2)
Sitewide breadcrumb and homepage silo restructure (Aug 27)
Eight supporting articles (Sep 3–7)
One Google Business Profile category taken live with 11 priced services (Sep 4)
Homepage title changed to the primary profile category phrase; sitewide schema fix (Sep 3–5)
Read this part too
What this does and doesn’t prove
This is one business, in one market, over one short window. It is not a promise of what will happen for yours.
The starting and current scans used different grid sizes (see the note above the table). We show both and don't calculate a change between them.
Four things landed in the same four days before the non-town-modified terms broke out (a title change, completed linking, five articles, and a live profile category). The data can't cleanly credit one over another — we say that rather than gloss over it.
External links were ruled out as a cause for the September 7 reads: none were live yet.
No client testimonials appear on this site because we don’t have any yet that we’d be comfortable publishing. When we do, they’ll be real, named with permission, and dated.
Want to see your own before?
The free Scorecard is the same kind of scan that produced the numbers above — from your address, across your area.