SEO Case Study: Generated 90 SQLs in 5 Months for a B2B IT Consulting Firm in Dallas
In April 2025, a Dallas, Texas based B2B IT consulting firm partnered with Goforaeo to turn organic search into a reliable pipeline source. They had strong delivery and good referrals, but Google was not sending enough qualified decision makers to request consultations.
This SEO Case Study explains the exact work we executed from April 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025, plus the month by month SQL numbers that added up to 90 sales qualified leads.
Project snapshot: Dates, timeframe, and location:
This engagement ran for 5 months from April 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025. The consulting team operated from Dallas, Texas, serving mid market and enterprise clients across Texas and nearby states.
The work focused on improving how the firm shows up for high intent searches like IT consulting, cloud migration support, cybersecurity services, and managed IT for regulated industries.
Key outcomes we tracked:
- Total SQLs generated in 5 months: 90
- Baseline month SQLs: 6 in March 2025
- Final month SQLs: 24 in August 2025
- Organic sessions: 9,200 in March 2025 to 19,600 in August 2025
- Organic conversion rate to inquiry: 0.38% to 0.82%
- Top 3 rankings for service intent keywords: 4 to 17
- Calls from organic landing pages: 14 to 41 per month
About the client: Services and buyer type:
This Dallas firm provides IT consulting and delivery support for companies that need stable systems, secure access, and measurable outcomes. Their team is strongest when projects involve complexity and business risk.
Core service lines included:
- Cloud migration and modernization
- Cybersecurity assessments and ongoing support
- Managed IT services for growing teams
- Network and infrastructure consulting
- Microsoft 365, identity, and endpoint management
- Compliance aligned IT support for regulated industries
Their buyers are usually:
- CIOs and IT directors
- Operations leaders who own uptime and risk
- Security leaders who need clear remediation plans
- Finance and procurement teams who need predictable costs
How we defined an SQL: So the numbers stay genuine:
We did not count every contact form as a sales qualified lead. We used a shared rule so the final number stayed clean and believable.
A lead became an SQL only when it met these conditions:
- Confirmed company email or company phone number
- Clear need in one of the core services
- Business fit: company size, budget range, or project scope aligned
- Sales team accepted it in the CRM as sales ready
Leads that were job seekers, vendors, students, or unclear requests were tracked separately and excluded from SQL reporting.
Where things stood before April 2025:
Before the partnership, the firm already had a website and some service pages. The problem was that the content did not match how real buyers search, and the site lacked supporting proof and internal structure.
Many pages were written like brochures. They were not built to rank or convert.
Baseline month: March 1, 2025 to March 31, 2025:
These were the numbers we used as the starting reference.
Baseline performance in March 2025:
- Organic sessions: 9,200
- Total inquiries from organic: 35
- SQLs accepted by sales: 6
- Inquiry to SQL rate: 17%
- Organic inquiry conversion rate: 0.38%
- Main issue: traffic was mixed intent, with many visitors not ready to talk
What we focused on: Without repeating the title:
We built a system that attracts people searching with urgency, educates them quickly, and makes it easy to book a call with confidence. The work blended technical SEO, content strategy, and conversion improvements.
We treated the site like a pipeline asset:
- Each service page needed a clear search intent target
- Each buyer question needed a supporting page that links back to services
- Each CTA needed proof close to it so users felt safe reaching out
Strategy overview: The plan we followed:
The strategy had three tracks running in parallel. Each track supported the next, so results improved every month instead of jumping randomly.
Track 1: Technical clarity and site structure:
We cleaned crawl issues, tightened internal linking, and made the important pages easier for Google to understand. We also improved speed and mobile usability on pages that mattered for conversions.
Track 2: Service pages designed for search intent:
We rebuilt key service pages around what decision makers search for. We avoided buzzwords and explained outcomes, process, timelines, and deliverables.
Track 3: Trust and lead capture improvements:
IT consulting leads often hesitate. We added proof, simplified forms, and made next steps clear. This lifted inquiry quality and improved SQL acceptance.
Month by month execution and SQL results:
The timeline below covers April 2025 through August 2025. Each month includes what we shipped and the exact results we tracked.
April 2025: Foundation fixes and pipeline tracking:
April was about removing friction and setting up measurement. We wanted clean data before pushing content hard.
Work completed in April 2025:
- Full crawl and technical audit to find indexation and duplicate issues
- Fixed messy titles and meta descriptions on core service pages
- Improved internal linking between services, industries, and case pages
- Set up CRM tracking alignment so sales acceptance could be reported monthly
- Added event tracking for call clicks, form starts, and form submits
April 2025 results:
- Organic sessions: 10,800
- Organic inquiries: 46
- SQLs: 12
- Notes: SQL count improved because lead quality rose and tracking got cleaner
May 2025: Rebuilding service pages for high intent searches:
May focused on making the main service pages rank and convert. We wrote pages the way buyers think, not the way agencies write.
Work completed in May 2025:
- Rebuilt 5 core service pages with clear sections:
- cloud migration consulting
- cybersecurity consulting
- managed IT services
- network and infrastructure support
- Microsoft 365 and identity management
- cloud migration consulting
- Added simple proof blocks on each page:
- industries served
- delivery approach in plain steps
- typical timelines and engagement models
- industries served
- Added internal links from blog posts and about pages to service pages
- Improved CTAs:
- “Book a discovery call”
- “Request assessment”
- “Get a project estimate”
- “Book a discovery call”
May 2025 results:
- Organic sessions: 13,400
- Organic inquiries: 62
- SQLs: 15
- Notes: more users landed directly on service pages instead of only blog content
June 2025: Industry pages and problem based content:
June was about relevance. IT buyers often search by industry and by problem. We created pages that matched both patterns and linked them into the service pages.
Work completed in June 2025:
- Published 4 industry pages:
- healthcare IT support and security
- finance and insurance IT compliance support
- logistics and operations uptime support
- SaaS internal IT and security support
- healthcare IT support and security
- Published 6 problem solution pages that answered high intent searches:
- ransomware readiness and response planning
- Microsoft 365 security hardening
- cloud cost optimization
- network downtime troubleshooting and prevention
- IT audit support for compliance needs
- endpoint management and device security
- ransomware readiness and response planning
- Added short FAQs that address sales objections:
- pricing range guidance
- how fast onboarding happens
- what happens in the first 30 days
- pricing range guidance
- Strengthened internal link paths from industry pages to service pages
June 2025 results:
- Organic sessions: 15,900
- Organic inquiries: 76
- SQLs: 18
- Notes: the sales team reported higher clarity in inbound requests
July 2025: Conversion lift and scaling what already worked:
By July we had enough data to see which pages pulled the right clicks but still lost people before they converted. We focused on improving those pages instead of just publishing more.
Work completed in July 2025:
- Reviewed Search Console queries to refine titles and on page sections
- Improved above the fold messaging on top 10 landing pages
- Reduced form friction:
- removed non essential fields
- improved error handling
- added “response time” promise near submit button
- removed non essential fields
- Added a “What you get” section on service pages:
- deliverables list
- sample weekly cadence
- what a discovery call covers
- deliverables list
- Added internal links from high traffic pages to consultation CTAs
July 2025 results:
- Organic sessions: 17,800
- Organic inquiries: 92
- SQLs: 21
- Notes: inquiry quality improved, and sales accepted a higher share
August 2025: Ranking stability and consistent SQL flow:
August was about stability. We pushed pages sitting in positions 4 to 10 into the top results, and we reinforced trust so leads did not drop off after clicking.
Work completed in August 2025:
- Expanded 8 pages that were close to top rankings with missing subtopics
- Added stronger internal linking between related services:
- cloud to security
- managed IT to endpoint management
- Microsoft 365 to identity security
- cloud to security
- Published 2 short case story pages with measurable outcomes
- Built targeted backlinks through:
- relevant directories
- local Dallas business citations where appropriate
- partner ecosystem mentions
- relevant directories
- Improved page speed on the main service templates
August 2025 results:
- Organic sessions: 19,600
- Organic inquiries: 108
- SQLs: 24
- Notes: this month confirmed the system was repeatable, not a one time spike
Monthly SQL data: The full 5 month total:
Here are the SQLs month by month for the engagement period.
SQLs by month:
- April 2025: 12
- May 2025: 15
- June 2025: 18
- July 2025: 21
- August 2025: 24
Total SQLs from April through August 2025:
- 12 + 15 + 18 + 21 + 24 = 90 SQLs
Before vs after proof: What changed from baseline to final month:
We used March 2025 as the baseline month and August 2025 as the final month.
SQLs per month:
- March 2025: 6
- August 2025: 24
- Change: 4X improvement in monthly SQL volume
Organic sessions per month:
- March 2025: 9,200
- August 2025: 19,600
- Change: more than 2X organic traffic growth
Organic inquiry conversion rate:
- March 2025: 0.38%
- August 2025: 0.82%
- Change: better intent matching plus better page clarity
Quality signals that mattered to sales:
- More requests included budget ranges and timelines
- More leads referenced a specific service page they read
- Fewer vague messages like “tell me about your company”
- Higher acceptance rate from inquiry to SQL as months progressed
What made the SQL growth happen: The real reasons:
The increase was not from publishing random blogs. It came from aligning content with buyer intent and reducing doubt.
Reason 1: We built pages for decision makers, not general readers:
A CIO searching “cybersecurity consulting Dallas” wants a clear plan, not long theory. We made service pages explain outcomes, steps, and what happens next.
High impact page sections we used:
- who the service is for
- problems we solve
- what the engagement looks like
- deliverables and timeline
- clear CTA with reassurance
Reason 2: We added industry context to improve trust fast:
Industry pages helped buyers feel understood. They also helped rankings because they captured specific searches tied to compliance and risk.
Examples of what we added:
- common compliance pressures by industry
- typical system environments
- examples of engagement models that fit that industry
Reason 3: We created problem pages that lead into services:
Problem pages brought high intent visitors who were searching for a fix. These pages had strong internal links to service pages and CTAs that felt natural.
Problem pages that drove strong SQL quality:
- ransomware readiness planning
- Microsoft 365 hardening
- audit and compliance support
- endpoint management and device security
Reason 4: We treated conversion as part of SEO:
We did not assume rankings alone would create SQLs. We improved CTAs, reduced form friction, and placed proof near the contact points.
Small changes that made a big difference:
- adding response time expectations
- putting contact options above the fold
- making the first step feel low risk
- showing simple deliverables instead of vague promises
Tools used: What we relied on during the project:
We kept the tool stack practical and focused on execution.
SEO and research tools:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics 4
- Ahrefs
- Semrush
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Tracking and reporting tools:
- Google Tag Manager for click and form events
- Looker Studio for monthly reporting
- CRM reporting in HubSpot or Salesforce for SQL acceptance tracking
Conversion and behavior tools:
- Hotjar for scroll depth and click behavior
- PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse checks for performance
Content and workflow tools:
- Google Docs for briefs and approvals
- Grammarly for readability and polish
- Trello or Asana board for monthly tasks and reviews
What a similar B2B consulting firm can copy:
If you sell high value IT services, you can apply the same approach with your own strengths.
Steps that usually create the fastest pipeline lift:
- rebuild service pages around real search intent and decision questions
- add industry pages to increase relevance and trust
- publish problem solution pages that link into services
- tighten internal linking so authority flows to money pages
- reduce form friction and make next steps clear
Final notes:
From April 1, 2025 to August 31, 2025, the Dallas based IT consulting firm and Goforaeo built a stronger organic pipeline engine that delivered consistent SQL growth month after month. The biggest win was not only more traffic, but better traffic that sales teams actually want.