Career Coach SEO Case Study: Foundational SEO Leads to Top 5 Rankings
- Sound Moves Marketing
- Jun 26
- 4 min read
How Waypoint Career Counseling Climbed Google in 90 Days
A local career counseling practice in Portland, Maine goes from near-zero organic presence to ranking on page one for high-value search terms, in just one quarter.
When Megan Tazzi launched Waypoint Career Counseling, word spread through referrals. People who knew her, trusted her. People who didn’t know her couldn’t find her. That’s the gap SEO is designed to close.
In just 90 days, Waypoint Career Counseling went from virtually no keyword rankings to holding page one positions for competitive local search terms, and organic search grew from 3.6% of traffic to nearly 1 in 5 visitors.
Here’s how it happened.
Known by Referral, Invisible to Search
Megan is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder of Waypoint Career Counseling (waypointcareers.com), based in Portland, Maine. Her practice offers something distinct: a mental health–informed approach to career counseling that supports professionals navigating burnout, career transitions, work-related anxiety, and job search challenges. Services are available locally and nationwide through virtual sessions.
When we started working together in January 2026, her website had strong bones but limited search visibility. Direct traffic made up 87% of site visits, driven almost entirely by referrals and existing connections. Organic search accounted for just 3.6%.
The site simply wasn’t set up to reach the people actively searching for what Megan offers. That was the opportunity.
Building an SEO Foundation for Discoverability
We began with a full SEO audit and implementation. The strategy focused on aligning the site’s language with how real people search and making sure search engines could find, understand, and rank it.
That included:
In-depth keyword research across 70+ high-intent search terms (local, national, and niche) covering career burnout coaching, women’s career counseling, mental health–informed career coaching, and more
On-page optimization of all core service pages, including title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and body content aligned to target keywords
Technical SEO improvements to support crawlability and indexing
Content scoring and optimization to strengthen topical relevance and authority
Local SEO strategy targeting Portland, Maine and surrounding areas
A content roadmap for ongoing blog growth to expand keyword coverage over time
The goal wasn’t just more traffic; it was the right traffic of people actively searching for career counseling support who had never heard of Waypoint before.
Ranking Where It Counts
Within 90 days, Waypoint Career Counseling was ranking on page one for multiple competitive keywords in the Portland, Maine market.
Keyword | Search Volume | Current Rank | Content Score |
career coach near me | 810 | 4 | 69 |
career counselor near me | 210 | 5 | 73 |
career counseling | 33.1K | 5 | 86 |
career counseling services | 180 | 5 | 85 |
job counselor near me | 20 | 5 | 74 |
waypoint coaching | 10 | 77 |
Keyword rankings as of May 19, 2026
Ranking in position 4–5 for “career counseling”, a term with 33,100 monthly searches, is a meaningful early win for a site that previously had no keyword rankings at all. The branded term “waypoint coaching” now holds the #1 spot, giving Megan full ownership of her branded search presence.
A Traffic Mix That Tells the Real Story
Total website visits over the 90-day period reached 225, reflecting +18% year-over-year growth. But the more important shift was in where that traffic came from.
Organic search: up from 3.6% → 18% (+14 percentage points)
Direct traffic: down from 87% → 75% (a healthy relative decline as organic grows)
Referral traffic: up from 2.6% → 4.4%
Nearly 1 in 5 visitors is now finding Waypoint Career Counseling through organic search, people with no prior connection to Megan who discovered her entirely through Google. That shift away from referral dependence and toward search discoverability is exactly what SEO is designed to do.
From Near-Zero to Page One
The site now holds a 60.6 search visibility score, with 54% of tracked keywords landing in the top 10 positions, up from near zero at the start of implementation. With a traffic forecast of 2,111 monthly visits and growing, the trajectory is pointed clearly upward as the site continues to mature in Google’s index.
That kind of visibility doesn’t plateau, it compounds.
In Megan's Own Words
I can’t say enough good things about Wendy. I hired her to help optimize my website’s SEO, and she was approachable, dependable, and incredibly knowledgeable. SEO felt like a different language to me at first, but she explained everything in a way that was easy to understand. She also made me part of the process and taught me how to maintain the health of my SEO moving forward. I highly recommend working with her. - Megan Tazzi, Waypoint Career Counseling
Why This Matters
This 90-day period shows what happens when foundational SEO strategy, keyword alignment, and on-page optimization work together.
Waypoint Career Counseling didn’t need a bigger marketing budget or a viral moment. It needed its website to speak the same language as the people already searching for support. Once that foundation was in place, the results followed.
Instead of relying on referrals alone, the site is now being discovered by professionals actively searching for career counseling, burnout support, and career transition coaching. That shift from referral-based traffic to search-driven discoverability is what creates sustainable, compounding growth.
Ready to Strengthen Your Search Visibility?
Whether you’re building a coaching practice, growing a service-based business, or expanding your professional reach, strategic SEO can position your website to work harder for you.
If you’re ready to move beyond referral-based traffic and consistently attract the right audience, let’s build a strategy designed for sustainable growth.
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