Insta Rooter
An Edmonton sewer cleaning, drain repair and root removal company that already had a website. We did not redesign it. From May to September 2026 we did SEO, AEO and GEO work on the existing WordPress site, and Google clicks nearly doubled.
The challenge
Emergency plumbing customers do not browse. They search, tap and call. Insta Rooter, a sewer and drain company in Edmonton, had a decent-looking WordPress site that Google barely knew existed. The home page still carried the default "Home - Instarooter" title. Not one page had a meta description. Every page showed red in the SEO plugin. Four pages were not indexed at all, and once we looked it was obvious why: raw markdown visible on screen, duplicated paragraphs, sections that talked about a different service. Six buttons on the home page led nowhere. The phone number was plain text. And when someone asked an AI assistant who to call for a blocked sewer line in Edmonton, the site had nothing structured to cite. In a 28-day window it was getting 23 clicks from Google.
What we did
The owner did not want a redesign, and he did not need one. From May to September 2026 we worked on the existing site in three rounds, keeping the layout exactly as it was.
May: foundations
We wrote a title, meta description and target phrase for all 10 pages and 3 posts, so each one has a search it is meant to win: "sewer cleaning Edmonton", "drain repair Edmonton", "root removal Edmonton" and so on. LocalBusiness structured data went in with the address, hours and service area. We verified Search Console, submitted the sitemap and requested indexing page by page.
July: structure and content
The four unindexed pages were rebuilt from clean copy and went into the index within days. We linked every service page to the related post and back, so Google and visitors can move through the site instead of hitting dead ends. The six broken buttons got real destinations. Phone numbers and email addresses became clickable everywhere, which on a plumbing site is the difference between a lead and a bounce. Button labels went from "Click here" to what happens when you click. And the main article grew from about 700 to 1,600 words, with a section on who is responsible for a sewer line (the City or the homeowner), what insurance usually covers, and an FAQ written in the words Edmonton homeowners use.
September: the pages that were missing
Reading the company's Google reviews, we noticed customers thanking them for sump pump work and window well drain cleaning. The site never mentioned either. Two full service pages later, those jobs are searchable. We also put a direct-answer block at the top of all seven service pages: what the service is, when you need it, what it costs to find out, and the phone number.
Technical clean-up
The Google Business Profile category moved from Plumber to Drainage Service, which matches what they do and what people search. Schema moved to GeneralContractor to match. We removed the previous developer's footer credit, dropped a security plugin that was causing more problems than it solved, and published a privacy policy the site had never had.
AEO and GEO: being the answer
The FAQ and a section on the $800 EPCOR subsidy for sewer line work were written before we called it AEO. They were simply the most useful, up-to-date answers on the subject in Edmonton, and no competitor had them. That page is now the reason ChatGPT mentions Insta Rooter when someone asks about sewer repair help in the city. In September we made it deliberate: a measured baseline (the company appeared in 1 of 4 test questions across AI assistants), direct-answer blocks on every service page, sameAs links to the company's social profiles, a 7-service catalogue in the structured data, and a check that no AI crawler was blocked. Search Console has since counted 514 impressions in Google's AI features in three months.
What changed in the numbers
Comparing 28-day windows in May and September: Google clicks went from 23 to 45, impressions from 1.96K to 2.38K, click-through rate from 1.2% to 1.9%, and the number of distinct search queries the site shows up for from 128 to 217. Google reviews went from none to 16. The design did not change. The site simply started saying, in Google's language, what the company had been doing all along.
"The EPCOR subsidy section is the reason ChatGPT mentions Insta Rooter today. One useful page, written to answer the question people actually ask, does more than ten pages of filler."
- A site can look fine and still be invisible. Default titles, missing descriptions and unindexed pages are silent problems; you only see them in Search Console.
- Reviews tell you what to write. Customers were praising sump pump and window well work the site never mentioned. Two pages fixed that.
- One page with a useful, current answer (the $800 EPCOR subsidy) did more for AI visibility than everything else combined.
- Clicks nearly doubled and distinct queries went up 70% in four months without touching the design.
Questions about this project
Did Insta Rooter get a new website?
No. The design stayed as it was. The work was SEO, AEO and GEO on the existing WordPress site: titles, descriptions, structured data, content, internal links, and two new service pages.
How long did it take to see results?
The first indexing fixes showed within days. Comparing 28-day windows, clicks went from 23 to 45 between May and September 2026, with click-through rate up from 1.2% to 1.9%.
What is the EPCOR sewer subsidy page?
A section of the main article that explains the $800 EPCOR subsidy available for certain sewer line work in Edmonton, who qualifies and how to apply. It is the most cited page on the site and the reason ChatGPT mentions Insta Rooter for sewer repair questions in the city.
What does SEO for a plumbing or drainage company in Alberta cost?
Our Local SEO plan starts at $549 CAD per month, and the AEO and GEO add-on, which covers structured data, answer blocks and AI visibility tracking, starts at $399 CAD per month. Insta Rooter combined both over four months.
Why did you change the Google Business Profile category?
The profile was set to Plumber, but the company does sewer cleaning, drain repair and root removal. Drainage Service matches the work and the searches, and the site's structured data was updated to match so Google sees one consistent story.