Client Case Study

Packaging Shop: recommended by ChatGPT within 3 weeks of launch, search impressions up over 1,400%

A full site rebuild with SEO and AI visibility built in from day one. ChatGPT started recommending Packaging Shop by name within three weeks, and search impressions were already climbing inside of a month.

Packaging Shop

Packaging supplies, B2B and retail, GTA

Website rebuild with SEO built in, technical SEO, local SEO, content

Ongoing engagement

Live engagement · updated as results come in

+1,459%

Search impressions

+727%

Organic clicks

42x

AI-assisted search queries

AI search (AEO)

Recommended by ChatGPT within 3 weeks of launch

Search isn't only Google's results page anymore, and Packaging Shop didn't have to wait years for AI tools to notice. Within about three weeks of the new site going live, ChatGPT started recommending Packaging Shop by name.

Asked things like "packaging supplies near me," "where to buy corrugated boxes near me," "where to order corrugated boxes online in the GTA," "packaging supplies in the GTA," and "where to buy corrugated boxes in Toronto," ChatGPT and Gemini now recommend Packaging Shop. These aren't paraphrased screenshots, they're live public links to the actual conversations below, so anyone can go check them directly.

The headline

Real Search Console data, no modeling or estimates

Packaging Shop is a newer packaging supply business entering a category owned by national chains and long-established local players. Within three weeks of the new site launching, ChatGPT was recommending it by name. Inside of a month, search impressions were already climbing, and the numbers below show it wasn't a launch-week blip.

The market

A new packaging supply business up against national chains

Packaging supplies isn't an easy category to rank in. Search for corrugated boxes, packing tape, or stretch wrap and the results are dominated by Uline, Home Depot, and Staples before a local business even gets a look. Uline ships next day across most of North America and has been building search authority for years. Home Depot and Staples show up because they sell everything, packaging included, and Google trusts sites with that kind of scale and history.

It's not just the national chains, either. The GTA has a handful of established local and regional packaging suppliers who've been around for years with their own loyal, repeat clientele already locked in. That's a different problem than out-ranking a big box store: those businesses already have the word-of-mouth and the standing orders, so showing up in search is what gets a newer shop in front of buyers who don't already have a supplier.

Packaging Shop can't out-catalog or out-spend any of them, and it shouldn't try to. What it can win on is being the real local option: same-day pickup, delivery across the GTA, and an actual person answering the phone. None of that matters if people searching "packaging supplies Toronto" or "boxes near me" can't find the site. Before the rebuild, they mostly couldn't.

What we did

One engagement, not two separate projects

The site rebuild and the SEO work happened together, not back to back. That's how we structure this kind of engagement, rebuilding a site without SEO built into the architecture just means redoing the work later.

Full site rebuild — New product and category architecture, clean internal linking, fast mobile templates, and a sitemap Google could actually crawl.
Schema and structured data — Organization, LocalBusiness, and Product schema added sitewide. None of it existed before.
On-page and local SEO — Titles, meta descriptions, and page content rewritten around real search terms, plus geo-targeted pages for Toronto, Mississauga, and the rest of the GTA.
Weekly blog content — New articles on a regular cadence, tied to the product categories and box-size questions people were already searching for.
Google Business Profile management — Multiple posts a week and a reply to every review, not just the good ones.

The results

Clicks and impressions, before and after launch

Daily search impressions, before and after launch. Source: Google Search Console.

An 8x jump in clicks from a near-zero base is what you'd expect from a site Google barely knew existed. Impressions were already trending up inside of a month, and they kept building well past the launch bump as the content and local SEO work compounded on that foundation.

Metric	Change since launch
Clicks	+727%
Impressions	+1,459%

Before and after are equal-length windows for a fair comparison.

Timeline

Where this engagement stands

Launch

New site launches

Rebuilt architecture, schema, and technical SEO foundation go live together.

3 weeks in

First AI recommendation

ChatGPT starts recommending Packaging Shop by name for GTA packaging searches.

Within a month

Impressions climbing, content phase begins

Weekly blog posts, Google Business Profile management, and geo-targeted local pages start on top of an already-building trend.

Ongoing

Results keep compounding

+727% clicks and +1,459% impressions since launch, and still climbing.

Compounding the base

Expanding local coverage across the GTA and pushing early-stage rankings further up the page.

Update log

This page is updated as the engagement continues

Packaging Shop is an active client. Rather than freeze this case study at a flattering moment, we refresh the numbers on a rolling basis — including the periods that plateau.

September 8, 2026 (2)

Removed the duplicate 42x stat tile from inside the AI search section so the six ChatGPT conversation links sit right under the lead paragraph instead of below a repeated stat. Dropped the "Since launch" sub-label from the three headline stat boxes.

September 8, 2026

Updated the AI-assisted search queries figure to the newest data (24 → 1,000, ~42x) and dropped it from a raw count to a multiplier, matching the impressions and clicks stats. Removed the remaining raw click/impression counts from the headline stat boxes and the results table in favor of percentage-only framing. Added two more verified ChatGPT conversation links ("packaging supplies near me" and "where to buy corrugated boxes near me"), pulled from the homepage's AEO proof section and highlighted as featured in the AI search list.

September 5, 2026

Removed the Reputation section (Google Business Profile stats) and the average-position honesty note from the results section, both pending a fresher data pull. Trimmed the headline calls-generated stat tile for the same reason.

August 21, 2026

Tightened the page and removed hard calendar dates from the narrative copy, tables, and timeline in favor of relative framing ("3 weeks," "within a month," "since launch"). Merged the two before/after tables into one and folded the average-position honesty note into the main results section. Sharpened the market section's framing: a new packaging supply business winning visibility in an SMB category against mature incumbents (Uline, Home Depot, Staples) and entrenched local suppliers.

August 19, 2026

Moved the AI-search findings to the top of the page and into the headline stats, reflecting how central AI visibility is to this engagement: ChatGPT started recommending Packaging Shop by name about 3 weeks after launch. Dropped the two small AI-traffic stat tiles (4 recommendations, 74 assistant visits) in favor of just the 4 verified, clickable conversation links, since the raw counts undersold the story next to the SEO numbers. Removed click-through rate from the results tables and callouts to keep the page focused on the strongest metrics.

August 18, 2026

Refreshed every Search Console figure from a new full export (Apr 12 to Aug 13, 2026), extending the measurement window by two days and replacing an earlier partial-day data point that made the last day of the old chart look like a drop-off. Added back the AI-search section with real, verified data: 4 public ChatGPT conversation links showing Packaging Shop being recommended for GTA packaging searches, plus 74 GA4 visits from AI assistants this period. Also added fuller Google Business Profile numbers (217 interactions, 502 profile search appearances last month, 15 posts).

August 11, 2026

Corrected the launch date to June 24 and rebuilt every figure from a full Search Console export (Apr 12 to Aug 11), replacing earlier estimates. Reviews updated to 10. Removed the GA4 / answer-engine section pending a fresh data pull.

August 5, 2026

Initial publication.

Google Search Console (property: https://packagingshop.ca/) for the search-impressions and clicks figures. Figures reflect web search results only. Percentage changes are period over period against a matched-length prior window. AI-search figures from public, shareable ChatGPT conversation links, verified live. Google Business Profile figures from Business Profile Manager's reporting since the engagement began. Published with client permission.

Last updated: September 8, 2026

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