There's something about self-taught SEOs who are still hungry for more. They thrive on a cycle of learn, apply, grow, repeat. Christine Bowen taught herself SEO, scaled trust like a pro, and turned smart systems into serious growth. Here’s how she did it—and what you can take from it.
In this interview, Christine shares the marketing moves that helped her scale, the lessons she learned the hard way, and how systems like RivalFlow became part of her playbook.
Something I love about this interview is hearing from someone in a traditionally phone-driven, service-focused industry making SEO pay off dividends for them.
Christine Bowen, founding partner of Austin Roofing and Construction, didn’t start in marketing or tech. She came from the culinary and restaurant management world before diving into the construction business alongside her husband. Faced with the urgent need to generate leads, she taught herself SEO, absorbed every business book she could find, and built a machine that still drives the company’s 30% year-over-year growth.
I read every business book I could get my hands on and learned SEO to bring in leads.
Her path wasn’t polished or corporate. It was built through relentless learning, tactical experimentation, and staying close to the sources—webinars, newsletters, and tech launches—that offered practical advice for growing real businesses.
Christine emphasized something that’s easy to overlook in digital marketing: trust signals aren't just for the website.
They show up when a salesperson knocks on a door, when a technician pulls up in a truck, and even in how your team dresses.
In an industry where "Chuck in a Truck" horror stories run rampant—unlicensed contractors and those with no insurance being the biggest nightmares—Christine built trust deliberately. She insisted on logoed trucks, company apparel, punctuality, and professionalism at every touchpoint.
"You wouldn’t think that clothing would be as important as it is in roofing. But I think it might be a key thing." Those lessons prove powerful, even if your business is completely online. Trust plays a big part in gaining both conversions from leads to appointments to sales. Plus, something as simple as a logoed shirt makes a big difference that ripples through the business. Think of other points where you build trust in customers' eyes.
Marketing trust offline supported their SEO and lead gen efforts online. When customers clicked through from search results, they already felt they were dealing with a legitimate, professional business.
She knew that trust was so important that she implemented a Google Ads feature and got a huge jump in leads.
Keeping her ears open to search marketing best practices, Christine learned about the Google Guarantee. It's a trust indicator that empowers the buyer and sets the local business apart from its competition. Christine's reliance on Google's tools has helped her turn minor investments into lead generators.
That one change proved to be a boon to online trust. Their booked appointments jumped after they added the badge.
Christine’s SEO strategies became more than a lead magnet. It helped pay off across the entire operation.
By combining organic SEO with smart tools like Google Guaranteed, Bing ads, and self-service website features (more on that in a minute), she created a lead system that:
Good SEO is driving leads and scaling operations behind the scenes. That's a powerful payoff.
One of the smartest moves Christine and her team made was shifting the website from a static marketing tool to a dynamic conversion hub.
Instead of just asking visitors to "call now," they gave them immediate tools:
These features are turning their website into their best sales tool, moving it ahead of phone calls.
In fact, about 50% of their leads now set their own appointments without ever making a phone call. It mirrors the shift in consumer behavior toward control and transparency—and it works.
It’s the kind of system anyone serious about service business marketing should be studying, no matter the industry.
Christine found RivalFlow through one of our early launch emails and quickly saw the potential. But she admitted she didn’t fully use the tool correctly at first—publishing the new text on its own instead of as a specific page improvement.
Once she locked into the right usage— adding RivalFlow’s suggestions where they were intended—she handed it over to her marketing assistant, and the improvements became repeatable.
Now, they treat SEO updates through RivalFlow as an ongoing system that keeps their content competitive.
We saw the biggest gains at first, and then consistent 10-20% improvements every time we updated our pages based on RivalFlow’s recommendations.
Having this automation allows Christine to delegate the work that she'd otherwise take on. Further, it automates many of the hours that her marketing assistant would have been dedicating to keep their SEO fresh.
I admire Christine's spirit of constant personal improvement. She's pragmatic about finding inspiration from those willing to share: Her advice: Sign up for newsletters, keep learning, and stay open to ideas.
Small tactical lessons add up to massive strategic advantages over time.
