By Cindy Gordon, Selective Visibility Strategist and Business Mentor
Most of us think of a case study as something for the person who’s already on our website, deciding whether to trust us. It is that, and it also turns out to matter for the algorithms and the AI tools that decide whether anyone gets to your website in the first place, which is why a case study can help you get found by AI.
So today I want to show you what a case study actually looks like and how to write one, using a client of mine named Jill. She’s a luxury relocation realtor in Idaho, and she publishes case studies about her own real estate clients on her website.
Why does a case study matter to the people deciding whether to trust you?
Someone deciding who to hire or what to buy really is asking one question, which is whether this will work for someone just like them. A story with a starting point, a result, and a person’s name in it answers that in a way a page full of amazing results never will, because a person can actually picture it.
Why does a case study matter to the algorithms?
Google has been telling creators for a while now that it wants to see first-hand experience and original information. Their own guidance on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content asks whether your content shows both, and it’s the same direction as the helpful content update we talked about a couple of weeks ago. A case study is exactly that.
Can a case study help you get found by AI?
A digital marketing agency called Online Advantages spent six months testing what gets a business seen in AI search. One of their twelve lessons, in their write-up of the research, was that case studies can be more valuable than generic content, because they give AI systems something they can actually check, like the statistics, the challenge, what was done, and the measurable result.
They’re careful to say those observations are from their own work and not proven rules, and I appreciate that. I can’t hand you a measured number on how often a case study gets mentioned, but it’s something that keeps showing up.
What does a case study actually look like?
The one I have on Jill is a good example, and it’s mostly her telling it. When we started working together last fall, she thinks she’d had maybe two or three Instagram leads turn into clients who actually closed on a home. Now she says 50% of her business is coming from her Instagram leads. She says her revenue has basically doubled over about six to eight months, and it’s on a trajectory to potentially triple by next year. She’s also getting leads from AI, two listings from ChatGPT leads and a recent phone call from someone who found her on Grok.
Look at what’s in there: a starting point, a change, numbers, a time frame, and her own voice, with her name and her face on it. That’s a case study, and it doesn’t have to be long. You can hear her for yourself in a shorter cut of her video testimonial, and you can see a video case study example from Jill too.
Are Jill’s case studies the reason AI tools send her leads?
Jill does this for her own business as well. She writes case studies about her real estate clients and publishes them on her website, so she’s in mine and she’s building her own. I can’t tell you her own case studies are the reason ChatGPT and Grok started sending her leads. Nobody can say that for sure.
What I can tell you is that they’re one of the things she’s doing, along with not chasing trends and showing up with the same message in the same places every time, and it’s all compounding.
How do you write a case study?
If you want to write one, pick a client and start with five things: where they started, what you did together, what changed, what the numbers show, and how long it took. Get their okay, and if you don’t know the number, ask them for it. If they’ll give you a quote or a short video in their own words, even better.
Then put it on a page of your own website with a title that says who you helped and what changed, so someone deciding who to hire or what to buy has something to land on. And keep talking about it everywhere else you show up, the same way, because it works best when other places say the same thing.
What if findability feels overwhelming and you don’t know where to start?
I know some of you are thinking, “I know my business needs this, but I have no idea where to start.” Findability can feel overwhelming, and honestly a little repelling, like it’s easier not to look at it at all. That’s exactly why I built Be the Answer. It’s my new workshop, and it’s where you start. We make small moves, the kind that let you dip your toes into the findability pond and start the process.
It runs October 27th through the 29th, it’s $27, and registration closes on the 27th, so this is the final call.
What should you do this week?
This week, I’d like for you to write the first five sentences of one case study: where they started, what you did, what changed, what number you can include, and how long it took. If you don’t have the number, message them and ask for it. A case study gives people, algorithms, and AI something to check, so you can be the answer.
Prefer to listen?
A case study is a specific story of a result you helped create: where someone started, what you did together, what changed, the numbers that show it, and how long it took. It can be a page on your website, a video, or both.
One digital marketing agency’s six months of AI search testing found that case studies can be more valuable than generic content, because they give AI systems something they can check, like statistics, the challenge, what was done, and the measurable result. The agency describes its findings as observations from its own work and not proven rules, and nobody can say for sure which piece of a business’s visibility is behind a given result.
Start with five things: where the client started, what you did together, what changed, the number that shows it, and how long it took. Get the client’s permission, ask them for the number if you don’t have it, and include a quote or short video in their own words if they’re willing.
Someone deciding who to hire or what to buy is really asking whether this will work for someone like them. A story with a starting point, a result, and a person’s name on it answers that more clearly than general claims about great results, because a person can picture it.
Be the Answer is a live workshop from Cindy Gordon, running October 27th through the 29th for $27, with registration closing on October 27th. It’s designed as a place to start for female entrepreneurs and small business owners who know their business needs findability but don’t know where to begin, using small moves that let them start the process. Details are at exclusivelycindy.com/be-the-answer.
About Cindy Gordon
Cindy Gordon is a selective visibility strategist and business mentor for female entrepreneurs. A 6x founder who has built six businesses and sold four, she holds a Masters in Special Education with a focus in Behavior Analysis and brings the discipline of individualized assessment to visibility work. She has grown a brand’s following to a million, built a 900,000 person community and a 250,000 person email list, and led a team of 11. As a business coach, she helps women diagnose what is breaking their content, where their visibility actually belongs, and how to show up with clarity instead of noise. Cindy is the founder of Exclusively Cindy and the host of The Strategic Entrepreneur podcast, where she explores selective visibility, proof of human, and what it takes to become unmistakable.
