Search visibility, AI discovery, paid efficiency, and progress against the Q2 marketing OKRs — an external read on what's working, what isn't, and what to act on this cycle. Scoped to US users on roomsketcher.com.
Jo's Q2 marketing OKRs define three objectives. This section reads each one against the data this cycle. The rest of the report contains the supporting detail. The picture this cycle is more cautious: paid was deliberately reallocated across engines (roughly flat net), the SEO/GEO objective is now a confirmed structural decline rather than a blip, and the communication OKR softened modestly. A new item also needs attention — the Issue #5 site-speed win appears to have regressed.
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased subs at lower CAC | Combined Google+Bing New Subscription, US, paid CPA | New Sub 11.1 → 10.3/day · CPA ~$35 → $36 | Roughly flat |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 in LLMs (LLM Visibility Score) | 2 anchor queries × 6 LLMs, NYC, weekly | creator 100% · software 79.2% | Creator +4.2 pts |
| — GSC position "floor plan creator" | GSC organic position (US) | ~24.1 (flat vs last) | Holding low |
| Increased organic non-brand clicks (NORAM) | GSC clicks/day (US) | 1,141/day (vs 1,171) | -2.6% · -29% since Feb |
| Floor Plan Creator page live | GSC URL Inspection (carried) | Live & indexed; head term not yet earned | Holding |
| Key Result | Tracked Via | This Cycle | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increased sign-up rate (NORAM) | GA4 sign_up + new_subscription (US) |
sign_up -10% / new_sub -10% vs last | Softened |
| Key pages updated | Key Page Audit & Update (initiative) | Pending | TBD |
Both KRs softened modestly this cycle. The 6-week view (4 wks ago → last → current):
/floor-plan-creator/ remains live and indexed but still has not earned the unbranded head term (holding at ~24). The Affiliate Pilot and FloorCapture comparison pages remain externally undetectable (zero "affiliate"/"floorcapture" US query impressions). Section 10 actions are tagged with the OKR objective they serve.
Trackable KPIs updated every two weeks, with a 17-week weekly trend chart embedded beside each metric group so direction is visible at a glance, not just the latest two-week delta. All metrics are filtered to United States users on roomsketcher.com only.
user_location_view.country_criterion_id = 2840 (United States). Bing Ads xlsx filtered to Country = United States. Timeframes (three 14-day windows for trend visibility): Current: June 1 – June 14, 2026. Last Period: May 18 – May 31, 2026. 4 Weeks Ago: May 4 – May 17, 2026. Session metrics shown as daily averages. The Δ column compares Current vs Last Period; the 4-Wks-Ago column lets you spot when a movement is genuine direction vs noise. The "4 Wks Ago" and "Last Period" columns carry forward Issue #4's published "Last Period" and "Current" columns (each issue's Current becomes the next issue's Last). GSC daily values cover 12 of 14 days (6/1–6/12) due to GSC reporting lag; daily averages remain comparable.
sign_up -10.4%, new_subscription -9.8%, purchase -1.6%. The softening is gentle and consistent across the funnel — and it rhymes with the app-side US (NorAm) trend the team is tracking separately, where new users are down YoY but subscriptions are holding.| KPI | 4 Wks Ago May 4 – May 17 |
Last Period May 18 – May 31 |
Current June 1 – June 14 |
Δ vs Last | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Website Traffic (US) — daily averages | |||||
| Total Website Sessions | 4,204/day | 4,598/day | 4,410/day | -4.1% | |
| Direct Sessions | 1,968/day | 2,164/day | 2,112/day | -2.4% | |
| Organic Search Sessions | 1,360/day | 1,261/day | 1,246/day | -1.2% | |
| Paid Search + Cross-network | 442/day | 765/day | 646/day | -15.6% | |
| Paid Other (Microsoft Ads, GA4) | 153/day | 124/day | 142/day | +14.5% | |
| Bing / Microsoft (US) | |||||
| Bing Organic Sessions | 66/day | 66/day | ~65/day | -1.5% | |
| Copilot Sessions | 1.1/day | 1.3/day | 3.2/day | +146% | |
| AI Referral Traffic (US) — ChatGPT + Gemini + Perplexity + Copilot + Claude | |||||
| All AI Platforms (total) | 54.9/day | 56.1/day | 50.0/day | -10.9% | |
| ChatGPT | 44.7/day | 49.1/day | 42.1/day | -14.3% | |
| Gemini | 4.7/day | 2.6/day | 2.1/day | -19% | |
| Perplexity | 3.0/day | 2.4/day | 1.8/day | -25% | |
| Copilot | 1.1/day | 1.3/day | 3.2/day | +146% | |
| Claude | 1.4/day | 0.6/day | 0.9/day | +50% | |
| Search Console (US) — current covers 12 of 14 days due to GSC reporting lag | |||||
| GSC Total Clicks | 1,279/day | 1,171/day | 1,141/day | -2.6% | |
| GSC Total Impressions | 156,633/day | 114,442/day | 108,881/day | -4.9% | |
| Avg. GSC Position | 8.82 | 10.32 | 9.68 | +0.64 ↑ | |
| Implied GSC CTR | 0.82% | 1.02% | 1.05% | +0.03 pts | |
| Key Keyword Positions (US) — OKR 2 anchor terms (GSC positions re-pulled fresh) | |||||
| "Floor Plan Creator" Position | ~21.0 | ~24.1 | ~24.1 | +0.2 ↑ | |
| "Floor Plan Maker" Position | ~20.7 | ~27.1 | ~25.1 | +2.0 ↑ | |
| "Floor Plan Software" Position | ~8.5 | ~17.2 | ~14.5 | +2.7 ↑ | |
| "Floor Plan App" Position | ~11.9 | ~11.4 | ~10.5 | +0.9 ↑ | |
| "Best Floor Plan Software" Position | ~7.6 | ~9.8 | ~9.8 | Flat (carried) | |
| LLM Visibility Score (US · NYC) — OKR 2 primary KR — fresh reading June 15 (prior = June 1) | |||||
| "best floor plan creator" (LLM) | — | 95.8% | 100.0% | +4.2 pts | |
| "best floorplan software" (LLM) | — | 79.2% | 79.2% | Flat | |
| Google Ads (US) — Spend & Efficiency (NOK) — via user_location_view, country_criterion_id = 2840 | |||||
| Google Ad Spend | 12,746 NOK/day | 18,657 NOK/day | 16,804 NOK/day | -9.9% | |
| Google Ad Spend (USD equiv.) | ~$1,160/day | ~$1,698/day | ~$1,529/day | -9.9% | |
| Google Ad Clicks | 624/day | 1,073/day | 892/day | -16.9% | |
| Google Ad Conversions (all) | 82.8/day | 145.6/day | 125.8/day | -13.6% | |
| Google CPA (NOK) | 154 NOK | 128 NOK | 134 NOK | +4.7% | |
| Google Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Google — Free Account (Personal) | 908 | 1,720 | 1,452 | -15.6% | |
| Google — Free Account (Business) | 137 | 151 | 161 | +6.6% | |
| Google — New Subscription | 80 | 133 | 116 | -12.8% | |
| Google — Premium Project | 16 | 26 | 24 | -7.7% | |
| Google — Ready Made Purchase | 10 | 8 | 7 | -12.5% | |
| Google — Renew Subscription | 8 | 0 | 0 | Flat | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — USD — conversions +24% as budget shifted off P-Max into Search | |||||
| Bing Ad Spend | $4,117/day | $4,033/day | $3,977/day | -1.4% | |
| Bing Ad Clicks | 317/day | 250/day | 291/day | +16.4% | |
| Bing Ad Conversions | 25.4/day | 20.3/day | 25.1/day | +23.6% | |
| Bing CPA | $162 | $199 | $159 | -20.2% | |
| Microsoft (Bing) Ads (US) — Conversions by Goal (14-day totals) | |||||
| Bing — Free Account (Personal) | 277 | 221 | 277 | +25.3% | |
| Bing — Free Account (Business) | 45 | 36 | 33 | -8.3% | |
| Bing — New Subscription | 29 | 23 | 33 | +43.5% | |
| Bing — Premium Project | 2 | 4 | 5 | +25% | |
| Bing — Ready Made Purchase | 2 | 0 | 2 | +2 | |
| GA4 Conversion Events (US, all sources) — OKR 3 lens (top-of-funnel and monetization both softened modestly) | |||||
Sign-ups (GA4 sign_up) |
218.7/day | 280.1/day | 250.9/day | -10.4% | |
| New Subscription (GA4) | 18.4/day | 19.4/day | 17.5/day | -9.8% | |
| Purchase (GA4) | 30.7/day | 31.2/day | 30.7/day | -1.6% | |
| Order Ready Made (GA4) | 8.8/day | 7.6/day | 7.6/day | Flat (carried) | |
| New Premium Project (GA4) | 2.9/day | 3.5/day | 3.5/day | Flat (carried) | |
US users drove 61,747 sessions across all channels during this 14-day period — a daily average of 4,410, down from 4,605/day the prior window (-4.2%). The mix shape is stable; the softness is broad and shallow at the two-week level (Direct -2.4%, Organic -1.2%, Paid -15.6% off a strong late-May spike). The more important signal is in the Section 1 trend charts: Organic's gentle two-week dip is the tail of a four-month structural slide.
Direct is again the largest US channel at 29,572 sessions (48% of US traffic). It's also the most opaque: "Direct" in GA4 is a catch-all for any session GA4 can't attribute to a known source. The composition is stable cycle-to-cycle — roughly 40% of "Direct" is existing-user lifecycle traffic, dark-social shares, or noise rather than new acquisition.
Direct's internal composition is stable cycle-to-cycle; the page-level split below is representative (carried from the prior 14-day window) and is used to characterize the channel, not as fresh period totals.
| Landing page | Sessions | % of Direct | What it really is |
|---|---|---|---|
/user/add/ |
5,974 | 19.7% | Signup form return — users coming back from email/app to register |
/ (homepage) |
4,632 | 15.3% | True direct + dark-social mix |
(not set) |
3,556 | 11.7% | Lost-attribution sessions, mostly app-platform |
/get-started/ |
3,412 | 11.3% | Signup flow re-entry |
/360/?gid=... (virtual tour shares) |
1,809 | 6.0% | Dark-social shares (Slack/iMessage/Pinterest strip referrers) |
/user/login/ |
1,701 | 5.6% | Login page bookmark |
/pricing/ |
1,019 | 3.4% | Returning evaluators |
/download-windows/ + /download-mac/ |
1,124 | 3.7% | Install on second device — existing users |
/features/draw-floor-plans/ |
314 | 1.0% | True direct demand |
| All other pages | ~6,757 | ~22% | Long tail (deep pages, returning visits) |
Direct's conversion rate is again ~4× higher than Organic Search — the signal that "Direct" is dominated by existing users, not cold prospects. (Conversions = GA4 key events, US, this period.)
| Channel | Sessions | Key Events | Conv rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | 30,296 | 3,181 | 10.5% |
| Paid Search | 8,275 | 609 | 7.4% |
| Cross-network | 2,433 | 172 | 7.1% |
| Paid Other (Bing) | 1,738 | 117 | 6.7% |
| Referral | 1,378 | 45 | 3.3% |
| Organic Search | 17,648 | 412 | 2.3% |
| 407 | 9 | 2.2% | |
| Unassigned (anomaly) | 1,709 | 940 | 55.0% |
The anomaly first flagged in Issue #4 persists: GA4's "Unassigned" bucket carries ~1,305 sessions this cycle at a conversion rate far above any cold-traffic norm — impossible for genuine new traffic. It's almost certainly existing-user conversions where GA4 lost the source attribution but kept the user_id. Every conversion sitting in Unassigned is one the channel scorecard can't attribute to anything, so paid/organic credit is understated by a structural margin every cycle. It recurs cycle after cycle, which makes it a reporting gap, not a one-off. Section 10 Action #5 carries the clean-up.
Carving out the ~40% of Direct that's lifecycle/share/noise drops the "true new-acquisition Direct" share of US sessions from 47% to roughly 28%. That's still a large channel — brand search and dark social are both real — but it reframes where new users actually come from, and it means the +10% Direct rise this cycle is partly an existing-user-activity rise (more signups returning to /user/add/), consistent with the paid scale-up driving more return-to-register traffic.
AI referral traffic eased this period — 700 US sessions over 14 days, down -11% from 785. The pullback is mostly ChatGPT coming off its late-May high (49.1 → 42.1/day, -14%); it still dominates at 84% of US AI traffic. The one mover up is Microsoft Copilot, which jumped 1.3 → 3.2/day (+146% off a tiny base) — small in absolute terms but worth watching given the Bing/Copilot citation surface. Across the 17-week view (the Section 1 trend charts) AI referral is range-bound (33–68/day), not trending.
346957354), sessionSource dimension by sessions metric, filtered to country = United States. AI sources identified by the following sessionSource values: chatgpt.com (ChatGPT), gemini.google.com (Gemini), copilot.com (Microsoft Copilot), perplexity.ai + perplexity (Perplexity, summed), claude.ai (Claude). Period: June 1 – June 14, 2026 (14 days). Microsoft Copilot AI-citation export (Bing Webmaster AI Performance) was not available this issue — the citation-level rows are omitted and noted as not-tracked for this cycle.
ChatGPT gave back part of last cycle's gain — 688 → 589 sessions (daily 49.1 → 42.1, -14%). In the 17-week trend (the Section 1 trend charts) this reads as normal oscillation around a stable level (40–58/day since the April step-up), not the start of a decline — the April citation-surface widening is still intact and still the engine routing ~84% of US AI traffic. The level to defend is ~42–50/day; a drop below the February pre-step floor (~27/day) would be the signal to worry. ChatGPT still routes more click-throughs per citation than any other LLM, so the concentration remains the favorable kind.
The notable mover is Microsoft Copilot: 18 → 45 sessions (1.3 → 3.2/day, +146%) — still tiny, but it makes Copilot the #2 US AI source this cycle ahead of Gemini and Perplexity, and it lines up with the Bing/Copilot citation surface being the one we have least visibility into. Gemini continued its multi-cycle fade (7.8 → 4.7 → 2.6 → 2.1/day), consistent with Google AI Overviews' dynamic source-set churn where cited sources rotate on each refresh. Perplexity and Claude remain at floor levels. None of the secondary engines is individually large enough to interpret alone — the takeaway is the Copilot uptick is the one worth a second look next cycle.
Perplexity has now sat between 34–45 US sessions for four cycles. Its citation graph is heavily Reddit-weighted (~47% of citations across major Perplexity studies). RoomSketcher's Reddit presence (u/roomsketcher_sean, a verified account) is live but thin — verified this cycle via direct pull: 3 disclosed "I work at RoomSketcher" comments in r/floorplan (most recent May 15, 2026) and no active posts. r/floorplan is the single most citation-relevant sub for floor-plan queries, so the presence is the right move, but at 3 comments it is far below the volume Perplexity's citation graph needs. Perplexity's citation graph updates slowly (typically 6–8 weeks for a sustained presence to register), so this is the channel most likely to move next, if it moves. Until then Perplexity stays capped regardless of on-site content quality — a structural channel constraint, not a content problem.
With ChatGPT still ~84% of US AI traffic, the AEO formatting pass on the top citation-target pages (floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa) compounds the dominant surface directly rather than shoring up the smaller engines. The content patterns are the same as before — FAQ schema, structured Q&A blocks, clean H2/H3 headlines, table-formatted lists — and the same structured Q&A is what earns the AI-Overview citations the blog how-to pages are now losing blue links to (Section 8). This is carried as Action #5.
Separate from the click-through traffic above, this is Jo's direct measure of whether the LLMs recommend RoomSketcher. Each of two anchor queries is run once a week (NYC, fresh chats) across six LLMs and scored 0 (absent) / 0.25 (mentioned, not listed) / 0.5 (listed) / 0.75 (#1 in a category) / 1.0 (definite #1 recommendation); the query score is the sum ÷ 6.0. Reading captured June 15, 2026 (NYC VPN, fresh/temporary chat per query). The "creator" query rose to a perfect 100% (5.75 → 6.0/6) as Perplexity flipped to naming RoomSketcher its outright #1; "software" held flat at 79.2% with offsetting moves underneath (Perplexity up, Gemini down). Per-engine scores below; the prior June 1 reading is the comparison.
| LLM | "best floorplan software" | "best floor plan creator" |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Google AI Mode | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Microsoft Copilot | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| Gemini | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| Claude | 0.75 | 1.0 |
| Perplexity | 0.5 | 1.0 |
| Score (sum ÷ 6.0) — June 15 reading (vs June 1) | 4.75 → 79.2% (flat) | 6.0 → 100% (was 95.8%) |
The "creator" query rose to 100% (6.0/6) from 95.8% on June 1 — ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, and now Perplexity all return RoomSketcher as the explicit best-overall creator (Perplexity went from "best for polished results" at 0.75 to "the safest default choice" at 1.0). This is the strongest single OKR 2 signal in the report: on the exact term the Floor Plan Creator initiative targets, every AI surface tested recommends RoomSketcher #1. It also diverges sharply from classic search, where "floor plan creator" still sits at ~24 in Google (Section 4) — the LLMs are well ahead of Google's blue links on this term, the better place to be leading as AI discovery grows.
"best floorplan software" held flat at 79.2% (4.75/6) — still the weaker of the two queries, with churn underneath: Perplexity improved (0.25 → 0.5, now listing RoomSketcher as a "good middle ground" rather than omitting it) but Gemini softened (0.75 → 0.5, slotting it under "beginners/homeowners" behind Floorplanner). On software, Gemini and Perplexity still lead with Floorplanner/SketchUp rather than crowning RoomSketcher overall. This mirrors the GSC picture: "floor plan software" is RoomSketcher's historically soft term in classic search, though it recovered this cycle (17.2 → 14.5, Section 4). "Creator" is where RoomSketcher is strongest on both surfaces. Perplexity's Reddit-weighted citation graph (Section 8) is the lever most likely to lift software further.
The head terms recovered this cycle off last cycle's core-update lows: "floor plan software" 17.2 → 14.5, "floor plan maker" 27.1 → 25.1, "floor plan app" 11.4 → 10.5, and "floor plan creator" held at ~24.1. Average position also improved (10.32 → 9.68). But total organic impressions kept falling (-32% from the early-May peak in the 17-week view; -4.9% vs last period), and that is the real story: the head terms are healing while the breadth of ranking queries keeps shrinking. The problem moved from "head terms slipping" to "fewer queries surfacing at all" — a footprint contraction, which is why diagnosing which query clusters and pages lost impressions is now the priority.
Four anchor terms re-pulled fresh this cycle; "best floor plan software", "free floor plan creator", and "easy floor plan maker" were not re-queried and are shown carried (last-known) for continuity.
| Head Term | Current Impressions | Current Clicks | Current Position | Last-Period Position | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "floor plan creator" | 345 | 5 | ~24.1 | ~24.2 | Flat |
| "floor plan maker" | 206 | 1 | ~25.1 | ~26.8 | +1.7 ↑ |
| "floor plan software" | 560 | 7 | ~14.5 | ~17.1 | +2.6 ↑ |
| "best floor plan software" | — | — | ~9.8 | ~9.8 | Carried |
| "free floor plan creator" | — | — | ~7.8 | ~7.8 | Carried |
| "easy floor plan maker" | — | — | ~8.0 | ~8.0 | Carried |
| "floor plan app" | 402 | 14 | ~10.5 | ~11.4 | +0.9 ↑ |
Two cycles ago every head term slipped; this cycle they recovered (software 17.2 → 14.5, maker 27.1 → 25.1, app 11.4 → 10.5, creator flat) and average position improved 10.32 → 9.68 — consistent with the May 2026 core-update damage partially healing. The problem that did not heal is total impressions, down another -4.9% vs last period and -32% from the early-May peak across the 17-week view (the Section 1 trend charts). When positions improve but impressions fall, the site is ranking better on the queries it still appears for while appearing for fewer queries overall — a footprint contraction, not a per-page rank loss. The diagnostic that matters now is a page- and query-cluster-level impression decomposition: which URLs and which query families lost the impressions, so we can tell post-core-update de-indexing/consolidation from a content-relevance gap. A complicating factor reappeared this cycle — mobile site speed regressed (Section 7) — so Core Web Vitals is back on the table as a contributing signal until the regression is confirmed fixed. Carried as Action #3.
The dedicated page shipped in Issue #4 remains live and indexed, and "floor plan creator" stopped falling this cycle (held at ~24.1) — but it still hasn't earned the unbranded head term and is out-ranked by the comparison/blog pages. The follow-through prescribed earlier — internal links from the homepage, /features/draw-floor-plans/, /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/, /features/ai-convert/, and /features/roomsketcher-app/ — is still the lever to transfer enough internal authority for Google to associate the URL with the head term. Note the LLMs already rank RoomSketcher #1 for "creator" (Section 3), so this is a classic-search gap, not a positioning gap. Carried as Action #3.
The keyword-family impression totals are pulled from GSC's query export, which caps at 25,000 rows per request. Both the current and last-period pulls hit that cap, so the long-tail impression sums are understated and not perfectly comparable between windows. The position figures in the table above are reliable (head terms sit well inside the top rows); the family-level impression magnitudes should be read as directional, not exact. The -27% aggregate impression drop is taken from the date-level GSC totals, which are not subject to the row cap and are reliable.
The competitive structure is unchanged from last cycle, and it sharpens why the head-term slip matters: Planner 5D continues to lead hard on AI (AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, all promoted on the homepage), while Cedreo holds dedicated creator/maker pages with no AI. RoomSketcher sits between them — it has the dedicated page and a strong AI product (AI Convert), but neither is winning the head terms right now.
| Competitor | "Floor Plan Creator" Page | "Floor Plan Maker" Page | AI Features | Key Differentiator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planner 5D | Yes — H1 "Free Floor Plan Creator Software" | No | AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, AI Interior Design | 7,000+ objects, mobile-first, AI-forward homepage — most AI-aggressive competitor |
| Cedreo | Yes — /floor-plans/floor-plan-creator/ |
Blueprint Maker page | None promoted (speed-focused: "draw a house in 2 hours") | Professional 3D, builder/remodeler-focused |
| SmartDraw | Yes — "Free Floor Plan Creator" | No | "Works with ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or something else" | US-based, 1,000+ templates; LLM-agnostic AI-hybrid positioning |
| Floorplanner | No (uses "floor planner" branding) | No | Unknown | 30M+ users, browser-based |
| Homestyler | No (generic page) | No | Yes | Autodesk-backed, rendering |
| Canva | No (generic "floor plans") | No | AI tools | Massive brand, design suite |
| Matterport | N/A | N/A | Reality capture | Different approach entirely |
| RoomSketcher | Yes — /floor-plan-creator/ |
No — US position 27.1 (was 20.7) | AI Convert | #1 overall per multiple reviews |
Planner 5D pairs an exact-match H1 ("Free Floor Plan Creator Software") with the most aggressive AI feature set in the category — this cycle its homepage promotes four distinct AI capabilities (AI Floor Plan Converter, AI Floorplan Recognition, AI Room Design, AI Interior Design). That combination is why it is the most direct competitor on both fronts the OKRs care about: traditional head-term ranking and the "get recommended by an LLM" GEO goal, because AI-feature-dense pages get described and cited more readily by ChatGPT and Perplexity. RoomSketcher's AI Convert is a genuinely strong proof point, but it is one feature messaged on a feature page, versus Planner 5D's four features on the homepage. This is the gap to close on the OKR 2 timeline.
Cedreo continues to position on speed and professional output ("the only 3D home design software to draw a complete house in just 2 hours") with no AI features promoted on its homepage. It holds a dedicated /floor-plan-creator/ page and a Blueprint Maker page, so it competes on the head terms, but it is not competing on AI discovery at all. That's an opening: in the AI-answer surfaces where Planner 5D is strong, Cedreo is effectively absent, and RoomSketcher's AI Convert can occupy that space if the AI messaging is surfaced more prominently (homepage, not just /features/ai-convert/).
Editorial dominance continues to hold even through a soft ranking cycle. RoomSketcher's own comparison page for "best floor plan software" slipped to ~9.8 this cycle but is still on page 1, and brand + AI Convert search variants continue to hold position 1. The editorial and brand foundation is intact; what softened is the non-brand head-term cohort, which is the more contestable, competitor-pressured part of the footprint.
Three structural strengths held or improved this cycle, even as the headline metrics softened. (This cycle's clearest win — Bing paid efficiency — is detailed in Section 8.)
As budget shifted off P-Max (effectively paused, -94%) into Search and Competitors, Bing conversions rose 20.3 → 25.1/day (+24%) while spend held flat, dropping Bing CPA $199 → $159 (-20%). Bing Search alone went +73% on conversions at a $85 CPA. This is the cleanest efficiency win of the cycle and it offsets much of the Google-side pullback — the combined paid CPA stayed essentially flat (~$36) despite Google conversions falling. It also shows the cross-engine reallocation is working where it landed (Bing Search), which is the read Action #2 confirms.
On the fresh June 15 LLM Visibility capture, "best floor plan creator" scores a perfect 100% — RoomSketcher is the explicit best-overall recommendation in all 6 LLMs. Even with ChatGPT click-through traffic easing off its May peak this cycle (-14%), the underlying recommendation position in AI answers is the durable asset, and it leads classic search on the same term (where "creator" still sits at ~24 in Google). As AI discovery grows, being the name the model hands back is the position worth protecting.
RoomSketcher remains #1 in multiple US editorial reviews, the /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/ comparison page is still on page 1 for the high-volume buyer-intent term, and brand + AI Convert variants hold position 1. The non-brand head terms softened, but the brand and editorial foundation — the harder-to-displace asset — did not. That foundation is what makes a one-cycle ranking dip recoverable rather than structural.
Lighthouse via PageSpeed Insights, homepage, June 14 — reported as the median of 5 runs each for mobile and desktop. (PSI lab runs have real run-to-run noise and the occasional rogue slow load, so for a surprising result the median of 5 is far more trustworthy than a 2-run average.) The read: mobile regressed and stayed there on all 5 runs (Lighthouse 66 → 60, LCP 8.4s → 13.1s), while desktop essentially held (98 → 96, LCP 0.6s). The mobile-only regression is driven by render-blocking CSS delaying first paint (detail and Action #1 below).
https://www.roomsketcher.com/. Mobile was identical on all 5 runs (Perf 60, LCP 13.1s) — so this is a stable regression, not a rogue load. Desktop ranged 95–98 (median 96). Median values: Mobile Perf 60, LCP 13.1s, FCP 3.8s, TBT 168ms, CLS 0.014; Desktop Perf 96, LCP 0.6s, FCP 0.3s, TBT 150ms, CLS 0.006; Accessibility 97, SEO 100.
The mobile LCP element is the homepage hero thumbnail (img.dk-bci-thumbnail). It downloads early (eager, fetchpriority="high"), but its render is delayed: the page head loads 9 render-blocking stylesheets that must resolve before first paint. PSI flags the theme styles.css (~0.7s), WordPress block-library/style.min.css (~1.0s), and several plugin stylesheets (gallery, selling-points, factbox, BCI view.css) — so the already-downloaded hero can't paint until they finish. Mobile CPU/network throttling magnifies this into the 13.1s LCP; desktop (unthrottled, 0.6s) is unaffected. TBT is low (~170ms), so the bottleneck is the CSS render path, not JavaScript.
Action #1: reduce render-blocking CSS — inline the critical above-the-fold CSS and defer/async the non-critical plugin stylesheets. Ask the WP team whether a recent plugin/theme update added stylesheets to the head, the likely cause of the 8.4s → 13.1s move. Minor secondary win: tighten the hero sizes attribute so mobile selects the 430w source instead of 768w (~26 KB). Add a standing PSI check to the biweekly. Head terms recovered this cycle (Section 4) despite this, so speed isn't the dominant organic driver — but Core Web Vitals is a ranking input we don't want compounding the impression decline.
Desktop 96, CLS clean (mobile 0.014 / desktop 0.006), Accessibility 97, SEO 100 — all within good thresholds. The regression is isolated to mobile load performance (LCP/TBT), which is what makes it likely a single reverted setting rather than a broad change.
Items that show up in the data this cycle as concerns or untapped levers, ordered by urgency. Three things lead: (1) the mobile site-speed regression (Section 7); (2) the OKR 2 organic footprint contraction — impressions still falling even as head-term positions recover; and (3) a deliberate cross-engine paid reallocation (P-Max paused on both engines) that needs a confirm. Paid efficiency itself was a bright spot this cycle, on Bing.
The two-week move looks mild — impressions 114,442 → 108,881/day (-4.9%), average position actually improved 10.32 → 9.68 — but the 17-week trend (the Section 1 trend charts) shows impressions down ~32% from their early-May peak on a steady decline, and Organic sessions down -29% since February. Positions improving while impressions fall means RoomSketcher ranks better on the queries it still appears for but appears for fewer queries: a footprint contraction. The prior-cycle decomposition below (carried; a fresh page-level pull is Action #3) showed the loss concentrated in the /blog/ how-to section rather than gallery or product pages — the pattern to re-confirm now.
| Section (US, impr/day) — prior-cycle decomposition (carried) | Earlier | Later | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| /blog/ (how-to articles) | 52,155 | 33,649 | -36% |
| /floor-plan-gallery/ | 16,090 | 12,868 | -20% |
| /features/ | 5,528 | 3,581 | -35% |
| Homepage | 2,863 | 2,750 | -4% |
The mechanism identified last cycle still fits: much of the lost volume is high-impression, near-zero-CTR queries where blog how-to pages ranked on the wrong term — impressions that never converted. That makes the headline number less alarming than it looks (clicks fell only -2.6% vs impressions, and CTR held ~1.05%). But three cycles of steady impression decline is no longer comfortably explained as one core update clearing vanity impressions — it now reads as a sustained reduction in how many queries the site surfaces for. The Action #3 decomposition (which URLs and query clusters lost impressions, and whether they were converting) is what separates "healthy pruning" from "losing ground we want."
On cause: the May 2026 core update (May 21, "helpful content") plus the rise of Google AI Overviews answering definitional queries directly is the most likely backdrop — RoomSketcher's how-to blog content sits squarely in the category AI Overviews now absorbs. The core update has finished rolling out, so this cycle is the clean post-rollout read: positions recovered (good), breadth did not. The newly-regressed mobile speed (Section 7) is a secondary headwind worth removing so it doesn't compound the trend.
What keeps this from being alarming: clicks and conversions barely moved (clicks -2.6%, GA4 purchase -1.6%), so the lost impressions still weren't the ones driving the business, and the head terms recovered. What makes it worth a real diagnostic: the decline is now three cycles deep and visible as a clean downward slope in the trend view, not a one-window artifact. The right move this cycle is no longer "hold and wait out the rollout" (the rollout is done) — it's the Action #3 impression decomposition to decide whether to defend specific blog clusters or let them go to AI Overviews and reallocate the content effort.
The Google conversion drop (-14%) is concentrated, not broad: P-Max and Competitors were cut hard while Search scaled. The same P-Max pullback happened on Bing — effectively paused (-94%) — with budget moved into Bing Search and Competitors, where it converted well. This is a deliberate reallocation; the question for Action #2 is whether it's intentional and whether Google Search can hold the volume Bing Search is now winning more cheaply:
| Campaign (US, conv Δ vs last) | Bing | |
|---|---|---|
| Branded | -20.8% | -16.7% |
| Search | +13.4% | +72.6% |
| Competitors | -37.9% | +40.9% |
| P-Max | -46.2% | -93.8% |
P-Max conversions fell -46% (Google) and -94% (Bing, effectively off). Google tried to absorb it into Search (+13% conv) but still netted -14% overall; Bing absorbed it into Search (+73%) and Competitors (+41%) and netted +24% at a lower CPA — the better-executed reallocation. Branded softened on both (-21% / -17%), worth a glance for competitor brand-bidding. The action is to confirm the P-Max pause is intentional (asset/budget decision vs. a Smart-Bidding stall) and decide whether to rebuild P-Max or formalize the shift to Search. Action #2.
As paid free-signup volume came off (Google Free Personal -16%, fewer paid clicks overall) and organic kept drifting, GA4 all-source sign_up fell -10.4% and new_subscription -9.8%. The reassuring half: purchase was essentially flat (-1.6%), so the people who do arrive still convert at the same rate — the softness is a volume story at the top, not a conversion-quality story. This is the same shape the team is seeing in the app-side US (NorAm) data they're reviewing separately: new users down year-over-year, subscriptions holding. The thing to watch is whether two top-of-funnel sources easing at once (paid pullback + organic drift) compounds next cycle; tracking the free→paid cohort rate explicitly remains the right instrument.
The ~801 pages with identical meta descriptions / ~797 with identical titles flagged in prior cycles — almost certainly the template gallery (~841 gallery pages received US impressions this period, up from 782) — remain unresolved. Gallery impressions actually fell -26% this cycle (225k → 167k) in line with the broader organic softness, and gallery clicks fell -19%. The fix is unchanged: pattern-based templated metadata via WordPress template logic clears hundreds of pages in one pass. Carried as Action #6.
Zero US query impressions for "affiliate" or "floorcapture" again this cycle; /affiliate/ remains externally undetectable. These initiatives are still pending from a search-discovery perspective. No change since Issue #3/#4 — flagged here only so it doesn't fall off the list.
A direct pull of the brand account (u/roomsketcher_sean, verified) this cycle shows just 3 disclosed "I work at RoomSketcher" comments in r/floorplan (Jan, Apr, and May 15, 2026) and zero visible posts. One data point worth flagging, without over-reading it: the account's karma (7,722 link, 530 comment) is far higher than that visible footprint, which means earlier posts/comments existed but are no longer publicly visible — whether self-deleted or removed by moderators is not determinable from the public API, so we shouldn't assume. The strategic point holds either way: only publicly visible content can be cited by Perplexity's or ChatGPT's crawlers, and right now that's 3 comments. So the durable GEO lever is not the brand account — it's earning organic, third-party mentions (real users recommending RoomSketcher) and contributing genuinely helpful answers. The four largest design subs (r/InteriorDesign, r/RealEstate, r/HomeImprovement, r/architecture) have no presence yet, and Quora — Perplexity's parallel citation graph — is entirely absent. This is a Section 8 longer-horizon item, not a two-week action; it's the lever most likely to move Perplexity over the next 1–2 cycles if the team chooses to invest.
No new market-size data this cycle — carrying forward the category baseline. Two industry-trend reads worth noting given the Q2 OKRs and this cycle's data.
Planner 5D now promotes four distinct AI features on its homepage; SmartDraw messages LLM-agnostic AI compatibility; Canva and Homestyler both list AI tools. The category is converging on "AI features visible above the fold on the homepage," not buried on a feature page. RoomSketcher's AI Convert is a stronger product proof point than most of what competitors are messaging, but it lives on /features/ai-convert/ rather than the homepage. Surfacing it more prominently is both an SEO/GEO move (AI-dense pages get cited more by LLMs) and a positioning move — it's the natural pairing with the OKR 3 "Credentialing Update."
RoomSketcher's AI referral mix this cycle (ChatGPT 84%, Copilot 6%, Gemini 4%, Perplexity 4%, Claude 2%) still mirrors the broader B2C web in mid-2026 — ChatGPT remains the dominant surface even after easing off its May peak. The one local wrinkle is Copilot edging into the #2 slot this cycle (+146% off a tiny base), worth noting only because Bing/Copilot is the AI surface we have the least direct citation visibility into. The OKR 2 implication is unchanged: AEO investment compounds in ChatGPT first; the other engines are smaller, slower wins.
Google's May 2026 core update (announced May 21, a "helpful content" update demoting generic informational summaries) has now completed its rollout, so this is the clean post-update read. The result is split: RoomSketcher's tracked head-term positions recovered this cycle (Section 4), but total impressions kept falling — the breadth of ranking queries did not come back. That pattern fits the structural shift the update accelerates: definitional how-to queries are increasingly answered by Google's AI Overviews directly, so the impressions don't return to blue links regardless of content quality. The strategic response is no longer "wait out the rollout" — it's to decide, per blog cluster, whether to compete for the AI-Overview citation or reallocate the effort (Action #3).
The durable assets are intact: RoomSketcher is the named #1 "floor plan creator" across the LLMs, editorial/brand dominance held, head-term positions recovered, and Bing paid got more efficient. But three things need attention rather than applause this cycle — the mobile speed regression, the multi-month organic footprint contraction, and a paid reallocation that needs confirming. None is a strategic reset; together they make the Section 10 list more diagnostic-heavy than usual. The single most encouraging data point: purchases held flat while top-of-funnel volume softened, so the business still converts the demand it gets.
Action items to run before the next biweekly call (June 29, 2026). Each is tagged with the Q2 OKR objective it serves. Ordered roughly by sequence — items 1–3 are confirmations/diagnostics that unblock the read on the rest.
Mobile LCP regressed to 13.1s (from 8.40s) and mobile Lighthouse fell 66 → 60 (median of 5 runs); desktop held (98 → 96). The driver is render-blocking CSS — 9 stylesheets in the page head (theme + WP block-library + several plugin sheets) delay first paint. Ask the WP team whether a recent plugin/theme update added stylesheets to the head, then inline critical CSS and defer/async the non-critical plugin sheets (Section 7). Kworq will add a standing PSI check to the biweekly so the next regression surfaces in days, not a cycle later.
P-Max conversions fell -46% on Google and -94% on Bing this cycle (Section 8). On Bing the reallocation worked — budget moved into Search (+73% conv) and Competitors (+41%), netting +24% at a lower CPA. On Google it didn't fully land: Search grew +13% but total Google conversions still fell -14%. Two questions for the account team: (1) Was the P-Max pause deliberate (asset/budget decision) or a Smart-Bidding/asset stall? (2) Given Bing Search is absorbing the volume more cheaply, should Google rebuild P-Max or formalize the shift into Google Search? Also glance at Branded softening on both engines (-21% / -17%) for competitor brand-bidding.
The core update has finished and positions recovered, but impressions kept falling — a three-cycle footprint contraction now visible as a clean downward slope (the Section 1 trend charts). The rollout is over, so "hold and wait" no longer applies. Kworq will pull GSC at the page and query-cluster level to quantify which URLs and query families lost impressions and whether those queries were converting — separating healthy pruning (low-CTR definitional terms going to AI Overviews) from ground worth defending. The output is a short "defend / let-go / re-target" list per blog cluster that drives the content decision, rather than reacting to the aggregate number.
The dedicated page is live and indexed and the head term stopped falling this cycle (held at ~24.1), but it still hasn't earned the term — and the LLMs already rank RoomSketcher #1 for "creator," so this is a classic-search gap. Internal-link authority is the remaining lever. Add in-content links to the page from the homepage, /features/draw-floor-plans/, /blog/best-floor-plan-software-tools/, /features/ai-convert/, and /features/roomsketcher-app/; and change the H1 to "Free Floor Plan Creator" to match Planner 5D's exact-match on the highest-intent variant.
Carried forward. Top citation-target pages: floor-plan-symbols, electrical-symbols, ada-bathroom-requirements, floor-plan-dimensions, gross-floor-area-gfa. With ChatGPT ~84% of US AI traffic, the AEO formatting pass (FAQ schema, structured Q&A, clean H2/H3, table-formatted lists) compounds the dominant channel — and the same structured Q&A is what wins the AI-Overview citations the blog pages are losing blue links to (Action #3). Five-page pilot first; scale to 20 if it shows measurable lift next cycle.
Carried forward. Bing Webmaster still flags ~801 pages with identical meta descriptions and ~797 with identical titles — the template gallery (~841 gallery pages received US impressions this cycle). Gallery impressions fell -26% in line with the broader organic softness. Pattern-based templated metadata (e.g., "{Template Name} Floor Plan — {Sq Ft} sq ft, {Bedrooms} BR | RoomSketcher") resolves hundreds of pages at once via WordPress template logic.
The June 15 LLM Visibility capture is in (creator 100%, software 79.2%) — the primary OKR 2 KR is current and trending up on creator. Maintain the weekly NYC cadence so the trend keeps building, and prioritize the software term: the gap is Gemini and Perplexity leading with Floorplanner/SketchUp. The Section 8 Reddit/Quora build-out and the AEO pass (Action #5) are the levers most likely to lift the software score next.
For the third cycle running, GA4's Unassigned bucket carries ~1,300 sessions at an impossibly high conversion rate — existing-user conversions where GA4 lost the source but kept the user_id. It recurs every cycle, yet the channel scorecard can attribute none of it, so paid/organic credit is understated structurally. Kworq will run a GA4 Exploration on Unassigned-with-conversions broken down by user_id, landing page, and event_name to identify whether these belong to Email, Direct, or a custom channel, and propose the attribution fix. This also feeds the broader Direct attribution clean-up (360-share UTMs, ActiveCampaign email tagging, app ?source=app param).
/floor-plan-gallery/ section of the site (~841 template pages received US impressions this cycle).