Getting Found On Google

This is the big one. Take your time here.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. All it means is: making it more likely you show up when somebody searches for what you do.

That's it. It's not magic, it's not hacking, and anybody who talks about it like a dark art is either confused or selling.

WHAT A SEARCH RESULT PAGE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE

When somebody searches "plumber near me," they get four different things stacked on top of each other. You need to know which is which, because they're won in completely different ways.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🔍 plumber near me                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  [Sponsored]  Ace Plumbing                  │  ◄── 1. ADS
│  [Sponsored]  QuickFlow Plumbing            │      (you pay)
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ⭐ Google Guaranteed                        │  ◄── 2. LOCAL
│     Verified pros, screened & background     │      SERVICE ADS
│     checked                                  │      (pay per lead)
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│   ┌───────────┐                             │
│   │    MAP    │   ★ Miller Plumbing  4.9    │  ◄── 3. THE MAP PACK
│   │           │   ★ Cascade Plumbing 4.7    │      ★ THE PRIZE ★
│   └───────────┘   ★ Bob's Plumbing   4.6    │      (free)
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  yourwebsite.com                            │  ◄── 4. ORGANIC
│  Plumber in Monroe WA | Miller Plumbing     │      RESULTS
│  ─────────────────────────────────────────  │      (free)
│  anothersite.com                            │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

[FIGURE 4.1 — "Anatomy of a Search"] Art direction: Clean redraw of a phone-shaped search results page with the four zones color-coded and labeled with callout arrows on the side. Highlight the Map Pack in the signal blue. Label it "THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT."

Zone 3 — the Map Pack — is the prize. Three businesses. Right at the top. With stars. For free.

Being in that box of three is worth more than any other digital marketing thing you can do. And the way you get in it is not primarily your website.

It's your Google Business Profile.

GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE: THE FREE THING YOU'RE PROBABLY IGNORING

Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows up in the map. It's free. It takes an afternoon to set up right.

If you do one thing from this entire book, do this one.

Here's what "set up right" means:

Claim and verify it. Go to google.com/business. If a listing already exists for your business (it might — Google creates them automatically sometimes), claim it. Verification usually means a postcard, a phone call, or a video. Video verification has gotten common for service-area businesses, and it trips people up — Google wants to see proof you actually manage the place, which means filming yourself unlocking the door with your own key, not just walking through an open one.

Pick the right primary category. This matters enormously. "Plumber" not "Contractor." Be specific. You can add secondary categories after.

Set your service area correctly. If you go to customers instead of them coming to you, set it to the specific cities you actually serve. Do not set it to your whole state or country — Google will bury you. List the actual towns.

Fill in every single field. Hours. Services with descriptions. Attributes. Payment types. Every blank field is a small penalty.

Add photos. Then keep adding photos. Profiles with lots of photos get significantly more clicks and direction requests. Add a few every month. Truck shots, job shots, crew shots. This is a five-minute-a-week habit that pays.

Post updates. Google lets you post like it's social media. Almost no contractors do it. Do it twice a month — a job you finished, a seasonal reminder, a promotion.

Answer the Q&A section. Anyone can ask a question on your profile — including your competitors. You can also ask and answer your own. Seed it with your top five FAQs.

Get reviews. Constantly.

[FIGURE 4.2 — "GBP Completeness Checklist"] Art direction: A vehicle-inspection-style checklist form. Rows for each GBP field, checkbox column, "why it matters" column in small type. Designed to be printed and worked through in one sitting.

REVIEWS: THE MOST IMPORTANT NUMBER IN YOUR BUSINESS

Reviews affect two things at once: whether Google shows you, and whether a human calls you. Nothing else does both that hard.

What actually matters:

• Quantity. Twenty reviews beats four, even at the same star rating.
• Recency. Reviews from this month count for more than reviews from 2019. A business with 80 reviews where the newest is two years old looks closed.
• Rating. Aim for 4.6–4.9. Believe it or not, a perfect 5.0 with 200 reviews reads as suspicious to a lot of people. A few 4-stars make you look human.
• Your replies. Reply to every review. Every one. Good and bad.

How to actually get them — because "we should ask for reviews" is a thing everybody says and nobody does:

Make it a step in your job closeout. Not an afterthought. A step, like cleaning up or collecting payment.

The sequence that works:

1. At the end of the job, while you're standing there: "Hey — did we do right by you today?"
2. If yes: "Would you mind leaving us a quick Google review? It's honestly the biggest thing that helps a small shop like ours."
3. Text them the direct link before you leave the driveway. Not tomorrow. Now. You can get a short review link right inside your Google Business Profile.
4. If they say yes and don't do it, one follow-up text two days later. One. Then let it go.

Ask ten customers, get three or four reviews. Do that every week and you'll have forty reviews in a year while your competitor has nine.

Bad reviews: you will get them. Sometimes from people who are wrong or lying. Rules:

• Never respond angry. Wait a day.
• Respond publicly, briefly, professionally. You're not writing to the reviewer — you're writing to the 200 people who will read it later.
• Acknowledge, don't argue. "I'm sorry the scheduling didn't go the way we planned. That's on us. I'd like to make it right — please call me directly at 555-1234. — Mike, owner"
• That response wins you more customers than the bad review costs you. Handled well, a 1-star can be an asset.

Never buy reviews. Google catches it, and the penalty can wipe out your entire listing.

KEYWORDS WITHOUT THE MYSTERY

A keyword is just what somebody types in.

You don't need a $400 software subscription to figure out yours. You need to think like a person with a problem.

Your keywords are almost always this pattern:

[what they need] + [where they are]

• "emergency plumber Everett"
• "AC not cooling Snohomish"
• "gutter cleaning near me"
• "how much does a new roof cost"

Notice that last one. Question searches matter. People research before they buy. If you're the one who answered their question, you're the one they call.

Free ways to find your real keywords:

1. Google's own autocomplete. Start typing your service and town, see what it suggests. Those are real searches.
2. "People also ask." That box in the middle of search results is a list of questions your customers have.
3. Your own phone. Write down what customers say when they call. They use different words than you do. You say "condenser," they say "the thing outside that makes noise." Use their words on your site.
4. Google Search Console. Free. Shows you what people actually searched before they landed on your site. We'll set this up in Chapter 6.

Where keywords go: naturally, in your page titles, headlines, and body text. Written for a human being.

What kills you is stuffing. "We are the best Monroe plumber for Monroe plumbing in Monroe because our Monroe plumbers..." Google has punished this since 2011 and it makes you look like a bot. Write like a person. Mention the town where it's natural. Done.

THE THREE PILLARS, PLAIN

Everything in SEO is one of three things:

1. On-page — what's on your website. Page titles, headlines, content, images, structure, speed. You control this completely. Highest return for the effort.

2. Off-page — what other sites say about you. Links from other websites, mentions, directory listings, reviews. Slower, harder, still matters.

3. Technical — whether Google can read your site properly. Speed, mobile, sitemap, no broken links, secure connection (the padlock — the https). Usually handled by whoever builds it. Ask if it's done.

For a local contractor, the practical order of operations is:

   1. Google Business Profile     ████████████████████  Do this first
   2. Reviews                     ██████████████████    Never stop
   3. Service + city pages        ████████████          Do this second
   4. Speed & mobile              █████████             Non-negotiable
   5. Directory listings          ██████                Steady drip
   6. Content / blog              █████                 If you have time
   7. Link building               ███                   Later

[FIGURE 4.3 — "Where to Spend Your Effort"] Art direction: Horizontal bar chart matching the above, styled like a fuel gauge or pressure gauge set. Blue bars, black labels. Header: "In this order. Not all at once."

DIRECTORY LISTINGS AND THE NAP RULE

NAP = Name, Address, Phone.

Your business is listed in a bunch of places — Yelp, Angi, BBB, Nextdoor, Facebook, Apple Maps, Bing Places, your chamber of commerce, supply house directories. Some you created. Some created themselves.

The rule: your name, address, and phone must be written identically everywhere.

Not "Miller Plumbing LLC" in one place and "Miller Plumbing & Heating" in another. Not "Suite D" here and "Ste. D" there. Not an old phone number lingering on a listing you forgot about.

Google cross-references these. Inconsistency makes it less confident you're a real, stable business, and that costs you map ranking.

Pick your exact format. Write it down. Use it everywhere, forever.

HOW LONG DOES SEO TAKE?

Honest answer, because you'll get lied to about this:

• Google Business Profile improvements: days to a few weeks. Fastest win available.
• New website ranking for your own business name: a week or two.
• Ranking for competitive terms like "plumber [your city]": three to nine months of consistent work.
• Dominating a competitive metro: a year or more, and you'll spend money.

Anybody who promises page one in thirty days is either talking about searches nobody makes, or lying. Both happen constantly.

DO THIS NOW

Three things, in order:

1. Search your own business name on your phone. Is your Google Business Profile there? Claimed? Complete?
2. Search "[your main service] [your town]" and write down the three businesses in the map pack. That's your actual competition. Go look at their sites and their review counts. Now you know the bar.
3. Text your last three happy customers and ask for a review. Right now, while you're thinking about it.

→ GOING DEEPER This chapter is the short version. Book Two — "Getting Found" — is entirely about Google Business Profile, the map pack, reviews at scale, and local ranking, with the step-by-step setups this chapter only summarizes.