Best practices only help if they are specific enough to do on a Tuesday. These seven are the list we still see missing in audits for contractors, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and similar trades. Do them in order if the profile is weak. If the profile is strong, start at the practice that is actually broken.
1. Treat Google Business Profile as the storefront
Correct primary category. Services filled out. Photos from this quarter. Posts that link to a service page. Q&A answered. Hours true. This practice beats a new blog every time for Map Pack. Details: rank in Google Maps.
2. Target the jobs and cities you sell, in language customers type
Use service-plus-city on pages where you work. Do not stuff five cities in a title. Do not chase rankings for jobs you decline. Paid search terms that already convert are a keyword list you did not have to invent. Put those on organic pages.
3. Give each offering a page
Roof replacement, deck building, AC replacement, drain cleaning: separate URLs, real photos, click-to-call. One Services dump is not seven pages. Load under two seconds. Websites if the current stack cannot.
"Seven SEO practices service owners can run: Google Business Profile, keywords, service pages, links, reviews, schema, and tracking. Concrete, not a recap of every other guide."
4. Earn links from the trade's real web
Suppliers, manufacturers, local news, associations. Extra Link Building +$1,500 per month on active SEO when you need velocity. Skip automated directory blasts.
5. Run reviews as an operating system
Ask at closeout. Text follow-up. Reply to every review. Reviews and local SEO. A quarterly guilt email is not a practice.
6. Mark the pages up with schema
LocalBusiness, services, FAQ where the questions are real, reviews only if they are yours. Validate with Google's Rich Results Test. Schema does not replace content. It helps machines read what you already wrote, including AI systems. AI SEO at +$1,500 builds on this with an active campaign.
7. Track calls and ranks where customers stand
Call tracking. Booked jobs in a CRM. Geogrid, not a single desktop search at the shop. This practice tells you whether 1 to 6 worked.
SEO campaigns run $3,000 per month with a 90-day Top-3 Map Pack target. If we miss it, we keep working. Ads can sit beside the list: Google Ads at $0 agency fee on typical $5,000 monthly competitive-metro spend.
For a scored list of which practices you miss, $1,000 Growth Audit. Book a strategy call at (813) 669-7572.
A weekly scoreboard for the seven
- ·GBP: last post date, last photo date, unanswered reviews.
- ·Keywords: which service-plus-city pages exist vs which you still sell without a URL.
- ·Pages: one test load on a phone.
- ·Links: any new real placement, not directory spam.
- ·Reviews: count this week.
- ·Schema: still valid after the last site edit.
- ·Tracking: calls by source, plus two incognito pack checks.
If the scoreboard is empty, the practices are posters. If only reviews move, you will convert better when you do show. If only pages move and GBP is stale, you will rank URLs nobody sees in the pack.
Order when budget is tight
Phone answered. GBP. Review ask. One service page that loads in under two seconds. Tracking. Then paid ads if you need jobs, and the rest of the seven on a campaign. Skipping the phone to buy schema is a classic stall.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which of the seven should I do first?
Google Business Profile if you are missing from the pack. Tracking if you already spend on ads and cannot name cost per job. Pages if you rank and nobody calls.
Are these different for national vs local companies?
Service companies live or die locally. Even multi-city operators need a profile and pages per market, not one national blog.
How often should I revisit the list?
GBP and reviews weekly. Pages and schema when you add a service. Links monthly. Tracking every week ads or SEO run.
Do I need all seven to see any calls?
No. A cleaned-up profile and a working phone can produce calls. The rest is how you keep and grow them.
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