SEO and PPC for home service businesses
Directories above you, franchises paying for the top of the page, and customers who pick whoever appears first. One of our engagements launched into exactly that.
In home services you are not only competing with other operators
Search a home service in any city and the first screen is rented: the franchises buy the ad slots, and Yelp, Thumbtack and Angi occupy much of what is left. The independent operator is competing with the directories as much as with the business down the road.
That sounds discouraging and is not. Directories rank on breadth, not depth. A local operator that genuinely answers the city-and-service search can take the first earned result — which is where the free clicks are, and where the customer who did not want an aggregator ends up.
The second reality is that these are urgent, high-intent searches. Someone needing a job done this week is not comparison-shopping for a month. Appearing at the moment of intent, with a profile that answers the obvious questions, is most of the work.
- #1Organic result for the city’s head terms — above Yelp, Thumbtack and the national franchises paying for the slots above it
- <1 yrFrom domain purchase to the top of the city’s results, with no ad budget at any point
- 128KSearch appearances in sixteen months, across roughly 1,000 distinct queries
- $0Ad spend. The entire result was earned
How we approach local search · Figures from the client’s Search Console. Full write-up on the case studies page.
What we actually do for home service businesses
This is the sequence that took a brand-new domain to the top of its city.
The Business Profile first, always
For a local service business this is the highest-return surface there is. Complete, current, active, and answering the questions a customer asks before they call.
A page for each service and each area
Built to be the best answer for that specific search rather than a list of everything you do. Breadth is what the directories have; depth is what beats them.
The words customers actually use
People do not search the way trades describe their own work. The gap between those two vocabularies is usually where the available traffic is sitting.
Authority built steadily, from zero
A new domain has no history to trade on. Earning genuine mentions and links is slower than buying clicks and it is what makes a ranking hold once it arrives.
Home services search, answered plainly
We are brand new, with no reviews and no history. Is this realistic?
That is precisely the situation in the case study above: fresh domain, no reviews, no ad budget. Inside a year it was the top organic result for its city’s head terms. It is slower than paying for clicks, and it does not stop when you stop paying.
Can we outrank Yelp and Thumbtack?
For the specific city-and-service searches that bring work, often yes. Directories win on breadth; they rarely beat a local operator on a page genuinely built to answer one city’s question. The client above sits above both.
Should we run ads as well?
Frequently yes, especially early, to produce work while the organic side builds. But it is not compulsory — the case study above used none. The Search Review will say which makes sense for your market rather than assume.
How many service areas can you cover?
As many as you genuinely serve. The limit is honesty rather than technique: pages for areas you cannot actually reach produce enquiries you have to turn down, which is worse than not ranking.
Find out what your city’s results look like
A free written review of your rankings, your Business Profile and your ad account, back within two business days — and yours to keep either way.
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