How to Rank a Home Service Business on Google Maps: Big West Marketing's Checklist

Who is Joe from Big West Marketing?

Joe is a former carpet cleaner who now builds websites and does SEO for home service businesses. He started a carpet cleaning business in Missoula, Montana in 2009, when the economy was bad, working out of his wife’s minivan. A friend of his father told him he could put the business on Google for free, so he taught himself to build a website, registered with Google and started collecting reviews.

There were 25 carpet cleaners in town, and most were still buying Valpak and Yellow Pages ads. It took a few months, but his phone “started blowing up.” He learned the marketing at four or five in the morning, before cleaning carpets at 9:00.

“I had to get carpet cleaning jobs coming in, otherwise I couldn’t feed my family,” he said.

He began helping carpet cleaners in other towns as a side hustle. In 2014 his technician bought the cleaning business, with money borrowed from his father-in-law, and still runs it. Joe went full time on marketing. Big West Marketing now does web design and search engine optimization for electricians, HVAC companies, cleaners, pressure washers and other service businesses.

Do you need a website before you set up a Google Business Profile?

Yes. Joe said one of the big reasons Google rejects a new Google Business Profile is that the business has no website at all.

A do-it-yourself site on GoDaddy or Wix is enough at first to show Google the business is serious. A professionally built site can come later.

Why does your address decide where you rank on Google Maps?

Because the city you rank in is the city of the address you register with Google, whether that address is hidden or visible. Joe called it the hard truth that most marketing companies and YouTube videos will not tell you.

A home-based business can hide its address and show a service area, and it can still rank. But Google knows where the address is. If you want to rank in a different city, you need an address in that city:

• It has to be your official business address, registered with the Secretary of State.
• Expect a video verification. Postcards are no longer used.
• Google may ask for a utility bill, such as a cell phone or electric bill.
• PO boxes, virtual addresses and UPS boxes do not work.

A friend’s or family member’s address can work if you make it official. The other route is renting a small office. One of Joe’s clients found a basement office of about 90 square feet, big enough for a desk and a computer to do the video verification, and sublet it to offset the cost. It only has to be a legitimate office with a door that locks and a sign.

“If you’re willing to do this and your competitors are not, you’ve got a huge, huge advantage,” he said.

How many reviews and photos does a Google Business Profile need?

Ten reviews is the first target. Joe said Google starts taking a business seriously at that point. After that there is no fixed number. What matters is getting reviews continuously, whether one a week or several, at a pace set by how many your competitors have and how often they get them.

Photos come next. Joe said photos are now a ranking factor, not the biggest one but a growing one, because genuine photos cannot be faked. Google can read what is in a picture, including the logo on a shirt, hat or truck, and match it to the profile and the website. His habit to copy: about five photos a week of the crew doing real jobs, uploaded to both the profile and the website.

A profile also has to stay fresh. Reviews, photos and perhaps one Google post a month are enough, because most home service competitors are not active. “If your competitors are on there once a month, you need to be on there twice a month.” For clients, his team checks once a quarter that services are current, photos are updated and reviews are answered.

What should a home service website have on it?

Three things, which Joe said about 90% of the service websites he reviews get wrong:

1. A big phone number right at the top.
2. Personalized photos instead of stock photos.
3. A separate page for each service, not a bulleted list.

Each service page should run a good 500 to 1,000 words, with real frequently asked questions and photos of that kind of job. His example was an electrician’s page about EV chargers: have more useful content about EV chargers than anyone else in the area. AI tools can help write it, but the content should match what you would tell a customer on the phone. His agency’s prompts run half a page and are based on conversations with the client.

City pages follow the same rule. Each needs unique content about that city: FAQs, testimonials from customers there, photos of jobs done there, and an embedded Google map. Copying one page and swapping the city name used to rank. It does not now.

How is AI search changing local SEO?

It is changing how people search, and Joe is excited rather than worried. His wife uses ChatGPT far more than Google, and his two daughters in high school hardly touch Google.

He was clear that nobody has it figured out. He ran the same ChatGPT search twice in one day and got different results, and there is no software to track it. What helps now is what already helps: good, specific content and city pages.

His warning was about companies selling AI tools on fear. One client had already locked into a year at $700 a month for software Joe looked at and called scammy. His parting advice: “Get some reviews, get good pictures, be smart, use common sense.”