What do I need?
Nine questions about your business. No email required, and the result includes what not to buy.
Question 1 of 9
About two minutes
What we would do first
Find out what is actually happening first.
You can't say which of your marketing brings in work, so every decision about spend is a guess — including whether to keep spending. This costs less to fix than more traffic costs to buy, and it is what makes every other question on this list answerable. We do not run ads against tracking nobody has confirmed.
- Start hereAn audit, and tracking that works →Two to three weeks. We look at what you have, then wire the site so a call or a form fill is recorded with the ad, page or search that caused it. After this, the numbers you look at are real.
- ThenFix what the numbers point at →Once you can see it, the fix is usually obvious and usually on the site you already have. That costs less than buying traffic and it keeps working after you stop paying.
- Not yetPaid searchBuying traffic you can't measure is how people spend two years without knowing whether it worked. And once you can measure it, fixing what you already have almost always beats renting more.
What we would do first
Not enough people are finding you.
Your competitors come up and you do not, or you come up beside three of them and it is a coin flip. That is a visibility problem, and for a local business it is usually fixed off the website as much as on it — the Google profile, the reviews, and pages that exist for the things people actually search.
- Start hereSEO, on and off the site →An audit done by hand, then the fixes shipped by us. Real local pages per service area, and the Google profile, listings and reviews treated as ranking work rather than reputation work.
- AlongsideYour Google profile and reviews →For a local business this moves the needle faster than anything on the site. Steady new reviews and a complete profile are ranking work, not reputation work.
- Not yetPaid searchAds rent the position you are trying to earn, and the rent does not stop. While organic is the weak part, the same money buys more by fixing it. Paid search earns its place once you are already being found.
What we would do first
Local Services Ads are the cheapest lead you are not buying.
You are a licensed, insured local service business, which is exactly what this channel is for. It sits above the map pack, and you are charged when somebody actually calls or messages — not for the clicks that go nowhere. It also ranks on review velocity and how fast you answer the phone rather than on budget, so it rewards the things you are already doing.
- Start hereGet verified and ranking →License and insurance verification, the profile built to match your Business Profile exactly, and a review routine that produces new reviews every week. Reviews are the heaviest ranking factor by a distance.
- AlongsideAnswer every call inside a minute →Response time is the second ranking factor, and no human team holds a sub-minute answer rate across evenings and weekends. Budget here scales with how many calls you can answer, not the other way round.
- Not yetPaid searchYou pay per click on Search and per lead here. Start with the one where a click that goes nowhere is free.
What we would do first
People are finding you and picking somebody else.
The traffic is there. The site is what loses it. A stranger comparing you to your closest competitor gives each of you about eight seconds, and that decision is made on how fast the page loads, whether it says what you do, and whether there is an easy way to get hold of you.
- Start hereA website you own →Fast, clear about what you do and where you work, with the form and the tracking wired in from day one. Every old address redirects to its closest match, so the rankings you have come with you.
- ThenReviews and your Google profile →The other half of the comparison happens before anyone reaches your site. Reviews and a properly filled-in profile are free and they move more than most paid work does.
- Not yetPaid searchYou are being found, so this is the one case where paid search is the right next spend. Not yet, though: ads need a page that converts, and pointing spend at the current site means paying full price for the page that was already the problem.
What we would do first
You are losing leads you already paid for.
Calls missed, forms nobody answered, quotes never followed up. Whoever answers first usually gets the job, and right now that depends on who is at their desk. This is cheaper to fix than more leads are to buy, and it makes every lead you already have worth more.
- Start hereCatch and route every lead →Two to three weeks. Every call and form lands in one place with the source attached, the follow-up is automatic, and nothing depends on somebody remembering.
- ThenAnswer outside business hours →Booking on the site and a chatbot that qualifies and schedules at 9pm. Most people looking for you are not looking at 10am.
- Not yetMore marketingMore leads would land on the same leak. Plug it, then turn the tap up.
What we would do first
Your tools do not talk, and your people are the glue.
The same job gets typed into two places, quotes and invoices eat hours, and it holds together because somebody remembers how. That caps how much work you can take on, so growth would land on a business that is already full.
- Start hereConnect the systems →Pick the two tools costing the most hours and connect them properly. Nothing typed twice, nothing depending on who is in the office.
- ThenAutomate the paperwork →Quotes, invoices and scheduling built into the flow instead of bolted on beside it. This is where the capacity comes from.
- Not yetA marketing pushBuy this once you can take the work. Until then, marketing spend widens a bottleneck you have not moved.
What we would do first
You need something built.
The systems you run on are the limit — scheduling on a whiteboard, an app your customers complain about, or a thing you need next year that does not exist yet. That is a build, not a marketing problem, and it is the other half of what we do.
- Start hereSoftware development →Pick the one job costing you the most hours and build that first. We quote discovery separately and credit it against the build, because a fixed price off a one-hour call is how projects go wrong.
- ThenConnect it to where the leads arrive →A working system that does not know about your customers is half a system. This is usually the cheap part, once the first piece exists.
- Not yetA marketing retainerBuy this once the thing works. Until then you are paying monthly to make a known problem more visible.
How this decides
Each answer counts toward one of seven outcomes, except for a few that act as prerequisites. If you can't measure what your marketing is doing, the result says measurement first regardless of the other eight answers, because paid media pointed at a page you can't measure can't be judged. Paid search only comes up once you are already being found — while that is the weak part, the same money does more spent on fixing it.
Nothing is sent anywhere until you submit the form at the end, and the ranking factors behind the advice are published by Google Search Central.