Marketing, leads and reviews

Your Google Business Profile and your website. The Google Business Profile checklist starts with your real business name (keyword-stuffed names can get a profile suspended), one specific primary category and, for service-area businesses, a hidden address with up to 20 service areas. The contractor website checklist adds your license number on every page (California's CSLB counts a website as advertising), one page per service, a main image that loads in 2.5 seconds or less, and Bing Webmaster Tools next to Google.

Judge every channel on cost per booked job. Google Local Services Ads charge per lead, not per click, and rank you partly on how reliably you answer. Angi charges per lead and shares each request with several pros; break-even lead price is profit per job times close rate, so at $60 a lead and a 20% close rate each booked job costs $300 in leads before any membership fee. Credits for bad leads are narrow, and “customer didn't call back” doesn't qualify. Yelp ads are pay per click up to a monthly budget, and Request a Quote is free to set up. Nextdoor gives you a free Business Page and recommendations (“Faves”) from neighbors who hired you, with ads on a daily budget. Shared leads are a race, so answer fast.

Homeowners read the stars and your replies. Getting more Google reviews comes down to asking every customer at the door and texting the direct review link within the hour, with no incentives and no screening out unhappy customers; the FTC can seek up to $53,088 per violation for fake or paid-for reviews. Yelp is the exception: its rules forbid asking for reviews at all. When something goes wrong, handling customer complaints means a same-day call back, a visit within 1 to 2 days and a specific fix, and never offering anything to change or remove a review.

Unsold estimates and past customers are the cheapest leads you have. Following up on unsold estimates sets five touches over 30 days (day 1, 2, 5, 10 and 30) across text, phone and email. HVAC slow-season marketing starts with maintenance plan drives (sold in spring and fall, tune-ups fill the shoulder months) and past customers whose systems are past the ENERGY STAR replacement ages (10 years for an AC or heat pump, 15 for a furnace), and moves ad budget to the two or three weeks before the first heat or cold snap.

Storm damage roofing leads ranks the sources from past customers and referrals to door knocking where NOAA's free Storm Prediction Center reports show hail fell (reports go back to 1999). Get a solicitor permit before anyone knocks, leave the FTC's three-business-day cancellation notice on sales of $25 or more made at the home, and text only people who gave written consent.