Guides

Step-by-step playbooks.

Long-form, action-oriented guides. Each one is a complete playbook with prerequisites, outcomes, and numbered steps. Hand them to your team and they can execute tomorrow.

TopicsLocal SEOWebsite SEOGoogle AdsWebsite DesignReviews & ReputationStrategy

Most useful playbooks

Start with the fundamentals.

The three guides our clients reference most. Each one is a complete playbook from prerequisites to execution.

The Home Service Local SEO Foundation: A 5-Week Action Plan

Featured

Local SEO· Beginner

The Home Service Local SEO Foundation: A 5-Week Action Plan

A start-to-finish playbook to take your home service business from invisible to ranking in the Google Maps pack. Five weeks of concrete actions with no fluff.

45 min read

Read guide

Google Ads for Home Services: From Zero to Profitable in 60 Days

Featured

Google Ads· Intermediate

Google Ads for Home Services: From Zero to Profitable in 60 Days

A step-by-step playbook for setting up (or rebuilding) a Google Ads account that produces tracked revenue inside 60 days, not wasted spend over 6 months.

35 min read

Read guide

Prefer to watch?

The playbooks, in video.

The same tactics, walked through on video. Straight from our YouTube channel, updated automatically with every new upload.

Aug 14, 2026

How to Set Up a Google Business Profile in 2026

Google Business Profile setup for contractors, field by field, the way it actually works in 2026 and not the old Google My Business way. This is episode one of the Local SEO for Contractors series. By the end you can set up or rebuild your profile from scratch the same day, including the decision most contractors get wrong: whether to show or hide your home address. Two things changed that make this urgent. The old playbook was to stuff keywords into your business name and wait for a postcard. Today that gets you suspended instead of ranked, and a suspension commonly means thirty days or more of invisibility while you fight to get reinstated. And since November 2024, Local Services Ads will not run at all without a verified Google Business Profile behind them. This listing is now the foundation of everything local on Google. WHAT'S IN THIS VIDEO - Where your profile actually lives now that the Google My Business app is gone - Why you claim the listing Google already built from public data instead of creating a second one, and why duplicates are a suspension trigger - The business name rule: your exact real world name, no city, no service, no best, and why keyword stuffing actively hurts rankings after the Vicinity update - The customers-visit question: when to hide your home address, and why PO boxes, UPS mailboxes and virtual offices are banned outright - Service areas in 2026: up to twenty named cities, counties or zip codes, and why the radius circle is gone - How to pick your primary category, the single biggest map ranking input, and how many secondaries is too many - The call-tracking number trap that quietly fails verification - Video verification for service-area businesses: what the video has to prove, the contractor filming playbook, the filming rules, and the six-item fail checklist - Description, services, prices, hours, opening date and photos that make homeowners pick you - The edits that throw a verified profile straight back into verification, and how to avoid making them CHAPTERS 00:00 Why your old Google listing is costing you jobs 00:34 Where your profile actually lives now 00:54 Claim the listing, never create a duplicate 01:23 The business name rule that prevents suspension 02:06 Hide your home address: the service-area decision 02:45 Service areas: 20 named, no more radius 03:06 Picking your primary category 03:37 Phone and website: the call-tracking trap 04:13 Video verification: kill the old mental model 04:27 What your verification video must prove 04:46 The contractor filming playbook 05:04 The filming rules 05:23 The six-item fail checklist 05:59 Description and services 06:29 Hours, opening date and photos 06:45 The edits that undo your verification 07:12 The whole setup in one breath 07:31 Episode one wrap and what is next WORK WITH US If you would rather have your whole lead generation system done for you, we book 30 to 50 appointments on your calendar in 90 days, and if we fall short we keep working for free until you get them. Details and a call: https://SFWebTech.com/book WATCH NEXT How We Book 30 to 50 Appointments in 90 Days: https://youtu.be/43B9vKMlDl0?si=0E-3HCEgyQ03yCd9 Why Is My Business Not Showing Up on Google Maps? 7 Fixes: https://youtu.be/RPXXu05GKo4?si=jJqKksTg4sb7xHxj Subscribe for the rest of the Local SEO for Contractors series. NOTES ON THE DATA Business name guidelines, service area rules, video verification requirements, verification methods and the re-verification triggers all come from Google's own published help documentation as of July 2026. Pass and fail patterns for video verification come from practitioner sources who submit these regularly, not from Google. Google changes this flow often, so if a screen looks different from what you see here, trust what is in front of you and check the current help article. Nothing here is a guarantee that any particular profile will be approved. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. All on screen interfaces are original illustrations, not Google assets. Summit Deck Co is a fictional company and all phone numbers shown are 555 placeholders. #googlebusinessprofile #localseo #contractormarketing #googlemybusiness #homeservices #gbp #localrankings #contractorseo

Aug 12, 2026

Stop Buying Shared Roofing Leads Here Is What Actually Works in 2026

How to get roofing leads in 2026 without buying shared leads that four other roofers are calling too. Five channels ranked by real cost per booked job. Start with the anti-benchmark. A $50 shared roofing lead sounds cheap until you run the division: at an 8 to 15 percent close rate it takes about ten leads to book one job, which is $500 per booked job in lead cost alone. Add rep time, fuel and free inspections for homeowners who already signed with somebody else, and roofers put the all-in figure at $1,200 to $1,600 per booked replacement. On a $9,500 to $11,000 asphalt job, that is up to 15 percent of the ticket gone before you buy a single shingle. Then five channels where every lead is yours alone, ranked cheapest booked job first, each with the same four-row scorecard: cost per lead, close or book rate, cost per booked job, and time to first lead. WHAT'S IN THIS VIDEO - The shared lead math in full, and why cheap leads that never close are the most expensive leads you can buy - Channel 1, referrals and the job-site radius play: roughly $200 per booked job, plus the yard sign math, the 3-3-3 canvassing pattern, and the legal checklist to run before anyone knocks on a door - Channel 2, Google Business Profile and the Map Pack: $5 to $25 per lead once mature, 93 percent of local searches, 44 percent of the clicks, and the honest cost of waiting months for it to compound - Channel 3, Google Local Services Ads: $55 to $95 per roofing lead, about a 44 percent book rate, $125 to $215 per booked appointment, and the August 2026 Performance Max merge - Channel 4, Facebook ads: $25 to $75 leads, retail versus storm campaigns, and the five minute follow-up rule that decides whether the cheap price survives - Channel 5, Google search ads: about $124 per lead well run and $228 on average, why clicks run $8 to $45, and why the highest intent traffic still pays - The whole video on one screen: shared versus exclusive, and the roughly $1,000 per job gap that adds up to a used truck One honest caveat kept on screen throughout: the Local Services figures are cost per booked appointment, not per closed job. CHAPTERS 00:00 The shared lead trap 00:35 What a shared lead really costs per job 01:22 How these five channels are ranked 01:48 Channel 1: Referrals, the cheapest booked job in roofing 02:19 The radius play: yard signs and canvassing 02:39 Before you knock: the legal checklist 03:02 Channel 2: Google Business Profile and the Map Pack 03:46 The ladder so far 03:59 Channel 3: Google Local Services Ads 05:03 Channel 4: Facebook ads 05:46 Channel 5: Google search ads 06:43 The whole video on one screen 07:24 Build it or buy it WORK WITH US You can build every one of these yourself. Realistically it is about a year of consistent work. Or skip the year: we build these exact channels for roofing companies inside a guarantee. 30 to 50 booked appointments on your calendar in 90 days, and if we fall short we keep working for free until you get them. Book a call: https://SFWebTech.com/book WATCH NEXT How We Book 30 to 50 Appointments in 90 Days: https://youtu.be/43B9vKMlDl0?si=MfMC9ruJzb0mly6Z Are Angi Leads Worth It? https://youtu.be/oy0QxRmefYc?si=nF7WD7ohqDwfCtIv Google Guaranteed Cost in 2026: What LSA Leads Really Cost: https://youtu.be/Dx_VX2ljAVY?si=mKtud39YtD3JopOx Subscribe if straight math like this helps you buy leads smarter. NOTES ON THE DATA Cost per lead and book rate figures come from a published benchmark of 888 contractor accounts and $6.72M in tracked spend, a 2025 dataset of more than 16,000 campaigns, and contractor-reported figures aggregated by several independent sources. Shared lead close rates and all-in costs are contractor-reported and vary widely. Storm market and hail season figures are directional. Program rules for Local Services Ads come from Google's own published documentation as of August 2026. Ranges are ranges: your metro, your season and your close rate move all of these numbers. Nothing here is a guarantee of results for your business. The canvassing section is general information, not legal advice. Solicitor permit rules, no-soliciting sign enforcement and deductible waiver laws vary by city and state. Check your own before knocking. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, Angi or Meta. All on screen interfaces are original illustrations, not real platform assets, and all business names and phone numbers shown are fictional. #roofingleads #roofingmarketing #contractormarketing #localservicesads #homeservices #roofingcompany #leadgeneration #stormrestoration

Aug 10, 2026

Why Is My Business Not Showing Up on Google Maps? 7 Fixes for Contractors

Business not showing up on Google Maps? For contractors it is almost always one of seven fixable problems, and you can check every one in under a minute. This is the full diagnostic. Start with a sixty second test that tells you whether Google has hidden your listing or you simply are not ranking, then work the seven causes in order, most common first. Every fix includes the exact check and the exact repair. And fix seven is the one nobody warns contractors about: any Google user can suggest an edit on your listing, including a competitor marking you permanently closed. WHAT'S IN THIS VIDEO - The sixty second name search that tells you which half of the list you are in, and the four things that can happen when you run it - How Google actually ranks local businesses: relevance, distance and prominence, plus the myth that you can pay for a better Maps rank (you cannot, ads are a separate slot) - Fix 1: never claimed or never verified, how video verification works for truck-based contractors, and why unverified now locks you out of Local Services Ads entirely - Fix 2: why you rank in a radius around your real location, and why the service area you draw inside your profile is a label that does not move your rank - Fix 3: the three suspension triggers that catch contractors, and how the one-shot appeal works including the 60 minute evidence window - Fix 4: the primary category mistake generic contractors make, and why your opening hours are a ranking factor - Fix 5: what a study of more than 8,000 businesses found about review recency beating raw review totals - Fix 6: finding duplicate listings that split your reviews, and when to delete versus merge - Fix 7: removing a false Permanently closed label, and stopping it coming back - Why the free Maps seats are shrinking in 2026: AI local packs, AI Overviews, and ad creep CHAPTERS 00:00 Your competitor is on Maps and you are not 00:33 The 60 second test: hidden or just not ranking 01:31 Fix 1: Claim and verify your profile 02:19 Fix 2: You rank around your real location 03:13 Fix 3: Suspended profiles and the one-shot appeal 04:03 Fix 4: Primary category and hours 04:47 Fix 5: Reviews, recency beats totals 05:20 The review fix in one line 05:35 Fix 6: Duplicate listings 06:16 Fix 7: Marked permanently closed 06:51 Why the free Maps slots are shrinking 07:28 Want it handled for you WORK WITH US If you would rather not spend your weekends fixing Google listings, that is literally what we do. At SF Web Tech we handle your Maps profile, your ads and your website inside one guarantee: 30 to 50 booked appointments on your calendar in 90 days, and if we fall short we keep working for free until you get them. Book a call: https://SFWebTech.com/book WATCH NEXT How We Book 30 to 50 Appointments in 90 Days: https://youtu.be/43B9vKMlDl0?si=gRo6aCMnyp_TMbzr Google Guaranteed Cost in 2026: What LSA Leads Really Cost: https://youtu.be/Dx_VX2ljAVY?si=loNEHb7wuG_kRqxC Subscribe if you want Google turned into booked jobs, explained in plain numbers. NOTES ON THE DATA Ranking factors, business name rules, video verification requirements, the appeals process and the service area address rules all come from Google's own published documentation as of July 2026. The review findings come from a 2025 study of more than 8,000 businesses across 200 cities. The service area polygon finding comes from direct published testing by a local search research firm. The 2026 shrinkage figures come from published industry tracking of AI local packs, AI Overviews and ad coverage. Rules change often, so re-check anything time sensitive before acting on it. Nothing here is a guarantee of results for your business. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. All on screen interfaces are original illustrations, not Google assets, and all business names and phone numbers shown are fictional. #googlemaps #googlebusinessprofile #contractormarketing #localseo #homeservices #googlebusiness #localrankings #homeserviceleads

See all videos Subscribe on YouTube

Every guide

The full library.

Each guide includes prerequisites, expected outcomes, and numbered steps you can execute today.

Local SEO·Beginner·45 min read

The Home Service Local SEO Foundation: A 5-Week Action Plan

A start-to-finish playbook to take your home service business from invisible to ranking in the Google Maps pack. Five weeks of concrete actions with no fluff.

Google Ads·Intermediate·35 min read

Google Ads for Home Services: From Zero to Profitable in 60 Days

A step-by-step playbook for setting up (or rebuilding) a Google Ads account that produces tracked revenue inside 60 days, not wasted spend over 6 months.

Reviews & Reputation·Beginner·20 min read

The Review Acquisition Engine: 90 Days to 50+ 5-Star Reviews

A copy-paste playbook for building an automated review-acquisition engine that lands 50+ new 5-star Google reviews in 90 days, fully automated.

Why these are different

Real playbooks, not theory.

Most marketing guides are 4,000 words of fluff that send you to a paid course. Ours are the actual playbooks we run for paying clients, given away for free.

Real client work

Every step has been executed for a real paying client. Examples from FS Landscaping, Tru-Scapes, Poseidon's Custom Pools, Truscapes Deck Lighting, and others.

Numbered, sequenced

No 'just do SEO' fluff. Each guide is week-by-week or step-by-step with concrete actions, not abstract principles.

Done in a fixed window

Each guide states exactly how long it takes to execute. Most are doable in 4-6 hours per week over 4-6 weeks.

Newsletter

New guides, monthly.

We ship a new long-form guide once a month. Subscribe and we'll send it to you the day it's published.

Want this run for you?

Same playbooks, executed for you.

Free 30-minute call. We'll walk through which guide applies to your business and what executing it for you would look like.

Book a call See pricing

30-min strategy call·No obligation·Free