Phone Not Ringing? 6 Fixes Trade Business Owners Miss

0:00 Your phone hasn't rung all morning.

0:03 Across town, a competitor just booked another job. Same trade. Same city.

0:09 So what are they doing that you're not?

0:11 Stick around. Most of it is free to check, and step five is the one owners get wrong.

0:20 Picture Dan. He runs a two-truck HVAC company.

0:24 Great work. Loyal customers. And almost no calls from people who don't already know him.

0:30 Let's fix Dan's setup, one step at a time, using only what Google, the FTC and the FCC actually say.

0:38 No tricks. No made-up numbers.

0:41 Step one: the Google Business Profile.

0:45 Google says adding or claiming one is free.

0:48 Dan drives to his customers, so he can hide his street address and list up to twenty service areas instead.

0:54 Use the real business name. No stuffed keywords. Pick the category that says what you are, and verify it.

1:02 And here's the part that saves money: Google says no one can pay for a better local ranking.

1:08 So if someone calls promising that, hang up.

1:12 Step two: a website that answers three questions fast.

1:16 What do you do? Where do you work? How do I reach you?

1:20 Add real photos, and your license number where your state requires it.

1:25 Google's own SEO Starter Guide says there are no secrets that automatically rank a site first. So skip the keyword tricks.

1:33 Make it fast instead. Google's Core Web Vitals call a page good when the main content shows within two and a half seconds, it responds to a tap in under two hundred milliseconds, and the layout barely jumps.

1:47 Google says good scores help, but don't guarantee rankings.

1:51 Speed is for the customer standing in a flooded basement.

1:55 Step three: service-area pages. This is where a lot of contractors get burned.

2:02 Google's spam policies call out city pages that funnel visitors to one page, and blocks of text that just list cities.

2:10 That's doorway abuse and keyword stuffing.

2:13 A good area page gives a customer there something real: what you do there, how scheduling works, and local work you've actually done.

2:22 Step four: reviews.

2:25 Ask every customer for an honest review. Not just the happy ones.

2:29 The FTC's rule bans fake reviews and paying for reviews.

2:34 Google goes further and bans incentives for any review.

2:38 So no discounts for five stars. Just a thank-you, a short ask, and the link.

2:44 Step five is the one owners get wrong: Google Local Services Ads.

2:49 You pay for leads, not clicks.

2:52 But Google says a missed call during your business hours can count as a lead, if the caller stays on the line for more than twenty seconds.

3:00 So every unanswered ring matters.

3:03 Google does reassess charged leads over thirty days, with automatic credits for poor-quality ones.

3:09 And plan ahead: U.S. screening and verification takes three to four weeks on average after you submit documents.

3:17 Step six: when the calls come in, follow up the right way.

3:22 Under the FCC's rules, marketing texts sent with an autodialer need the customer's prior express written consent.

3:30 No telephone solicitations before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., their local time.

3:36 And if a customer replies stop, quit, cancel or unsubscribe, consent is revoked. You have ten business days, at most, to honor it.

3:47 Last: protect what you've built.

3:50 Register your domain in the business's name, with an email you control, and turn on auto-renew.

3:56 Gmail requires every sender to set up SPF or DKIM.

4:00 And follow CISA's four basics: watch for phishing, use strong passwords, turn on multifactor authentication with a password manager, and keep software updated.

4:13 So that's Dan's new setup.

4:15 A verified profile. A fast, honest website. Real area pages. Honest reviews. Ads he understands. Texts that follow the rules.

4:25 None of it is a trick, and every step comes straight from the official source.

4:30 Each one has a full plain-language guide, with the sources linked, at truetradeguide.com.

4:36 Rules change, and some vary by state, so check the source for yours.

4:40 See you there.