The Search Engine Optimization Headache

It took me years to figure out how to get my first business, a local computer repair company, to rank. The website for I made for RAD Computers spent YEARS on page 6 of Google, despite having one of the highest number of reviews AND highest ratings on Yelp and Google for local computer repair in the Phoenix, AZ area.

It was frustrating at first, but I had focused on a solid reputation above all else, and word-of-mouth referrals were getting me the traffic I wanted at the time. But then, what was the point of having a website? I wanted to rank my site, and I wanted to rank it on page one, preferably in one of the first three spots.

RAD Computers is #1 on Google for “Computer Repair mesa az” (or “computer repair near me” when performed in Mesa, AZ).

This is a common problem that a lot of small business owners and web designers share the frustration over. Why spend time and money on a website if it’s not going to pay for itself with new leads? If your ROI on a website is consistently zero, the website is nothing more than an expensive, glorified business card that people only see when they already know who you are – typically, because you told them the website URL or they clicked the link in your email signature.

Today, I’m going to talk about how I solved that issue for my first business, what I learned along the way, and what I’m doing on all local service business sites that we develop to help them rank higher, as well. I have a pretty good track record of getting local service business websites to page 1 now, so if you’re lucky enough to find this article and follow the directions, you should see some pretty good results. Just follow the guidelines I discuss below and be sure to let me know how well they’re working for you!

DISCLAIMER: Your results may vary. Search engine optimization is not a one-and-done thing you do TO a website, it’s an evolving set of criteria that you ensure a website consistently abides by. The criteria will change over time, and the website needs to be re-optimized to ensure it’s fitting into the criteria of what the Search Engine Deities like Google and Bing and our newer AI Search Overlords are looking for.

Laying The Groundwork: What does a website need to rank on page 1?

Since the answers to this question are obscured behind the closed doors of our Search Engine Overlords, this question is going to be debated until the end of time. That doesn’t mean we can’t lay down a solid foundation in technical/on-page SEO, though. So here are the things I would pay attention to as a web designer wanting to rank a local service business website on page 1:

Every local service business website should have:

• A strong homepage
• Service Pages
• Location / Service area Pages
• Testimonials (GOOD ones)
• Contact Page
• Blog
• Incoming links from reputable directory sites
• Incoming links from Social media profiles

Every page on a local service business website should have:

• H1 and H2 header tags, with relevant keyword context to the service business
• A call-to-action
• Textual content relevant to the page’s primary topic (the H1 tag). This is the “meat and potatoes” of the service business, things anyone would want to know.
• A header menu with access to the main pages, and a footer with access to both the main pages and their primary subpages

Every post on a local service business website should have:

• H1 and H2 header tags, with relevant keyword context to the service business
• Textual content relevant to the post’s primary topic (the H1 tag). This is the “bread and butter” of the service business, catching specific interests of people that draw them to the business.
• Links to other related posts, preferably in the same category.
• A well written article that discusses the topic at hand

It may sound like a lot to keep in mind, but a seasoned web designer should be able to keep up with the above criteria with no problem. If you don’t understand the importance of each of these things, don’t worry too much, I’ll be writing a blog for each item I listed. But, if you have a good foundation laid down for your local service business website, and it’s still not ranking, let’s look at some of the things that are ALSO important, but not part of technical/on-page SEO.

What is EEAT and how do I design my website around it?

EEAT is an acronym that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and it’s our Search Engine Overlord Google’s way of ranking websites. “What does it all mean?” Well, you’re gonna dislike this answer but it’s vague. I’m going to break down my personal interpretation below:

• Experience – Does your local service business website provide first hand accounts you’ve actually done what you’re talking about?
• Expertise – Does your local service business website showcase additional knowledge about the industry?
• Authoritativeness – Do other people recognize that you’re local service business is an industry expert?
• Trustworthiness – Is the information honest, safe, accurate and original?

At a glance, the concept of EEAT looks and feels redundant. Don’t Experience and Expertise come hand-in-hand? Well, no. For example, if you take your Acme Car to a mechanic to change a part on the engine, and he’s never seen that type of car before, he may have experience performing the service but he’s not an expert on that particular car. Did he claim to be an expert on Acme Car on his website? If he did, but you show up and he’s got no idea, is he trustworthy?

Websites need to be accurate with the information they provide, so that users (read: potential customers) have a solid experience from the start of discovering that business to the finish line of actually being served by that business.

Personally, I try not to think about EEAT at all, not because I feel like it’s irrelevant to my strategy, but because for my own businesses, I’ve already laid down technical SEO and the EEAT magically follows suit with what I feel is a pretty big thing for local service businesses, that most local service businesses seem to miss. Ready to learn what that is? Here we go.

Content is KING.

Unique content that speaks to the experience and expertise of the business is KING. Authority and Trustworthiness naturally follow suit.

You can design the best looking, fastest website in the world, and list every service, every location, all your pricing, whatever – but if your local service business has competitors that do the exact same thing your business does, how do you set your website apart from theirs?

Here’s what makes your local service business stand apart from your competitors

I’m about to talk directly to the two types of people that will find this blog: Business owners curious on how to rank higher, and web designers that build sites for business owners.

Business owners: your website needs content that’s uniquely yours. You need unique pictures showcasing your work, you need to display projects you have done, and you need to talk about experiences you’ve had – ALL of these things to HELP OTHERS. There is absolutely zero way around this. You either catch up with the expectations of the search engine overlords, or you get crushed by those willing to put in the work to get ahead of you.

All of this is done in the pursuit of helping your potential customers. Period. If you say to yourself “I don’t have the time to write a blog,” you should remind yourself that your competitors will find the time JUST to get ahead of you. Nobody knows your business better than you, you should be the one at least writing a few sentences to send on for editing.

Web Designers: unless you’re designing a website for an industry you’ve been deeply involved in previously, then you’re not doing your clients ANY favors by using AI to generate “industry-related content” for the client. I don’t even bother to find industry experts to write blogs for a business. To me, it’s personal.

A blog is literally a “web log”, it’s not a log of what a business has done if the business didn’t do it themselves. Stop faking content, start having conversations with your clients and instruct them to leave you voicemails that detail some of their knowledge. Then you convert that information into a well-written blog. That’s it, that’s all you need to do.

Social media sucks

For local service businesses, social media is a dumpster fire. There, I said it. F- social media and F- the race to the bottom that local service businesses put themselves through. I absolutely hate the social media mindset.

Yea, social media was a great way to discover new businesses back in the day when Facebook was hype and people had less than 50 friends each, but now it’s just a glorified, grotesque race for people to find the lowest price.

“I know a guy” and “my buddy” and “can do it cheaper” are running rampant across social media city and neighborhood groups. And people are getting scammed by these “recommendations” they find in social media groups.

Bots are all over social media, monitoring for key phrases like “website” and “help with a password.” Try it, go to Facebook right now and make a post that simply says “I need a website” or “I forgot my Instagram password”. See how insane it’s gotten.

Local service business owners, don’t fall for the social media trap. Small business owner pro tip: Offer amazing quality and price your service accordingly. It’s ok to be more expensive than someone else. But… the number of people I see getting ripped off by “general contractors”, “web designers”, “computer guys”, “landscapers” etc that take the money and run, leaving their clients high and dry is insane. It’s 2025, people should know better; they should know check for a solid reputation first, but they get gutted by some half-baked referral.

People are getting scammed more and more by bad referrals they received from social media recommendations.

You won’t ever catch me suggesting marketing a local service business on social media anymore. Not in the traditional sense, where you craft ads on Canva and desperately cry “call me!” while describing a problem. Gross, dude. Gross. I’m so sick of seeing ads on social media that I want to rip my eyes out. Be a part of the solution, not the problem.

So what exactly IS the solution?

Content is king, baby. If you did it, they will come. Literally. Take ONE MINUTE to take a picture of a completed project and post it it Instagram, with a brief description of a problem you solved. Take a short 2-3 minute video and talk about a problem your client had and how you solved it and post it to YouTube shorts with a good description of the problem, how you solved it, and where you’re located.

Seriously, that’s it. No more ads. You’re doing the work already, you’re gonna be on the phone after you finish a project to tell your spouse what you just finished and where you’re heading to next, half that conversation you’re about to have should be said while your phone is recording video and then you post it to social media. No edits, nothing crazy, just 2-3 minutes.

Web designers, set up a profile for your client on every major social media platform, and then teach your local service business clients to use Instagram, it’s literally one of the easiest apps to understand and use. Then use an automation platform like Zapier to send their Instagram posts to other social media sites: Facebook Business Page, Google My Business, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter (now called “X”), Threads, etc. Your client posts on one platform, and it magically flows to the other platforms automatically.

Here’s a list of social media accounts (and types) to create for every client:

• Facebook (Page)
  • Instagram (Business Profile)
  • Threads (Business Profile)
• Reddit (profile)
• TikTok (Business)
• Twitter (some people call it “X”)
• YouTube (Business)

Less work in the long run, better results. People hate fake. Raw and uncut is the new wide appeal.

Don’t forget the directories and maps

So many businesses hate Yelp that it’s almost laughable how bad Yelp’s reputation has become. I hear ya, I don’t pay for advertising on Yelp. I tried it, on multiple occasions, with tons of money down the drain and literally zero success. Maybe it was because I was already at the top of Yelp search with RAD Computers because we already had a solid reputation on their platform. Who knows?

Your mileage may vary, but personally the primary thing I use it for is the backlink it provides to my local service business website. Getting and responding to leads from it is just a bonus.

Reputable online directories and online maps services are a great way to get immediate authoritative backlinks.

Get additional backlinks from these authoritative directories and maps services:

• Apple Maps – maps.apple.com
• Better Business Bureau – bbb.org
• Bing Search – bingplaces.com
• dexknown – dexknows.com
• Recommended Company – recommendedcompany.com
• Superpages – superpages.com
• ThreeBest Rated – threebestrated.com
• Yellow Pages – yellowpages.com
• Yelp – yelp.com

Don’t forget industry-specific directories. For example:

• Therapists have psychologytoday.com
• Attorneys have findlaw.com
• Real estate agents have realtor.com
• Certified arborists have treesaregood.org

If the industry is big enough, chances there’s at least a few dedicated directories to help industry-specific businesses get listed. And they all provide good backlinks.

I’ll maintain this list in case one of the directories goes rogue and suddenly shows up as spam in my analytics tools.

Conclusion

That’s pretty much everything in a nutshell I can think of that I use help local service businesses get their websites to the front page of Google, several in the top 1-3 spots for several different target key phrases. No AI content, no crazy content posting strategies on some insane 5-days a week schedule, no specialized SEO tools to drive myself crazy over (correct, no AHREFS, no Semrush).

This isn’t to say I don’t use SEO tools like AHREFS or Semrush, they have a place in my arsenal, but for local SEO in most of our case studies, I haven’t needed them. I’ll create a link here when I write a blog on how I’m using them for more difficult sites. In the meantime, check out Search Engine Land. I absolutely love this site for learning more about SEO in general!

Yes, this blog is handcrafted per my own strategy. Nobody knows my business better than myself, so here I am, writing for two hours to make a long form blog. Will anyone read it? Well, you did. So I guess it’s working, right? Thanks, reader. Cheers – Mark