Resources
Resources and Guides
Everything we know about local marketing for service businesses, written down and free to read. Use it yourself, or use it to judge whether any agency knows what it is talking about.
- Categories
- 15
- Calculators
- 3
- Comparisons
- 6
Call (714) 823-3164 or ask a question. Clear recommendations, even if we never work together.
The Online Website Marketing resource library holds free guides, checklists, comparisons, calculators, and a plain English glossary. Topics cover local SEO, Google Business Profile, reputation management, and paid advertising. They also cover website conversion, content, technical SEO, and AI search. Everything is written for service business owners who want to understand the work before they buy it.
Browse by topic
Local SEO Guides
Our local SEO guides explain how a business earns map pack visibility in a specific city
Local SEO GuidesGoogle Business Profile Checklists and Guides
These checklists cover setting up, verifying, and running a Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile Checklists and GuidesReputation Management Resources
Reputation resources cover how to ask for reviews without breaking Google policy
Reputation Management ResourcesPPC and Advertising Guides
Advertising guides cover Google Ads, Local Services Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and remarketing for service businesses
PPC and Advertising GuidesWebsite Conversion Guides
Conversion guides deal with what happens after someone lands on your site
Website Conversion GuidesVideo Marketing Resources
Video resources cover what to film, how to film it with a phone, and where each clip belongs afterward
Video Marketing ResourcesContent Marketing and Topical Authority Guides
These guides explain how to build full coverage of a topic instead of publishing scattered posts
Content Marketing and Topical Authority GuidesLead Generation Frameworks
Lead generation frameworks describe the path from first click to booked job
Lead Generation FrameworksTechnical SEO Resources
Technical resources cover the parts of a site search engines read before they judge your writing
Technical SEO ResourcesGenerative Engine Optimization Guides
These guides cover how to get named when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or a Google AI overview who to hire
Generative Engine Optimization GuidesMarketing Strategy Playbooks
Marketing strategy playbooks help you decide what to do before you spend
Marketing Strategy PlaybooksPricing and Timeline Guides
Pricing guides explain what marketing work costs in Southern California, and how long each piece takes to show results
Pricing and Timeline GuidesAgency vs DIY Comparisons
These comparisons put two real options side by side, with the tradeoffs left in
Agency vs DIY ComparisonsFrequently Asked Questions
This section collects the questions owners ask most often, answered directly
Frequently Asked QuestionsGlossary of Digital Marketing Terms
The glossary defines the terms that show up in proposals and reports, in plain language
Glossary of Digital Marketing Terms
Interactive calculators
Estimate what visibility is actually worth to your business before you spend anything.
Local SEO Lead Value Calculator
Local SEO Lead Value CalculatorPPC Waste Calculator
PPC Waste CalculatorReview Generation ROI Calculator
Review Generation ROI Calculator
Honest comparisons
Including the cases where the other option is the right one.
Agency vs DIY
Agency vs DIYLocal SEO vs Traditional SEO
Local SEO vs Traditional SEOSEO vs PPC
SEO vs PPCProfile Optimization vs Basic Listing
Profile Optimization vs Basic ListingReputation Management vs Ignoring Reviews
Reputation Management vs Ignoring ReviewsFull Service vs Single Channel
Full Service vs Single Channel
From the blog
The blog is organised into these categories. Publishing begins shortly after launch.
Which Resources Matter at Which Stage
The right guide depends less on your trade than on how far along you are. Find the row that sounds like your business this year.
| Where your business is | Read these first | Hours to work through | What you should have after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open under a year, no profile yet | Google Business Profile checklist, then local SEO basics | 4 to 6 hours | A claimed, verified profile filled out with real photos |
| One city, some calls, no system | Reputation resources and website conversion guides | 5 to 8 hours | A steady way to ask for reviews and a page that makes calling easy |
| Steady work, adding a second or third city | Local SEO guides and topical authority guides | 8 to 12 hours | A real page per city, not one page with the city name swapped |
| Season is thin and you need calls now | PPC and advertising guides | 3 to 5 hours | A budget you can defend and a search terms report you can read |
| Ready to hand this off to someone | Pricing and timeline guides, then the agency vs DIY comparisons | 2 to 3 hours | A scope you wrote yourself and questions no vendor can dodge |
Hours cover reading and doing the work, not reading alone. Two or three weeks is normal.
The First Week After the Phone Goes Quiet
A slow month feels like a ranking problem. Usually it is something simpler and faster to fix. Run these five checks in order before you change anything else.
If all five look normal, the cause is competition or demand, and that is a longer read.
Learn These Seven Things and You Can Hire Well
You do not need to do the work to judge whether it is being done. These seven skills take a weekend to learn.
Open your Google Business Profile performance panel
Learn where calls, direction requests, and website clicks are counted.
Read a Google Ads search terms report
It shows the words people actually typed. Waste hides there, not in the charts.
Know your primary category and service area settings
A wrong category quietly caps how often you appear in the map.
Check your own site speed on a phone
Use Google PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile score, not the desktop one.
Know your close rate and average job value
Without those two numbers, no cost per lead means anything to you.
Search your business name and check the details
Old addresses and dead phone numbers on directories confuse people and Google both.
Read one monthly report end to end
Ask what changed and what it cost. Vague answers tell you plenty.
Using the Calculators Without Fooling Yourself
A calculator is only as honest as the numbers you feed it. Most owners enter their best month by accident.
Do this
- Use a twelve month average for your close rate
- Count a lead as a real conversation, not a form fill
- Value a job by gross profit, not the invoice total
- Write your assumptions down next to the answer
- Run it again after any price change or new service
Not this
- Do not use numbers from your busiest week
- Do not count repeat customers as new leads
- Do not treat the output as a forecast or a promise
- Do not compare your cost per lead to another trade
- Do not set an ad budget from seven days of data
The Honest Part About Doing It Yourself
If you read everything here and did the work, you could handle most of it. That is not modesty. The parts that truly need an agency are narrower than the sales pitch suggests. Profile upkeep, review requests, photos, and plain writing about your own trade are things an owner already knows.
The catch is not skill. It is the recurring load. Doing this yourself usually costs six to ten hours a month, every month. Two of those hours go to checking numbers you would rather not look at. Month one is interesting. Month four, in the middle of your busy season, is when it stops.
So the real test is not whether you can do it. The test is whether you will still be doing it in month seven, when work is good and nothing feels urgent. If yes, use this library and keep your money. If probably not, hire someone, but hire knowing what you are buying.