Atlas
What changes for a pest control company
With Google, the customer saw ten links and picked one. With an assistant, they often get two or three names, with one sentence about each. There is less room. The assistant does not know you personally. It puts together what your website, your Google Business Profile and online directories say about you. Your job is to make sure these sources say the same thing, clearly.
1. Spell out what you do, and where
One page of your website should answer three questions plainly. Which pests you treat (bed bugs, mice, carpenter ants, wasps…). For whom (residential, commercial, property managers). In which cities, named one by one. “The metro area” is not enough for an assistant looking for someone in a specific suburb.
2. The same information everywhere
Company name, address, phone number, hours. Check that they are identical on your website, your Google Business Profile, Facebook and every directory you are listed in. An old number in a directory, or a name spelled two ways, creates doubt, for the customer and for the assistant alike.
To do this week. Search for your company name and note every place it appears. Fix anything that does not match your website.
3. Give a price reference
“Affordable” is often part of the customer's question. With no price information at all, the assistant cannot say anything about you on that point. You do not need a fixed rate. A “starting at” for an inspection or a first treatment, or an explanation of what makes the price vary, is enough to give an honest reference.
4. Reviews, and your replies
Assistants often read reviews to describe a company. Ask for a review after every successful job, and reply to all of them, including the bad ones, calmly and with facts. A serious reply to a complaint reassures as much as a good review.
5. Show that you are licensed
State on your website that your company holds the license required to apply pesticides where you work, and that your technicians are certified. A customer hesitating between two names picks the one that inspires trust, and the assistant readily repeats this kind of detail when it is written clearly.
6. Test it yourself
Ask the question the way a customer would, with your city, “Find me an exterminator for mice in my town”. Do it in two or three assistants. Note who comes up, and what is said about those companies that you do not yet say about yours. Repeat the test every month.
What this does not guarantee
No assistant publishes its rules, and their answers change from one day to the next. Nobody can promise you will be mentioned. What you control is the quality of what is written about you. It is also what convinces a customer who finds you through Google or word of mouth.
Monday morning
- A “Services and areas served” page on your website, with every city named.
- Name, address, phone number and hours checked everywhere.
- A price reference, even an approximate one.
- A review request after every successful job.
- The test in two assistants, written down in a notebook.
