Most pest control companies are doing Google Business Profile completely wrong.
They obsess over tiny details that don’t matter while ignoring the one thing that actually moves the needle: reviews.
I run Pest Control SEO, and I’ve seen companies with 150 reviews crush competitors with 1,000 reviews. Let me show you exactly how to do pest control company local SEO the right way.
What You Actually Need to Optimize
There’s a lot of different things we can optimize on the Google Business Profile. Let me start with some easy wins that most people don’t know about.
The Services Section (Most People Miss This)
The services section is one of the sections that actually does matter on your Google Business Profile.
We talked about keywords in a previous post. We need to identify all of the top keywords that we want to rank on and not only create website pages on those, but also add those keywords to our services section on our Google Business Profile.
Again, that might be Pest Control Chicago, Pest Control Near Me, and we should optimize it specifically for that location.
You might have a Chicago location or you might have a Glenview location or Northbrook. You should only optimize for the city that you’re based in.
Don’t go crazy with, “Okay, well, every single city that we service.” No. We can really only expect to rank the Google Business Profile in the city that we’re placed in.
Let’s only optimize for the city that we’re placed in. Let’s only talk about that city and the keywords that we’re using.
The services section is a really easy one that we can fill out.
The Basic Information (Non-Negotiable Stuff)
Overall, there’s just a lot of really basic information that we should have on the profile that is really non-negotiable. Honestly, I feel like anyone can do this.
You can just go into your Google Business Profile Manager or dashboard or whatever you want to call it.
Let me explain real quick for people that don’t know how to access this. You can access this one or two ways.
You can search up Google Business Profile. You’ll click on the first link on Google. Then you’ll click Sign In.
If you are signed into the right account, which means the Google account that is associated with your Google Business Profile that maybe you set it up with or someone gave you access to it with, then your profile should show up there.
You’ll click Edit Profile and then it’ll take you to your actual dashboard. You’ll see a bunch of different things like Edit Profile, Get Reviews, Add Photos, Post an Update, these different kinds of things.
Another way you can do that is potentially just searching up your actual company name under the email address that you are signed into that is associated with that Google Business Profile.
For me, I have a Google Business Profile for my agency, Pest Control SEO, and when I’m logged into my email account, I just search up Pest Control SEO, and then my dashboard shows up immediately.
First off, we want to make sure that we can access that.
Then overall, I just recommend you don’t even necessarily have to listen to me doing a step by step checklist, but just go through these items yourself.
One of the biggest ones will actually just be the Edit Profile, which is the top left one. There’ll be a bunch of things here.
You can add your socials, you can add a description, you can potentially change your company name if you want, you can change your address and some other different components in there.
But there’s a lot of optimization just in that Edit Profile thing. Just a lot of basic things. It’s not necessarily one big thing that you need to do, but just overall as a general rule, fill it out as much as possible.
How Often Should You Make Adjustments?
There’s going to be a bulk optimization, or at least there should be, and this is what we do for clients, when you first go into a Google Business Profile.
We should be adding all the services, adding all the products, doing all the things on the Edit Profile section like I was talking about.
That might take, depending on the profile, a few hours or so. It’s really actually not complex. I’d say five hours max for a profile.
Website is going to be way more time. This is why this is kind of a quick win we like to get for clients, Google Business Profile right away, because it’s quick and the results are also faster.
There’s going to be that base optimization of pretty much all the things I just mentioned. And then there’s the recurring stuff.
One-Time Optimization vs. Recurring Tasks
Those base things that we do, there isn’t much that we need to build on top of them.
You create a company description, you link your social profiles, you obviously have your company name, you have your company address. That’s all one time stuff.
That’s also the beauty of this. There’s a lot of one time things that we do on the Google Business Profile and it’s done. The same way we make this video, we make one video, it’s done. I don’t want to keep making videos or I don’t want to make this one video forever. Let’s just do it one time and then it’s done.
But then that goes into the recurring items regarding the Google Business Profile.
The Recurring Local SEO Strategy That Actually Matters
One recurring thing we want to make sure to do for local SEO is collecting reviews and replying to reviews.
This is something that most companies don’t do, or actually, most companies do do this, but they don’t go all out.
They might be collecting reviews here and there. They might be using a software. They might be asking their clients, but then they leave and then they don’t collect the review.
Why Most Companies Fail at Reviews
Most companies overall are failing at reviews.
I talk about my dad and his flooring company. He would ask every single client for a review and he would never get a review.
The reason why is because he’d just say, “Hey, can you leave us a review on Google?” And they’d say, “Yeah.” And he’d be like, “All right, great.” And then he’d leave.
And then he’d never get the review.
You have to stay there. You have to make sure that they leave the review while you’re there.
Ideally, you’re incentivizing your technicians and giving them a script regarding this the same way they have a door to door sales script or you have a CSR script.
There should also be a script regarding collecting reviews. How can we make sure that every single customer leaves a review?
Part of this is actually company culture and another part is just ensuring actual good service.
You do not want to be a company that is at three stars or a company that has barely any reviews. Both are not trustworthy.
Every single company now with all the AI stuff and the age of information, you need to be optimizing for trust. A huge part of that is reviews.
We really need to be collecting as many reviews on a recurring basis as possible. And then also replying to all of those reviews.
Why You Need to Reply to Every Review
I had this big guy on my podcast recently in local SEO and he made this analogy, which just makes sense.
If someone says, if I do something for you and you say thank you and then I don’t say you’re welcome, it’s just like, what? It’s like, thanks. And you’re just like, see you later.
When people say thank you, you say you’re welcome or it’s my pleasure. It was so great to provide that great service or whatever it was.
This is also how you build your brand and reputation.
A lot of people kind of get this mistake. They’re like, “Well, I should optimize my review replies with keywords.” I’ve seen people reply with a page long response.
No, don’t do all of that. It’s not really a ranking factor. It’s a conversion factor.
People land on your profile after you rank and then they’re looking through your profile. A lot of people are going to look at your reviews and they see that you have great reviews, number one.
But then also number two, they see how you’re interacting with those reviews.
If you just say very plainly, “Oh, thanks,” I’ve seen this before. Someone leaves a raving review. They give a review that’s a page long and the company replies, “Oh, hey, thanks.”
It’s like, what? Give a little bit more effort. Show a little bit more reciprocation there.
Some companies won’t reply to them at all. Other companies will reply with a ChatGPT generated message.
You don’t need to reply with ChatGPT. It’s so easy to reply to a message. It takes 30 seconds.
Have your office manager, maybe even a competent virtual assistant do this, but don’t generate it with ChatGPT. Don’t reply with one word. Just basic things here.
The Freshness Factor
In terms of other things that we want to do on a recurring basis, this isn’t a requirement, but I typically like to get at least some photos added to the profile every single month.
This overall, and this is what Google’s looking for, is freshness. That there are things going on in the profile consistently.
This applies to your website too. That you are adding photos consistently. That you are checking the profile consistently.
Google can see that you are checking the profile. So if no one’s checked in for a few months, it almost looks suspicious.
You are adding photos. You might be adding frequently asked questions. You might be getting reviews, you might be replying to reviews, you might be going in and seeing that Google will sometimes automatically adjust the services that you provide and then you change those.
Say, “Hey Google, I don’t provide that, but hey, I actually do provide that.” Just going in and providing that basic information.
But overall, in terms of the recurring strategy of what we need to do on a recurring basis, the main thing is going to be reviews.
I’ve actually seen profiles get suspended that haven’t logged in for a while. I’ve seen profiles that have 500 reviews, but they haven’t logged in or added any pictures or done any changes and their profile gets suspended.
That could tie into it. I don’t think that would be the reason for suspension, but I think that could be part of a suspension.
There are all these other things that look a little suspicious, a little bit off, and you haven’t logged in to your profile ever?
Google also looks at the Google accounts associated with the profile. I have a local guide account, which means I’ve done, and I’m a level eight local guide, which means I have a trusted Google account.
Versus if you just started your Google account last year, you’ve never left a review, you don’t even use Gmail, Google’s looking at all these things.
If you don’t have a trusted Google account, that’s the only thing attached to your Google Business Profile, that’s a lot less trustworthy and you’re going to be more susceptible to a suspension.
How to Actually Get More Google Reviews
I mentioned how important they are, but in terms of the actual strategy, one thing you want to do is incentivize your technicians.
I typically recommend just $10 to $20 per review per technician.
Some people might not want to do this. “Oh, I’m going to be spending so much money on reviews.”
It is so, so worth it.
If you could just have a review printing machine and just press $20 for review every single time, you would just keep clicking that button a million times because reviews are so important.
It seems like most people actually know this now, but they’re still not really putting it into practice.
That is one key, putting some kind of incentivization program with your technicians.
Make It Feel Personal
Something else you can do is just make it feel personal.
This might be the actual owner if you’re really small, or your technicians. Make it kind of a heartfelt story.
Make it like, “Hey, you know, my job relies on this” or “I’m in competition with the other technicians” or if it’s the owner, “Hey, look, this is how I grow my business. I’m just trying to put food on the table.”
Whatever you need to say to get that review, that’s what you need to say.
The beauty of this is that it’s really not as hard as you think, assuming you did a great job. Just about everyone’s going to be down to leave you a review on Google.
Now they might not know how. That’s another factor of this. But then you should show them how. You should make it easy for them. Make it very easy.
Use QR Codes and Links
Something else you can do, I’ve seen companies put QR codes on lanyards or on business cards or some other, I’ve seen people do a tap to scan, all these different things.
Regardless of what you want to do, you can still send them to a website link. You can just have them search up your business and leave the review there.
But this is something, especially these older homeowners, they might need to be walked through that.
Don’t just leave the house right after the service like my dad used to do, but actually stay there with them and prompt them with the review.
Say, “Hey, maybe mention something surprising today, or if you could mention my name if that’s how you get incentivized, or just mention how horrible those termites were.”
Just something a little to prompt them because ideally the review doesn’t have zero text or anything.
Automated Review Systems
Another thing, there’s a bunch of tools out there to get more reviews.
Some companies have a texting system that goes out to customers. There are automated review platforms.
Smaller companies, which is really who we’re talking to, companies doing under a million dollars a year, should definitely do that more personal, asking in person approach.
But as you begin to become a bigger company, it might be harder to systemize and coach all your different technicians and such. Then you can use an automated review platform.
Now there are plenty out there. There’s Birdeye, there’s Aplos, there’s Gather Up, there’s all these different review platforms.
I personally heard a lot of pest control owners like Aplos, but really it doesn’t matter the platform.
Actually why I started with Ask in Person is because that’s actually what works best, that’s what the customers like best, and that’s the most reliable and also the cheapest.
The Common Mistakes Killing Your Local Rankings
A lot of mistakes.
Mistake #1: Your Business Name Isn’t Optimized
Ideally we should have the company name on the profile optimized.
There should at least be Pest in there, ideally Pest Control. That’s the top keyword.
If we can have Pest Control instead of Pest Solutions or Pest Services, if you’re just starting out, that’s a pretty basic mistake.
That’s actually a huge ranking factor, your business name. So ideally we have that in place.
Mistake #2: Over-Optimizing the Wrong Things
Overall, I’d say one of the mistakes is just that people have a misconception about what are the ranking factors.
They totally over optimize and add way too many services and way too many products and way too many of these other things.
When one of the key things really is just get a lot of reviews, man.
Once we do that initial optimization, pretty much the main, one of the only things we’re going to be doing is collecting reviews.
Stop worrying so much about all of these external factors, or not actually external factors, but just all these little tiny nuances.
Like, “Well, should I keyword optimize my review replies?”
No, dude, that’s really, really small. If it is a ranking factor, it’s like 1%.
But when we’re talking about reviews, that is huge. The recency, the consistency, the volume, all of those different components of reviews, those are huge.
The 150 Reviews That Beat 1,000 Reviews
I’ll end with this relating to the reviews.
It’s not just about the volume.
People will look at their market and their competition and say, “There’s an Orkin with 5,000. There’s an Ecolab or whatever with 3,000.”
But a big part of ranking regarding reviews is recency and consistency, like I mentioned.
So it’s not just about who has the most reviews, but it’s also, are you getting them every week or every day, or have you not gotten one in 40 weeks?
I had one example I saw where this pest control company that had only 150 reviews was crushing a competitor that had 1,000 reviews.
That’s because the one who had 1,000 reviews hadn’t gotten a review in six months. And the one with 150 got one, I don’t know, probably two or three a week.
That was boosting their profile more than the one who had 1,000.
More than ever, recency and consistency really matters. And people don’t take that into account.
Can You Do This Yourself?
They can do it themselves, but there is still a learning curve.
Honestly, you could go through my local SEO course, not to plug it or anything, but seriously, that’s probably the best because you don’t need to pay an agency $2,000 to optimize it.
You can just go through my course or maybe we can even give you a checklist. You can reach out to me and you can just go through it yourself because it really is basic.
The same way with Local Service Ads. Local Service Ads are even simpler, but Google Business Profile, you spend an afternoon completely optimizing it and you’re done. It’s not really anything crazy.
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Stop obsessing over tiny details. Focus on reviews, recency, and consistency. That’s what actually moves the needle.
