Local SEO Strategist for Trades and Home Services

About Us We are a boutique SEO agency that works exclusively with trades and home service businesses. Our clients are plumbers, HVAC companies, electricians, and roofers operating in Texas markets. Every client we take is in the trades. Every result we care about is calls and form fills, not vanity metrics. We are not a generalist agency and we are not looking for generalist help. We have systems, SOPs, and a delivery team already in place. What we need is a sharp senior SEO brain we can lean on to validate our direction, catch what we are missing, and push our organic and GBP results further. What This Role Is This is an advisory and strategic consulting role, not an execution role. You will review what we are doing, tell us what is working and what is not, flag opportunities we should be chasing, and give us clear direction on what to prioritize next. You will not be building pages or writing content. You will be the person we ask: are we doing this right, and what should we focus on to get more clicks? The two areas we want your guidance on most: Organic Search - Reviewing keyword targeting and page strategy across client sites - Identifying gaps between what we are building and what will actually rank - Advising on what is blocking clicks even when rankings exist (titles, meta descriptions, content structure, CTR issues) - Catching issues we might overlook: cannibalization, thin pages, indexing gaps Google Business Profile - Advising on GBP optimization to increase clicks, calls, and direction requests - Reviewing posting strategy, category selection, service listings, and photo approach - Flagging GBP-specific opportunities that are specific to trades businesses Who This Is For You are a good fit if: - You have worked specifically with local service businesses such as plumbers, HVAC companies, electricians, or roofers. Not ecommerce. Not SaaS. Not national brands. Local service. - You understand the difference between ranking and getting clicks, and you know what levers move each one - You can look at a Google Search Console report and immediately tell us what the data is saying - You understand GBP deeply, not just "post regularly" advice, but actual optimization for local pack visibility and GBP-driven calls - You communicate clearly and directly. We want your actual opinion, not a list of things to consider. - You work well asynchronously. Most communication will be written. This Is Not For You If: - You primarily execute rather than advise - Your experience is in national SEO, ecommerce, or lead generation outside of local service businesses - You represent an agency or have a team behind you. We are looking for an individual expert. - Your default recommendation is "create more content" or "build more backlinks" without specifics tied to our actual situation Engagement Details - Hourly contract, long-term preferred - Estimated 8 to 15 hours per month - Async-first. Most work involves reviewing our reports and strategy docs and providing written feedback. - Occasional video calls for strategy sessions, 30 to 60 minutes - Tools we use: Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, Rank Math Pro, SEMrush, Ubersuggest To Apply Tell us: 1. One specific example of a GBP or organic SEO problem you diagnosed for a local service business. What you found, what you recommended, and what happened. 2. Your honest rate. One more thing: somewhere in your proposal, tell us what a "zero-click search" is and why it matters for a trades business with a GBP listing. If this is not in your proposal, we will not move forward. We use this to confirm you actually read the post. We are a small, focused team. We do not want a generalist who dabbles in local SEO. We want someone who has lived in this space long enough to have strong opinions and make fast, accurate calls. ---