Pricing, timelines, ownership, reporting, international engagements, and how the work actually runs day to day.
Typically Google profile management, review generation, a modest social presence, local campaigns, and seasonal offer creative. It is scoped to be sustainable monthly rather than impressive once.
For some categories they still bring volume, though lead quality varies and you will be shown alongside competitors. Treat them as one channel among several and measure them separately.
Call volume, WhatsApp enquiries, direction requests from Google, and asking new customers how they found you. Simple, and more reliable for a local business than complex attribution.
Report it through the platform if it breaches policy, and reply factually and calmly in the meantime. Future readers judge the reply as much as the review, and a measured response to an unfair complaint is quietly persuasive.
Only if your customers research before buying. A plumber does not need a blog; a home renovation business probably does, because people research extensively before committing to that spend.
Actual work, actual customers with permission, seasonal relevance, and answers to the questions people ring up and ask. It does not need to be polished. Real and regular beats produced and rare.
On the things they cannot do: knowing customers by name, flexibility, response speed, and genuine local presence. Their advantage is budget; yours is proximity and relationship, and most local businesses fail to communicate either.
For certain catchments and certain categories, yes, particularly outside metros. Add a QR code or a dedicated number so you can tell whether it returned anything, rather than repeating it out of habit.
Make the button obvious on every page and in your Google listing, pre-fill a sensible message so people do not have to compose one, and answer during business hours. Most local businesses lose enquiries to the delay, not to the competition.
No. Pick where your customers are and do that well. For most local service businesses that is Google, one social platform, and WhatsApp. Five neglected profiles look worse than one active one.
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