Manual 1 · Getting Found Locally · 1.11
You filed the paperwork.
Here's what to do first, and in what order.
Ten years on somebody else's truck. Then one morning you file the paperwork, and the name on the door is yours. That's a good morning. You earned it.
Then the phone starts ringing, and it isn't customers. It's a voice that already knows your brand-new business name, calling to sell you "getting found." Three days old and you've drawn a welcoming committee, and not one of them would ever hire you.
There's an order to this. Most of the first part is free, and you do it in rain-day pieces, not all in one sitting. This page is that order. It doesn't walk the steps, each one has its own page. It just tells you which thing comes first, who does it, and what to ignore while you work.
Been at it a while and your listing's already a mess? This is the day-one order, so the fix-what's-broken pages are the ones you want: why a verified listing stays invisible is walked on the not-showing-up page, and the full claim-and-clean-up is on the setup page. Everything below is written for the shop that's three days old.
"I don't want to work under a company anymore but rather to own the smaller-scale projects fully myself. But income security is really crucial for me and I am afraid that after these few projects come to an end, I might struggle to find more."
That's the real fear under the question, said by an electrician heading out on his own. Not "how do I market." "Is the work going to keep coming." Fair fear. Let's aim the order straight at it.
The thing new owners get backwards
Guys think you need the whole rig before you can land a single call: a real website, money into ads, the works. So the first purchase a new owner makes is the biggest one. And the phone's still quiet after.
Think about how you'd build it instead of buy it. You don't hang the cabinets before the drywall's up. There's an order, and the cheap rough-in comes first. Getting found runs the same way. The free listing is your rough-in. A website is finish carpentry. It matters, but it comes late, and it's worth nothing if a stranger can't find the shop yet.
And a stranger will look you up the second your name gets passed around. Whatever they find is the thing that has to exist first. It's free, and it's first.
The order, license to first call
Work these top to bottom. Each one links to the page that actually walks it. This list is just the sequence, and who does the work. None of it needs finishing in a day. A rain day at a time gets you there.
- Claim the free listing. (YOUR HELPER for the screen work. YOU for the verification — and Google picks the method, not you.) It's the free box Google shows when a stranger searches your name and trade. No website needed. This is the rough-in, so do it first. → the free profile setup
- Set the two fields that decide what you turn up for. (YOUR HELPER.) The category and the services boxes do the heavy lifting, so the linked page gives them the full pass. → categories and services
- Put up photos of your own jobs. (YOU, from the phone you already shoot with.) Google's ranking-tips page lists photos among the things you can add. The stranger choosing between you and the next guy is looking at the pictures regardless. → the job-photo shot list
- Ask your first happy customers for a review, the right way. (YOU.) There's a way to ask that keeps you out of trouble. → the reviews manual
- Keep working the truck and the boots. (YOU.) Cards at the supply house, letters on the door, a yard sign left after the job. Keep it up while the rest of the track gets built.
- The paid stuff waits. (HIRED ONCE, later, if ever.) A bigger website, paid ads, lead services: those come after the free track is built, not before. What that work really costs, in plain numbers, is its own page. → what web work costs
Nothing on that track needs a monthly contract, and the listing work costs nothing. Walls come in two shapes. One is a login — a dead password, an old email nobody can open. Hand that to whoever runs your screens; the locked-out walk is the page. The other is Google itself: a listing at your address somebody already built, a verification that comes back no, a new listing that gets pulled. That one stays with you — the setup page for the first two, the suspended walk for the last. On that last one, Google's own words are "Do not create a new Business Profile for the same business while your appeal is under review."
Not sure which page fits your exact spot? start here sorts them by where you're standing right now.
Two things that show up in week one
The track above is the work. These two are the noise, and both arrive fast.
The "Google" calls. The day you file is public record. So the calls start. Some pitch rankings. Some say they're Google itself, calling about the business you just registered. The absurd part is the timing: a sales rush aimed at a business that's existed for seventy-two hours and has no customers to be found by yet. You don't have to sort the real caller from the fake one on the spot. One owner had the whole defense in a single sentence when a "customer" turned into a pitch:
"I just told her to call me back tomorrow reason being i want to Google search more about them."
That sentence isn't a filter — good outfits sometimes don't call back, and bad ones call twice. What it buys you is a night with their name and a search bar. The machine behind those calls is its own page: how to make the sales calls stop. Who these outfits actually are is walked here: the wolves.
The penny domain. Somewhere in week one you'll go to buy a web address, and you'll see a price like a penny for the first year. Read the line under the big number before you click.
"GoDaddy says the domain is available for $0.01 for 1st year then $22.99 each year after with a 3 year locked in term."
Here's the anatomy, so you can read any version of it. As of July 2026, one big registrar's page shows a domain at one cent, struck through from $22.99, with a three-year purchase required and each additional year at $22.99. So the penny is one year of a three-year buy. One cent plus two times $22.99 is $45.99 at checkout, locked for three years.
what the "$0.01 domain" actually rings up at checkout once the required 3-year purchase is added. The penny is one year of three.
one major registrar's own listing, July 2026Two more lines hide in the fine print. Auto-renew is on by default, and renewals bill at "then-current rates," which the registrar's own terms say can run higher than the price you started at. And for the first sixty days, your registrar can block a move to another company. That's fine for an address you're keeping anyway.
None of this makes buying a domain a mistake. You want your own web address, in your own name, that you keep. It just means: read the line under the price, know the renewal is a different number than the teaser, and own it yourself.
One more thing you don't get to pick
When you claim that free listing, Google makes you prove you're real. You don't pick how — Google decides, and you can't change it. Plan on a video. As of July 2026 the walkthrough video is the required method for most businesses, and it has to be recorded live on the spot: no filming it earlier and uploading it, no stills. You show your signage, the place, and something that proves you actually run it. Then Google reviews it, and its own page says that takes up to 5 business days.
Do not plan around a postcard. Google's help pages still describe a code mailed to your address, and a mailed code has become rare — video is what a new trade business gets handed. But rare is not gone: owners were still being assigned the postcard as recently as December 2025. So do not build your week around an envelope, and do not throw one out if it turns up, because an unused code expires in 30 days. This is worth knowing about Google generally: its help pages lag what the product actually does, sometimes by a year or more.
If it stalls, Google publishes no phone number for a free profile. Its help home offers a contact form and a community forum, and the form won't open unless you're signed in to the account. So this gets worked from your own screen. Start verification now, so the clock starts now, and run the rest of the list while you wait. A video that comes back not successful gets re-recorded — you get another go at it. Don't build a second listing to get around it. The full walk is on the setup page, no need to learn it twice.
The part nobody tells a new owner
Here's one man a couple years further down the road than you:
"I've been out on my own for 2 years, been incorporated for 2.5, and im just now starting to have a constant and steady stream of work - but I still dont feel at ease lol."
That's one man, not a survey. We don't have a number for how long it takes to get steady. What his two years are good for isn't a timeline — it's proof that a slow first stretch happens to guys who stick with it. So judge yourself on whether the rough-in is built, not on the calendar. Get the free stuff pointed at you now, so that when your name does get passed around, the person reaching for the phone finds a real business instead of a blank.
Print this: the day-one order
No printer at the shop? Screenshot it and text it to whoever runs your screens. Works the same.
Hand-off sheet · For the owner and whoever runs the screens — tag each line as you go
The day-one order
Start here
Tonight's win is one thing, not the whole list: claim the free listing. That's the rough-in, and it's the one piece that has to exist before anyone can find you. Everything else on the track can wait for the next rain day.
Every page in this manual is the whole job, laid out free, with no email box standing in the doorway. We build and keep websites for trade shops for a living, and the track above is yours to run whether you ever hire us or not.
What we charge, in plain numbers