A Washington General Contractor Went From 24% to 98% of the Map in the Top 3
A general contractor in western Washington. Twenty years of work behind them, a five-star profile, and a map that went dark the moment you drove a few miles from the office. We scanned 169 points across the service area on the day we started. Eight months later there is not a single point on that grid where they are missing.
Strong close to home. Invisible past it.
This is the pattern almost every established contractor has and almost none of them can see. Search from the office and you look fine. Search from the next town over, where half the jobs are, and you are not there.
34 points returned nothing
Across the scanned area there were thirty-four places where a homeowner searching for a general contractor would not have been shown this business at all.
Ranked 10th on average
Averaged across every point on the grid. Tenth is the second page of the map, and nobody opens the second page.
Twenty-five reviews, all five stars
The reputation was never the problem. It just was not reaching anyone outside a couple of miles.
The same service area, scanned twice, eight months apart
Each marker is a real place on the map. We stood at 169 points across the service area, about 6 miles corner to corner, and asked Google from each one who they would use for a general contractor. The number in the marker is where this business came back.
Before, thirty-four points returned nothing at all and the whole western edge was red. After, every single point returns the business, and 165 of the 169 return it in the top three. That is the difference between owning a postcode and owning a service area.
Where every point sat, before and after
Every search term we track, not just the good one
| Search term | Before | After | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| remodeling contractor | 19.3 | 14.9 | |
| general contractor services | 12.6 | 2.7 | |
| general contractor | 10.0 | 1.3 | |
| bathroom renovation | 20.0 | 19.9 no change | |
| kitchen remodeling contractor | 19.8 | 19.8 no change | |
| home renovation services | 20.0 | 20.0 no change | |
| deck builder | 20.0 | 20.0 no change | |
| water restoration | 20.0 | 20.0 no change | |
| home remodeling | 19.3 | 19.8 no change | |
| basement finishing contractor | 18.4 | 19.8 no change |
Grid scans 5 December 2025 and 1 August 2026. 169 points, 0.5 miles apart. Rank shown is for "general contractor". This grid covers one search term. Three of the ten terms we track moved; the other seven are unchanged, and they are listed in the account's monthly report.
The same work, every week, for eight months.
None of it is clever. It is the part that has to happen whether anyone is watching or not, which is exactly why most profiles never get it.
20 posts to the profile
Written around the services and the towns that actually get searched, not filler.
43 photos uploaded, 70 optimised
Real job photos, named and tagged properly instead of dumped in as camera-roll filenames.
55 posts across social
Twenty to LinkedIn, nineteen to Facebook, sixteen to Instagram, plus video to all three.
Every review answered
Twenty-five of twenty-five now carry a reply in the owner's voice.
7 questions answered
The ones homeowners type before they call: cost, timeline, permits, how long the crew is on site.
237 completed actions
In the last eighty-nine days alone. That is the unglamorous engine underneath the map.
What moved, and what did not
Rankings moved a long way. The volume underneath them has not caught up yet, and we would rather show you both than crop the chart.
Monthly visibility, every month we have
Total times the profile was shown on Google Search or Maps, per month. Grey bars are before we started. The final bar is a part month, because Google reports about a week behind.
165 of 169 points in the top three
Up from forty. On the term that matters most for this business, they are now the answer almost everywhere in the service area.
Zero dead spots
From thirty-four. There is no longer anywhere on the scanned map where they simply do not appear.
25 reviews, every one answered
A five-star average, and the most recent review came in eighteen days ago.
And what has not happened yet
Google views are roughly flat over the same period, up about eight percent, and calls from the profile have not moved in a way we would put a number against. Rankings improved sharply and the volume underneath has not caught up yet. Seven of the ten search terms we track are also unchanged, sitting where they started. Anyone showing you a map like this without those two sentences attached is selling you something.
All figures are from this business's own Google Business Profile and from geogrid scans run against Google's live results. Reporting periods are stated in full above.
One client's results over one period. Rankings, visibility and lead volume vary by trade, market, competition and season. Nothing here is a projection or a guarantee of what any other business will see.
The things worth asking about a page like this.
Because trade plus city often names a business outright, and our clients did not sign up to have their ranking history discussed in public. Trade plus state is as specific as we go. If you want to check any of it, ask on a call and we will walk you through the live dashboard.
It could be, which is why the numbers under each grid are raw cell counts rather than a percentage we picked. 40 of 169 and 165 of 169 are countable off the picture.
Because they were the ones this business actually competes for. The other seven are adjacent trades it does not lead with, and we would rather show you that than quietly drop them from the report.
Rankings move first and volume follows, usually by a few months, and sometimes it does not follow at all if the profile or the website is not converting. That is the next thing we work on and we would rather you heard it here than in month three.
For a service area this size, yes. A single postcode moves faster. A dense metro with entrenched competitors takes longer. We will tell you which one you are before you sign anything.
Push review volume harder. Twenty-five reviews at 1.3 a month is fine, not formidable, and reviews feed both the ranking and the decision the homeowner makes when they see three options.
See the same map for your own business
We will run the scan before you pay us anything. If it comes back mostly green, we will tell you so and you can keep your money.
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