How to Rank on Google (and Get Recommended by ChatGPT)

In this episode, I break down search engine optimization from the ground up in a way that's easy to understand for window cleaning and other home service business owners. We'll cover what actually makes a business rank on Google, why some companies outrank competitors with more reviews, and how to think about SEO as building trust instead of chasing algorithms.

Then we'll dive into how AI search tools like ChatGPT are changing the game, what generative search optimization is, and why the businesses that invest in authority, reputation, and helpful content today will have a major advantage tomorrow.

Whether you're just getting started or you've been trying to improve your rankings for years, this episode will give you a framework you can use to make smarter marketing decisions and generate more leads over the long term.

In this episode:

•  The four pillars of local SEO 
•  How Google decides who ranks 
•  Reviews, backlinks, and authority explained simply 
•  The biggest SEO misconceptions 
•  The SEO flywheel for service businesses 
•  How AI search is changing local marketing 
•  What to do now to rank on Google and get recommended by AI 

If you found this episode helpful, I'd really appreciate it if you subscribed and left a review. It helps more service business owners discover the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to Clean for Profit. Appreciate you tuning in again. Today I want to talk about something that's a little different than what we usually talk about directly. And that is how to rank on Google and on large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. We're going to find actually that there's quite a bit of overlap. And so we're going to take a little bit of a step back and talk more generally about search engine optimization or SEO. This stuff can be really kind of nerdy. I really like it. And it's something that on the podcast I've I haven't spent a ton of time talking about, but that I've spent a lot of time learning about and helping other businesses develop as well. There's a lot that I've learned over the last couple of years. And, you know, I don't know to what extent I've kind of gone into this on the podcast itself, but I've been in the window cleaning business for just shy of 10 years now. I've more or less always been a solo operator with a helper or two until pretty recently, when we've been going through a lot of growth, especially in 2026. So that's kind of changed. But this time, about three and a half, four years ago, I was pretty convinced that I wanted to become a full stack software engineer. Spent about a year and a half learning how to code and build websites, and got a job as a web developer at a small local agency. And I learned a ton there about developing websites that are optimized. I learned a lot about search engine optimization and learning how to basically make websites show up when they're supposed to. So when a user searches for something related to a website, your website is the one that's ranking. And in a nutshell, that's what search engine optimization is. It's not, I mean, it is about ranking, like on Google and whatnot, of course, but SEO at its core is becoming the business that search engines trust the most when somebody needs your service, just to simplify it. Um, and what we're gonna talk about kind of stems off of that, pretty much everything else we're gonna talk about. So let's kind of jump into it. Imagine Google's trying to recommend a plumber to somebody that it knows. Like imagine you were you're trying to recommend a plumber to your mom. What you're gonna do is make sure that you're recommending the plumber that is most likely going to be able to solve the problem that your mom is having at her house. Google does the exact same thing. Then that's what they're asking. Like, who is most likely to solve this customer's problem? And everything that we do in search engine optimization is just proving that your business is the safest bet for Google to show when somebody is searching for your services in your area. So there's four questions that Google's kind of constantly trying to answer, which is number one, are you relevant? Are you trustworthy? Are you local? And is your website good? So just going through those one by one. Are you relevant? This is the most basic one. If you're not relevant to a search term, you don't want to be showing up there in the first place. So do you solve the problem that's being searched for by the user? If someone searches for window cleaning in Dallas, Fort Worth, whatever, um, solar panel cleaning, chandelier cleaning, gutter cleaning near me, Google needs evidence that you genuinely perform those services in that area. This is done through your website's content. So your service pages, your photos, a lot of people don't know this, but photos that people post in like Google reviews or that you post on your website have geotags in them, and that's extracted into your website's metadata. And Google sees that. Um, videos, the articles or blog posts that you write, the headings in your website, the titles of different landing pages. Basically, all of these work together to tell Google what you do and where you do it. Number two is are you trustworthy? Um, you know, anybody can build a website. Google wants proof from multiple places that you do what you say you do, and that people trust you to do what you say you do. So this comes from things like uh having an excellent website, having good reviews, how many years you've been in business, uh, mentions across the internet, citations and backlinks, consistent business information across multiple platforms, and just overall a good reputation. These are things that stack up over time, and also need to be considered when you're building your website as well. Uh, number three is are you local? Google wants to know if you actually service the area that the homeowner is looking in. It's as simple as that. So where you're based out of matters quite a bit for where you show up. Um your service area is being mentioned, your Google Business Profile being optimized and uh dialed in for your specific for your specific area, making sure you have reviews from local clients. Reviews are so important, you guys. Um, and that's why I'm on my website and in the back end of our business, we've built out systems that automatically prospect for reviews and rebookings for that matter from clients that we've already worked with, um, which is how we've gotten 100 reviews over the last uh six, seven months, something like that. Um local backlinks are very important. So being listed on local business directories and having address consistency across multiple platforms. So whenever you're creating backlinks, which we'll get into um making sure that all of your information is aligned across all of those backlinks is incredibly important. Uh, and number four is is your website good? Um, so I mean imagine a hundred people go to your website. Like Google's gonna send people to your website when you show up in search results. So there's questions like do they stay or do they leave immediately? Your website needs to load quickly, you need to have easy mat navigation, your website has to be mobile friendly, you have to have good photos and clear calls to action are all really important. Uh, and keep people on your website, um, which again shows to Google that you're solving the problem that they're searching for, which will result in you being recommended more for those searches. So all of this kind of flips what I think a lot of business owners think. It's really easy to think when you create a Google business profile that, like, oh, this is for me. I'm putting my info out there, and this is gonna help my business. Like, Google doesn't exist for business owners, it exists for the people that are using Google to search for businesses. Google could care less about your business. The game of SEO is making sure that your profile is optimized and set up for people to find you by signaling to Google that you're a relevant result for a given search term. So, um, and that matters because if somebody searches for like window cleaning near me and Google recommends a terrible company, people lose trust in Google. So Google's incentives are super and way more aligned with the customer than yours. Um, so your job is making it incredibly obvious that hiring you will make Google look smart, essentially. So, with that, let's just get really practical. There's four assets that every service business needs. Number one is your website, number two is a Google business profile, number three are reviews, and number four is four is your general reputation across the internet. So we'll go over this real quick. We've kind of covered this at a high level already, but your website needs to be SEO optimized. It needs to have content that's related to what you're doing, and this is not just like stuffing a ton of keywords onto your site con a day, uh, but this is making sure you have a website that is set up in a way that is organized and clearly describes what you do, and then also is able to basically convert viewers or traffic into conversions. So whatever your conversion is, whether you want them to call you or fill out a form to have you reach out, um, whatever that is. We need to be able to do that. Um, and it's kind of your headquarters. This is where Google learns about your business, what you do, where you do it. Um, your Google business profile is what wins map searches, essentially, like the coveted map pack, uh, it's called, which is the top three to five results on Google's homepage when you search for a specific company. Like when you're showing up in the map pack, you're printing money, basically. There's a huge difference between being, you know, fourth in the map pack rankings and second. Uh, and it's not uh it's not doubling, it's it's a parabolic increase in terms of how much traffic you get. Um reviews are super important as well. I mean, it it reviews are your connection to the outside world, essentially. It's where your website meets the outside world. So making sure that you have reviews that are coming in on a regular basis and stacking these as early as you possibly can. I think, you know, especially in window cleaning or cleaning businesses in general, it's so easy to get caught up in the hustle of just getting, you know, to your first $10,000 a month. And I get it, that's super important. Um, especially with the context that most people are starting in, which is they need money, they need to make money quickly so that they don't need to depend on a job. But whenever I'm coaching people that are looking to quit their jobs and move into running a cleaning business full-time, one of the biggest things that I encourage them to do right off the bat is to do whatever they have to do to get their first 50 five-star reviews on Google as quickly as possible. Um, and that can come through incentivizing your clients um in various ways because getting there is such a bedrock of social proof and performance in general of your Google business profile. And yeah, getting those first 50 to 100 five-star reviews is absolutely crucial. It took me way too long. Um, and when we moved back to California where I am now, dude, I had like 23 reviews after doing this for six or seven years. Um, so trust me, I stayed there for way too long. And the biggest thing that's moved the needle for us from an SEO standpoint, other than making sure that the website was optimized, which I did a massive overhaul on our website um about a year and a half ago now, uh, was getting consistent five-star reviews on Google. Um, in the last uh about 18 months, we've gone from that 23 reviews to I think we're sitting at 185 now, 183, something like that. Um, and that's been massively powerful for showing up in rankings in general. So uh I'm glad we took a little pit stop there because uh if you take anything from this, it's get more Google reviews. Um, that's those are as important, if not more important, than your website, because you can always re-up and refresh your website. Um, you can't get back time that you've lost to get reviews from past clients, though. So uh and then just generally, real quick, asset number four is your reputation across the internet. Uh Google crawls the internet, they check a ton of places, they check Facebook, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, local directories, news articles, mentions on different social media platforms. And when they see your information on these platforms with consistent information about your name, where you are, what your number is, and what you do, um, that helps build Google's confidence in you. And those are like generally considered to be backlinks um or citations on on the internet. Um so it's an endorsement. That's what a back, that's what a backlink is. It's it's a chamber of commerce website linking to your website. Um, it's similar to an endorsement, like a local newspaper, a supplier, um, and just people in general on social media mentioning your website or your business rather, um, are all going to build massive authority over time. Um, having regularly updated content is very important as well. Google can't see the work that you do, right? They don't, they can't be out in the field with you making sure that you're doing a good job. They can only see the evidence that you provide of the work that you do. So regularly updating your photos, having good service pages, um, frequently asked questions on your website, case studies, testimonials published to your website, um, these all become evidence and work together to help you rank more. Um making sure that your website is fresh kind of goes hand in hand with that. So making sure that you have updated content on a regular basis. Um, we post uh we we make posts and update our content for our clients and on our website um at least twice a month every other week. Um, that's just evidence for Google that your business is alive. Um and the same goes for your Google Business profile. So a lot of the updates that we put onto our website end up getting put put on our Google Business profile as posts as well, which like is sort of for the general public, but let's be real. Who's how many people are really taking time to read Google Business Profile posts? Not many. Um, I know not me for sure. I have uh a lot of other things that I'm probably doom scrolling before I'm resulting to checking out my local plumber's last GBP post, but Google sees that activity um and they reward it over time. Um, and then just technical SEO. We can go like we'll go over this quickly, but like, are you using HTTP or HTTPS? Um, does it work on phones, your website? Does it load fast? Do you have good page titles? Do you have proper headings? These things are really important to make sure that you have. Um and honestly, it's very similar with showing up on places like Chat GPT. I've had about half a dozen people over the last couple of months tell me that they found me on ChatGPT, which is an interesting thing to hear. Um, because I think for a while people thought of ChatGPT as something that was like kind of answering questions, and it's it is, obviously. It's it's a large language model, it's based on on a chat box. Um, but people are starting to ask questions about their local area. I know I am, um, and you know, we've produced probably $5,000 this year from in sales from people that have just gone on ChatGPT and have said, like, I need good window cleaning in Auburn, California. Who should I go with? And we're one of the companies that ends up popping up. Sometimes if you search like best window cleaning in Auburn CA, um, we are the ones that show up. Not always, but uh a decent amount of the time it's happening, which is really cool. Um I gotta be totally honest with you, I haven't done anything too rank on Chat GPT, really. The the overlap between SEO and showing up on like generative search optimization, you might call it, GSO, um, is like 90 to 95 percent. Um, they both reward helpful content, authority, reviews, expertise, fast websites, clear service pages, structured information on your website, local reputation, and just generally a display of people that trust you in the area. Um so I mean the rest is like the extra 10% is basically writing content that's incredibly easy for AI to understand and synthesize. So that is information or that is content that answers questions directly, organizes information with clear headings, um, demonstrates what real-world experience, um, and includes specific details about locations, services, stuff like that. But really, guys, even that 10% are all useful guidelines for what you should be including in general search engine optimization content. So, yeah, I mean, there's certainly some change going on in how search works. Um, but from what I've seen, it was really cool learning to become a developer over the years of like over the last three, four years. Um, because right after I started to learn, like about nine months into learning how to code something like that, these uh generative search platforms, you know, namely ChatGPT came out, and everybody thought it was going to revolutionize everything overnight. Um, and while it certainly changed the way that I was working and still do work as a developer that helps other cleaning businesses, um it's very it's been quite gradual, and a lot of it has overlapped really almost one-to-one with search engine optimization. Um, obviously things have gotten a lot faster with like how we use our tooling and stuff like that, but like SEO has never really been about tricks. I think it's really it's a really common um misunderstanding that people have about search engine optimization, which is that you can just throw a ton of keywords into the footer of your website that's like you know, window cleaning market area one, window cleaning market area two, window cleaning market area three. There's and there's still some dinosaur websites out there that have content like that, which is very funny. Um, but SEO has never really been about tricks, it's always been about reducing uncertainty, basically. Every review, every photo that you post on there, every well-written service page, um, and every time that people are talking about you in a positive way gives search engines and now AI more confidence that you're the right answer for them. Um, so whether people are searching on Google or, you know, an LLM of some kind, a lot of these principles are very much so the same. Um so making sure that you're demonstrating your expertise, having a high quality website uh and having making sure that other people are talking about you favorably on the internet um is ultimately what's going to allow you to win long term on any of these platforms. Uh so if you have any questions, you're more than welcome to reach out. My name's Colby. This has been Clean for Profit, and we'll talk to you next week.