A plumber's pipeline lives or dies on Google Maps. Customers don't research plumbers. They search "plumber near me", call the first three results, and book whoever picks up. If you're not in those three, you don't exist for that customer.

This is the definitive plumber-specific local SEO guide. Not generic small-business advice rebadged with the word "plumber" sprinkled in. The exact moves that put plumbing businesses in the Map Pack and keep them there — the keywords, the GBP setup, the review count, the timing windows, the 90-day execution plan, and the storytelling reframe that lifts your review rate by 2-3×.

What you'll get from this guide:

The 10 keywords plumbers should actually target (and the ones that waste budget)
How many reviews you need to hit the top 3 in your city
The exact GBP fields and photos that move plumber rankings
Two review-timing windows that convert at 25-60% vs the typical 5-10%
How to reframe review requests so customers want to leave one
The 90-day execution plan worked through a real example (18 to 94 reviews in 60 days)
The suburb-specific landing-page move most plumbers ignore
A practical FAQ for the questions plumbers actually ask

If you read nothing else: get your GBP categories right, hit 80-150 fresh reviews, ask via SMS 24-48 hours after the job, and the rest follows.

Why Plumbers Live or Die on Maps

Three things make Google Maps disproportionately important for plumbers compared to almost any other service business:

1. The decision is fast and emotional. Burst pipe at 11pm. Blocked drain on a Sunday. No hot water before the kids' bath. Customers don't compare five quotes. They open Maps, call the first plumber who looks legitimate, and book whoever picks up. The decision window is minutes, not days.

2. The decision is local-only. Nobody searches "best plumber" generically. They search plumber [suburb], emergency plumber [city], or plumber near me. Map Pack results dominate above-the-fold for nearly every plumbing query. Organic blue links are an afterthought.

3. Supply is abundant but uneven. Most cities have hundreds of plumbers. Most have terrible online presence — broken GBPs, no reviews, dead websites. Plumbers with strong Maps presence look professional by comparison and win the click. Competence isn't the differentiator. Visibility is.

If you're a plumber and you're not winning Maps for your service area, every other marketing dollar is leaking. Fix Maps first, then layer on everything else.

What Winning Actually Looks Like (The Revenue Math)

Before getting into tactics, let's quantify what's at stake. The economics of being in the Map Pack vs not are stark, and it shapes how much effort is rational to invest.

A typical mid-sized city plumber sees this distribution of inbound enquiries from a top-3 Map Pack ranking:

40-60% from Map Pack click-through. Customer Googles plumber [suburb], you appear in the top 3, they click the call button. Average call-to-job conversion is 60-75% (high — they've already decided, they're calling to confirm availability).
15-25% from organic local search. Below the Map Pack, your website shows up for relevant queries. Lower-intent traffic, longer sales cycle.
10-20% from direct search and word-of-mouth. Customer's been told your name or seen your van.
5-15% from paid ads. If you run them.

Move from outside the top 20 to top 3 and the inbound enquiry volume for a typical urban plumber roughly triples within 6 months. The reason most plumbers undervalue local SEO is that the gap between invisible and top-3 isn't 50% more work — it's a different category of business. Most plumbers running steady $300k-$500k annual revenue could reach $600k-$1M just from winning Maps in their service area. That's not theoretical — it's what happens to plumbers who execute the plan in this guide.

That's why the math on this is so different from other marketing. Spending 30 hours setting up your GBP and 90 days running a review velocity campaign returns 5-10× any other marketing investment for a single-location plumber. There is no second-place winner in trades local SEO — the customer calls 1, 2, 3 and stops.

Part 1: The Keywords Plumbers Should Actually Target

Plumbers waste money targeting too many keywords. The bulk of high-intent search traffic in plumbing is concentrated in fewer than 10 query types. Win those first; ignore the long tail until the high-leverage queries are locked.

The high-leverage queries (target these first)

These are the queries that drive bookings, not traffic:

plumber [city]
plumber [suburb]
emergency plumber [city]
emergency plumber near me
[city] plumber
24 hour plumber [city]
plumber [city] open now

These are short, geographic, intent-heavy. The customer typing this is calling someone within the next 10 minutes. You want to be that someone.

Service-specific high-converters

These rank slightly differently — the searcher knows their problem and is qualifying you for it:

blocked drain [city]
hot water repair [city]
gas plumber [city]
burst pipe [city]
leak detection [city]
toilet repair [city]
tap replacement [city]

If you have a strong specialty (gas, hot water, drain) you should prioritise these for that specialty. Don't target every service equally — concentrate on what you actually do well, charge well for, and want more of.

Don't bother yet (rank for these once the above are won)

plumber prices
plumber cost
how much does a plumber cost
plumbing tips
DIY plumbing
plumbing problems

The first set drives bookings. The service-specific set drives bookings if you're set up for them. Everything else drives traffic that doesn't convert. Plumbers running content marketing funnels for "plumbing tips" are giving away free advice to people who'll never book them. Skip it until you've already won the queries that pay.

One bonus query type: the "open now" modifier

Every city has searchers typing variations like plumber open now [city], plumber Sunday [city], emergency plumber late night. These convert at 80-90% because the customer is in panic mode. To win them you need (a) accurate GBP hours including weekend/24h coverage if you offer it, (b) a primary or secondary category of "Emergency plumbing service", and (c) photos and description that mention emergency availability. Most plumbers leave money on the table here because their GBP says they close at 5pm even though they take emergency calls.

Part 2: GBP Setup Specific to Plumbing

Your Google Business Profile is the single highest-leverage asset in your local SEO stack. Most plumbers' GBPs are wrong in three to four places. Fix these and you'll move within 6-8 weeks even before you change anything else.

Primary category

Use "Plumber" if you're a generalist. Use "Emergency plumbing service" if more than 30% of your work is emergency call-outs — this primary category alone moves you up for emergency queries. Use "Commercial plumber" if your work is heavily commercial.

Google explicitly recommends picking the most specific accurate option, not the broadest. Specificity wins.

Secondary categories (use up to 9)

Pick everything that genuinely applies:

Drain cleaning service
Gas installation service
Hot water system supplier
Bathroom remodeller (if you do reno work)
Septic system service
Water damage restoration service
Hydro jetting service
Pipe repair service
Backflow prevention service

Each secondary category opens you up to a category of search. Don't add categories you don't actually serve — but don't be shy about adding ones you do.

Service area

Set this for the actual area you genuinely serve. Don't claim Greater Brisbane if you really only do Northside — Google's anti-fraud detection filters out plumbers who over-claim, and you'll rank worse, not better. Honest service area = better ranking in the suburbs you actually work in.

Aim for 5-10 specific suburbs rather than one giant metro. Specificity outperforms scope.

Services list

Add every service you offer with a one-line description. Each service is a chance to rank for that service+suburb combination.

Emergency leak repair
Hot water system installation
Blocked drain clearing
Gas line repair and installation
Bathroom plumbing rough-in
Toilet and tap replacement
Pipe relining
Backflow prevention installation
Sewer line repair

Include rough price guidance where you can — Google rewards complete profiles, and customers shortlist by transparency.

Description

You get 750 characters. Use them. The description should include:

Your top 3 services
Your service area (named suburbs, not just "Brisbane")
What makes you different — fast response time, family-run, licence number, years in trade
A natural reference to "emergency" or "24 hour" if you offer it

Write in customer language, not corporate speak. "We turn up when we say we will" is worth more than "delivering exceptional plumbing solutions".

Photos

Aim for 30+ across these categories:

5+ recent job photos (before/after if you have them — Google's image recognition rewards these and customers love the social proof)
5+ of your work van and team — face, name on the side, a uniform if you wear one. Trust signals.
5+ of your equipment — drain cameras, leak detection gear. Communicates competence.
3-5 of your premises if you have a workshop or office.
A licence/insurance certificate photo if your jurisdiction issues one. Tradies in Australia: post your QBCC/MBA licence. UK: Gas Safe registration. US: your master plumber licence number.

Add new photos every 2-4 weeks. Google's algorithm rewards profile activity, and "new photos" counts.

Hours and emergency designation

If you do 24-hour emergency work, set hours to 24/7 and mention it in the description. If you do limited after-hours coverage (e.g. 6am-10pm weekdays, daylight weekends), set those accurately. Inaccurate hours = customers who arrive to a closed business and leave bad reviews.

Licence and insurance fields

Most jurisdictions let you add licence numbers to your GBP. Add them. This is an explicit E-E-A-T signal that customers and Google both respond to. If your jurisdiction doesn't have a dedicated field, work it into your description naturally: "Licensed plumber QBCC #1234567 / Gas Safe registered #5678901".

Part 3: Reviews — How Many, How Fast, How to Get Them

This is where most plumbers either win or lose. Reviews are the most leveraged single signal in plumbing local SEO — more than citations, more than backlinks, more than schema markup. Getting reviews right closes 70% of the gap between invisible and top-3.

How many reviews you actually need

Concrete benchmarks for ranking in the top 3 of Maps for plumber [your city]:

Major Australian metros (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth):

Floor (just to be visible): 80-100 reviews
Top 3: 150-300+ reviews, 4.7+ rating, regular review velocity
Top 1: 300+ reviews, 4.8+ rating, 5-15 fresh reviews per month

Mid-sized cities (Adelaide, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Wollongong, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol):

Floor: 40-60 reviews
Top 3: 80-150 reviews, 4.6+ rating
Top 1: 150+ reviews, 4.7+ rating, 3-8 fresh reviews per month

Smaller cities and regional:

Floor: 20-30 reviews
Top 3: 40-80 reviews, 4.5+ rating
Top 1: 80+ reviews, regular velocity

These are competitive baselines. Your specific suburb might be easier or harder depending on how aggressive the competition is. Check your top 3 competitors for the exact query you want to win and look at their review counts — that's your real benchmark, not the city-wide number.

Why velocity matters more than total count

The other key number isn't total reviews — it's fresh reviews per month. A plumber with 400 reviews and zero new ones in the last 90 days will be beaten by one with 60 reviews and 8 new ones this month. Google reads recent reviews as a "this business is currently active and trusted" signal, and that recency signal weighs heavily in local ranking.

BrightLocal's annual survey finds the same on the consumer side: buyers trust recent reviews far more than old ones, regardless of overall count. A 2024 review is worth more than ten from 2020.

The practical implication: stop chasing the 200-review milestone and start running a system that consistently delivers 8-15 fresh reviews per month. Velocity beats volume in plumbing every single time.

The two timing windows that beat the invoice ask

Most plumbers ask for reviews on the invoice or in a follow-up email a week later. Conversion rate: 5-10%. This is leaving 80% of available reviews on the table.

The plumbers crushing local SEO use one of two timing approaches that consistently outperform the invoice ask by 3-6×.

Option A: Ask on-site, immediately after job completion. The highest-converting moment is the few minutes after you've packed up and the customer can see the problem is solved. They're grateful in real-time. Their phone is in their hand. You're standing right there. Sample script:

"Mrs Johnson, really glad we sorted that leak for you today. Would you mind leaving us a quick Google review? Takes about 2 minutes and really helps us out. I'll send you the link now."

Then text them the direct review link before you leave the property. Conversion: 35-60% when done well. The catch: this requires the plumber on the job to ask comfortably. Some tradies don't enjoy asking. If that's you, default to Option B.

Option B: Ask 24-48 hours after the job, by SMS. Customer with a burst pipe at 11pm doesn't feel grateful at 11pm — they feel stressed. They don't feel grateful at the moment of payment — they feel out of pocket. They feel grateful 24 hours later when they wake up, the leak is gone, their floor is dry, and they're back to normal life. That's the window. Sample SMS:

"Hey [Name], hope your hot water's all sorted. If you've got a sec, would love a quick Google review — really helps us out. [link] Cheers, [Name]"

Conversion: 25-40%. Five times the rate of the invoice ask. Easier to automate than the on-site approach. Most plumbers find this is their default and Option A is what they layer on for bigger jobs and emergency work.

The storytelling reframe that lifts conversion further

Even with the right timing, the words you use matter. The shift that takes review rates from 25% to 35-45% is reframing the ask from a rating request to a transformation story invitation.

Most plumbers ask: "Please leave us a review." That's an ask for a number. It feels transactional.

Instead try: "If you've got a moment, I'd love to hear how things are working now compared to before."

That's not a rating ask. That's an invitation to tell the before-and-after story they've already lived through. The problem they had at 11pm, the work that happened, the relief they felt when it worked. People don't remember ratings — they remember stories about problems getting solved. When you point them at the full story, they'll write something far more useful than "5 stars, would recommend".

The reviews you get back are different too. Instead of "Great service" you get: "My kitchen was a nightmare. Dave came in, sorted the whole thing, explained what he was doing the whole time. Now I don't worry about it. Best money I've spent all year."

That second review is worth 5-10× the first for converting future customers. And the customer was just as happy to write it — they just needed the right invitation.

Variants by job type:

For emergency work (burst pipe, heating failure): "We hope the [problem] is sorted now — if you've got a moment, I'd love to know how things are." Acknowledges the urgency they felt and the relief they feel now.
For routine maintenance: "Thanks for staying on top of your [service] — if everything's working well, I'd love to hear about it." Frames the customer as someone doing the right thing.
For bigger projects: "Now that you've had a few days to settle in with the [new install], I'd be keen to know how it's been." Acknowledges that new systems take time to feel normal.

None of these ask for a review. All of them invite a story. (The mindset shift here — why this isn't sleazy and is actually a service to customers — is covered separately in why asking for reviews is genuinely useful, not pushy.)

Friction removal

Even with the right timing and the right words, customers won't review if the path has friction. Make it stupid easy:

Get the direct review request link from your GBP settings (not the Maps URL — the direct link). Use that everywhere. It opens straight to the review form. No navigation, no confusion.
Use a URL shortener so the link is text-friendly (yourplumber.co/review is friendlier than g.page/r/CXyZ...).
Print a QR code on the back of your van, on invoices, and on a business-card-sized handout you leave behind. A van QR code alone can pull 1-2 reviews a week from customers stuck behind you at lights.
Pre-populate where possible. Some review platforms let you pre-fill the customer's name or job context.

Reply rate

Reply to every review — positive and negative — within 48 hours. This signals to Google that you're an active business, and it signals to lurkers reading your reviews that you care about feedback. (More on this in reply to every review.)

The simple structure for review replies: thank them by name, mention something specific from the review (acknowledges you read it), and add one forward-looking note ("happy to help anytime", "let us know if anything changes"). For negative reviews, see how to respond.

Part 4: Reading Competitor Rankings to Find Your Gap

Before you do anything tactical, find out exactly where you stand. Most plumbers skip this step and end up working on the wrong thing.

Run a geo-grid scan for plumber [your city] across your service area. You'll see exactly where you rank from each location — a 9x9 or 13x13 grid showing your position from each point in your service area.

Now look at your worst suburb. Open Google Maps from a search emulating that location (Chrome DevTools → set geolocation, or use a geo-grid tool). Note the top 3 plumbers ranking there. Look at:

Their review count
Their average rating
Their primary category
Their last review date (recency)
Whether they reply to reviews
How many photos they have
Their service area coverage

That's your gap. If they have 200 reviews and you have 60, your gap is volume. If they have 80 reviews from this year and you have 200 from 2022, your gap is recency. If they reply to every review and you don't, your gap is engagement. If they have 50 photos and you have 8, your gap is profile depth.

Closing the specific gap is the campaign. Target the worst suburb first; the others will follow because the underlying signals improve site-wide.

Part 5: Suburb-Specific Landing Pages — The Move Most Plumbers Ignore

This is the single most under-used tactic in plumbing local SEO. Most plumbing websites have a homepage, a services page, and an "about us". That's it — the whole site is generic, with no specific page for "emergency plumber Stafford" or "blocked drains New Farm" or "hot water repair Cleveland".

Google's local algorithm reads location-specific landing pages as a Relevance signal. A plumber with 12 suburb pages (one per suburb you actually serve) ranks for plumber [suburb] queries you'd otherwise lose to a closer competitor.

The pages don't need to be 2,000-word essays. 400-600 words each, covering:

What plumbing services you offer in that suburb
Common plumbing issues specific to that area (e.g. "homes in Stafford built pre-1970 have galvanised pipe systems that fail in clusters — we replace these regularly")
A genuine reason a customer in that suburb would call you specifically
Customer testimonials from that suburb if you have them
Your contact details and a clear CTA

The single biggest mistake: copy-pasting the same template and just changing the suburb name. Google detects this and devalues all of the pages. Each one needs at least 200-300 words of genuinely suburb-specific content — the building stock, the streets you've worked on, the local council requirements, the specific competitors.

Build one a week. By month 3 you've got 12 pages targeting 12 suburbs. By month 6 those pages are ranking and bringing in qualified leads while you sleep. Your competitors won't bother. That's the edge.

Part 6: The 90-Day Plumber Plan (Worked Example)

Here's the sequence from "where am I?" to "winning my service area", with a real worked example. Dave runs a one-man plumbing operation in Bristol. Three years in, he was averaging 2 reviews a month and his Google profile felt like a ghost town. In 8 weeks he went from 18 to 94 reviews. This is exactly what he did.

Weeks 1-2: Audit and Foundation

Before asking a single customer for a review, get the infrastructure right.

Run a geo-grid for your top 3 keywords. Note the baseline.
Identify your worst suburb and the 3 competitors winning there.
Audit your GBP against Part 2 above and fix the obvious gaps: categories, services list, description, photos.
Get your direct Google review link from your GBP settings. Shorten it with a URL shortener.
Print a QR code A4 sticker for the back door of your van. "Feedback? Tap here."
Add a review-request line to your invoices: "If you were happy with the work, we'd love a review. Here's the link:" with the QR code.

Dave's takeaway from this phase: "Friction kills everything. Even people who want to leave a review will give up if the path isn't clear." He hadn't asked anyone for a review yet — he just made it stupid easy for people to say yes.

Weeks 3-4: The First Push

Now start asking. Not aggressively — just consistently.

On every job completion, the plumber on-site asks: "Look, reviews help us get found. Would you mind taking 30 seconds to leave feedback on Google?" Hand over a printed card with the QR code. Some customers do it right there. Most say "yeah, I'll do it later" — and a percentage actually do.

Dave's results in this phase: 4 reviews in week 3, 5 in week 4. Total now 27. Still nowhere near 100 but momentum starting.

Keep a notebook. Customer name, date, asked or not. The accountability is what stops you drifting back to "I'll ask the next one".

Weeks 5-6: The System Shift

This is where Dave changed the game and where most plumbers see their inflection point. Set up automated SMS follow-up.

After every job, the system sends this 6 hours later:

"Hi [Name], thanks for having us round! If you got a moment, we'd love your feedback. Just 30 seconds on Google: [link]"

Stack: Zapier + Twilio is one option, or use a dedicated review tool. Cost: £30-50/month for a typical plumber's volume. The automation is what makes this sustainable — manual SMSs every job after a long day work for a week and then fall apart.

Dave's results: 8 reviews in week 5, 9 in week 6. Velocity doubled. Total now 53. The reason: he'd caught the moment when customers were actually thinking about the work — freshly completed, problem solved, gratitude peaking.

His takeaway: "Timing beats salesmanship. People will leave reviews if you ask at the right moment. Automating that moment is worth every penny."

Weeks 7-8: The Home Stretch

Automation gets you most of the way. The final 20% is personal.

Dave picked up the phone and called his 10 busiest repeat customers. "I know I usually text you, but I'm trying to hit a milestone on Google. Would you mind?" Personal ask. 90 seconds each. 7 of them left reviews.

Week 7: 11 reviews. Week 8: 14 reviews. Final count: 94. From 18 in 60 days.

His takeaway: "The last push is always phone calls. Automation gets you 80% of the way. That final 20% is just talking to people."

Weeks 9-12: Maintenance and Compounding

The intense push is over. Now the system carries the load.

Keep the SMS automation running on every job.
Reply to every new review within 48 hours.
Post to GBP weekly — job photos, news, anything.
At day 60, re-run the geo-grid. Compare to baseline. Note where green is expanding.
At day 90, re-run again. Identify your next-worst suburb. Apply the same playbook.

Dave settled into about 6-8 reviews a month after the campaign — still 3-4× his pre-campaign baseline. The system works because the habit is built.

The compounding result

After hitting 94 reviews and ranking top-3 in Bristol Maps, something shifted for Dave. He started getting cold calls — not from ads, not from referrals, but from customers who searched for plumbers on Google, saw his face and his reviews, and rang him directly. He estimates that's now 30% of new work.

The review count was never the goal. Top-3 Maps ranking was the goal. The reviews were the route. The cold inbound calls are what the route paid for.

Part 7: What Most Plumbers Get Wrong

Six recurring mistakes that show up across hundreds of plumber audits:

1. Picking "Plumber" as primary category when you do mostly emergency work. "Emergency plumbing service" as primary lifts you in emergency queries — which is most of plumbing. Switch this and you'll see movement within 2-3 weeks.

2. Targeting "plumber prices" content. Customers searching cost queries are price-shopping, not booking. You're not the cheapest, so you can't win them on price. Your content efforts should target booking-intent queries, not research-intent queries.

3. Sporadic review asking. Asking 30% of customers gives you 30% of the available reviews. Asking 100% of customers with a system gives you 100%. The difference compounds — 8 reviews a month vs 25 — into ranking that compounds.

4. Ignoring the licence and insurance signals. Putting your QBCC / Gas Safe / master plumber licence number prominently on your GBP and website is one of the highest-ROI changes you can make. It's a direct E-E-A-T signal.

5. Generic website with no suburb pages. Covered in Part 5. The single biggest organic SEO opportunity for most plumbers is locally-targeted content their competitors won't write.

6. Not replying to reviews. Especially old ones. A plumber who's never replied to a single review is sending Google a clear signal: this business isn't actively engaged. Reply to all of them, even the 3-year-old ones. Catch-up is fine — you don't need to apologise for the gap.

Part 8: FAQ

Common questions from plumbers we work with:

How long does it take to rank in the top 3 of Google Maps?

For most plumbers running the plan in this guide: 4-6 months to top 5, 6-9 months to top 3 in a mid-sized city. Larger metros take longer — 9-12 months — because review volume requirements are higher and competition is denser. The biggest single variable is review velocity. Plumbers running automated SMS systems hitting 12-15 fresh reviews monthly will outpace plumbers asking sporadically.

Can I rank for multiple suburbs from one location?

Yes, but the suburb you're physically in will always rank strongest. Google weighs distance heavily for plumber queries. To rank in suburbs 5-10km from your business address, you need: a clear service area set in GBP, suburb-specific landing pages (Part 5), and reviews mentioning those suburbs by name. Reviews from customers in those suburbs are gold.

Should I run Google Ads while I work on local SEO?

If you're invisible (outside top 20) and need bookings now — yes, run ads at 30-50% of what you eventually want to spend, but keep most budget for the SEO play. Once you're in top 5, scale ads down or eliminate them. Ads are a tax on weak organic; they're not a substitute.

What about Yelp, Trustpilot, Facebook reviews?

Google reviews are 80-90% of the leverage for plumbers. Facebook is worth maintaining if you have an active page. Yelp matters in some US markets. Trustpilot is largely useless for plumbing. Don't divide your review-collection energy across five platforms. Concentrate on Google, optionally one other.

Should I use a fake address to rank in a suburb I don't have an office in?

No. Google's address verification is aggressive and getting better. Suspended profiles are extremely difficult to recover. Build legitimate ranking instead — service area, suburb pages, reviews from customers in those suburbs.

What if I have a few bad reviews?

A handful of 1-star reviews in an otherwise 4.7-rated profile don't materially hurt ranking. They may help — perfect 5.0 profiles look suspicious to customers and (some say) to Google. The fix isn't removing them; it's diluting them with a steady stream of legitimate positive reviews and replying to them professionally. (Detailed guidance: can you get bad Google reviews removed?.)

Can I automate review requests, or does Google ban that?

You can absolutely automate the request. Google's policies prohibit fake reviews, review gating, and incentivised reviews. Automated SMS or email asking for honest reviews from real customers is explicitly fine and is what virtually every well-run trades business does. (Full breakdown: the complete review automation framework.)

How do I get reviews from customers who paid in cash and I don't have their phone?

Train your team to capture mobile numbers on every job. A simple "what's your number for the invoice receipt?" works. From there, the automated SMS does the rest. For walk-ins or untraceable jobs, the QR code on the van and invoice is the fallback.

Does GBP messaging affect ranking?

Slightly. Enabling messaging and responding within an hour signals engagement. The bigger win is the inbound bookings — customers who message rather than call convert at similar rates, and you don't miss them when you're on-site.

The Single Mindset Shift

Plumbers who win Maps share one thing in common: they treat their GBP and review system the way they treat their van — as essential equipment, maintained weekly. The plumbers who lose Maps treat it as something they'll do "when they have time".

The actual time required to run this system after the initial 90-day push is 30-60 minutes a week. Reply to new reviews, post to GBP, glance at the geo-grid once a month, write one new suburb page when you can.

That's it. The compounding does the rest.

✅

Little Nudge runs this whole system automatically — SMS review requests 24 hours after every job, geo-grid scans across your service area, competitor tracking, GBP post automation. Built for trades businesses. Start your free 14-day trial — no credit card needed, set up in 5 minutes.

If you want to go deeper on a specific piece:

The original 60-day case study with Dave's week-by-week numbers: The Plumber's 60-Day Review Blitz
The storytelling reframe in detail: The Transformation Story Framework
The review velocity playbook applied to any trade: The 7-Step Review Velocity System
The deep guide to your Google Business Profile: GBP Optimisation Checklist
The mindset shift on asking customers: Why asking for reviews isn't sleazy