Most owners have never been shown this path. So they market in ways that miss it.
You need a roofer, an accountant, a dentist. Phone out. Search, or ask AI. Three or four names. Sixty seconds each on the two that look worth it. Then you call one. Four minutes, start to finish — and most owners have never seen it.
Relevance, prominence, distance — Google ranks the local options on all three. The customer scans the top three: names, star ratings, review counts. Ten seconds, two or three clicks chosen. Miss that list and you don't exist for that search.
Sixty seconds to decide: worth a call, or back to Google? They read four signals fast — does it look real, answer their question, load quick, look maintained. Stock photos and a 2022 copyright say nobody's home.
Last stop before they call: are the lights on? A post from this week says you're open. Silence since 2023 says you're not — even for B2B. Recent, real, consistent. Pass that, and the phone rings.
The free optimization scores your profile on the three factors Google actually uses. Five minutes. No paywall. You walk out with the real steps your profile needs.