Alright, so I gotta tell you about this massive screw-up I made when hiring a house cleaning SEO company. I’m talking about this firm that had all these promises – top rankings, tons of calls, basically everything a cleaning business owner dreams about. Their office looked legit, the sales guy wore a nice suit, and I thought, yeah, these people know their stuff.
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Warning Signs I Totally Missed When Choosing a House Cleaning SEO Company
So here’s what happened in my first meeting with that disaster company. The sales guy looks me dead in the ey,e and saysWe’lll get you to number one in 30 days, guaranteed. And dumb me actually believed it.
But think about it – Google’s got like a million different things that affect where you show up in search results. Weather, location, search history, what device someone’s using, the list goes on forever. Anyone saying they can control all that is either lying or delusional. Probably both. The company I paid? Oh yeah, they guaranteed me a first page in three months. That shoulda have made me turn around and walk right back out the door.
The other thing that shoulda have tipped me off was all the fancy tech words. This guy wouldn’t stop talking about meta optimization and schema markup and all this other stuff that sounded like he was speaking another language. Now look, those things are real, and they matter.
If they can’t break it down so it makes sense, they either don’t really get it themselves or they’re trying to confuse you on purpose. Neither one’s good.
You know how a good mechanic can tell you what’s wrong with your car without making you feel stupid? That’s what you want from a house cleaning SEO company. If they can’t break it down so it makes sense, they either don’t really get it themselves or they’re trying to confuse you on purpose. Neither one’s good.
What a Good House Cleaning SEO Company Actually Does
Alright, let’s get into what you really need to pay attention to when picking a house cleaning SEO company. Number one thing – and man, I can’t say this loud enough – they gotta understand cleaning businesses specifically. Not restaurants, not plumbers, not lawyers. Cleaning. Companies.
The person I eventually found who actually helped me? First conversation, she’s asking me all these questions about my service area, who I’m competing against, and what type of clients I want. Like, are we talking residential houses or office buildings? What zip codes do we cover? Do we do those big move-out deep cleans or just regular weekly stuff? All of this changes the whole approach.
And here’s something I had no clue about before – local SEO is completely different from regular SEO. Nobody three states over is gonna hire you to clean their bathroom, right? So you need someone who really understands all that local Google stuff. There’s your Google Business Profile used to be called Google My Business; they keep changing the name for some reason. There are these things called citations, which are basically just your business info listed on other sites. I didn’t even know what half of this stuff was before I started learning.
A proper house cleaning SEO company should focus on getting you found by people in YOUR city who need cleaning services NOW. That means optimizing for searches like house cleaning near me or maid service in your city – not some random national keywords that don’t bring you customers.
Questions You Gotta Ask Any House Cleaning SEO Company
After my disaster, I made myself a list. Now I won’t even have a second meeting with a house cleaning SEO company unless I ask these things upfront.
Question one: Show me actual results from other cleaning companies you’ve worked with. Not just, oh, how we helped them rank better – I want screenshots. Show me the before and after of where they showed up in Google. Show me call tracking numbers going up. Show me something real that proves you know what you’re doing with businesses like mine.
Question two: Walk me through exactly what you’re doing every single month. And I mean EXACTLY. If you say we’ll create content, how many articles? How many words? If you say link building, where are these links coming from? Are we talking sketchy spam sites or actual reputable places? Get specific or get out.
The third question is about timing, and this one separates the honest house cleaning SEO companies from the BS artists. How long till I see real results? Anyone who tells you less than three months is probably playing you. I’ve been around the block now, and I can tell you – real SEO takes time. Like, months and months. The truth is usually somewhere in that 3 to 6 month range before you start seeing your phone ring more often.
Oh, and ask them this: What happens when Google changes its rules? Because Google changes stuff ALL THE TIME. What worked last year might not work now. A decent company should have an answer ready for how they stay updated and adjust when things change.
The Price Thing: What Should a House Cleaning SEO Company Cost?
Here’s where things get tricky. SEO for cleaning companies isn’t cheap, and if someone’s offering you $200 a month services, they’re either cutting massive corners or not doing much of anything. I’ve seen prices for a good house cleaning SEO company range from about $500 a month on the low end to $3,000+ on the high end.
What should you expect for your money? At a minimum, you should be getting regular reports monthly at least, some kind of content creation like blog posts or service page updates, Google Business Profile management, and basic technical SEO stuff. If you’re paying more, you should be getting more content, better link building, and probably some paid advertising management too.
But here’s the kicker – the most expensive house cleaning SEO company isn’t always the best. I learned that one the hard way too. Sometimes you’re just paying for their fancy office downtown and their expensive coffee machine. What matters is results per dollar spent.
Red Tape and Contracts With Your House Cleaning SEO Company
Read the contract. But read it anyway. Look for stuff like minimum contract length, cancellation policies, and what happens if you’re not happy with the results.
I got burned by a 12-month contract with that first company. Now I won’t sign anything longer than three months initially, and after that, I want month-to-month.
Also, look at who owns the work they create. If they write blog posts for your website, do you own those after you part ways? What about your Google Business Profile – do they have the login info, or do you? You’d be surprised how many companies hold that stuff hostage when you try to leave.
The Gut Check: Does This House Cleaning SEO Company Actually Care?
At the end of the day, after you’ve asked all the questions and looked at all the proposals, there’s still a gut check moment. Do you feel like this house cleaning SEO company genuinely cares about your success? Or does it feel like they just want your monthly payment?
I’ve worked with both kinds, and trust me, you can tell the difference pretty quickly. The good ones ask questions about your business goals. They want to know where you see your company in five years. They talk about building a long-term strategy. The bad ones are just trying to close the deal and move on to the next client.
What Success Actually Looks Like With the Right House Cleaning SEO Company
Let me paint you a picture of what happened when I finally got this right. Within four months of working with a decent house cleaning SEO company, I started getting about three to four calls a week from Google searches. Before that, I was getting maybe one every two weeks.
My Google Business Profile started showing up for searches like house cleaning near me and maid service in [my city]. The reviews started coming in more regularly because they set up a system to ask customers for reviews. My website actually started showing up on the first page for some of my main keywords.
Now, it wasn’t perfect. Some months were better than others. Sometimes Google would do an update, and things would shift around. But overall, the trend was up and to the right, which is what you want to see with any house cleaning SEO company.
Read More: Small Business Owner Here – My Honest Experience Hiring a Marketing Agency
Final Thoughts From Someone Who’s Been There
Choosing a house cleaning SEO company for your business doesn’t have to be rocket science, but it does require you to do your homework. Don’t rush into it just because someone gave you a good sales pitch. Take your time, ask questions, and trust your instincts.
And remember – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. There are no shortcuts in SEO, no magic bullets, no secret tricks. Just consistent, quality work over time. Find a house cleaning SEO company that understands that, and you’ll be way ahead of where I was when I started.
The cleaning business is competitive enough without wasting money on bad marketing. Get this part right, and you’ll have more customers than you know what to do with. Get it wrong, and you’ll be telling cautionary tales like mine to other cleaning business owners three years from now.
