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Local search did not die. It quietly split into two tracks, and most home service owners are only running one of them. The homeowner ready to call right now still finds you in the map pack. The homeowner still researching is asking ChatGPT and Google's AI who to trust, and they are building a short list before they ever see your name.

This is a solo episode. No guest, just Mauricio Cardenal, founder of Contractor Marketing Pros, an agency that has generated more than 250,000 inbound leads and over 150 million dollars in tracked revenue for home service businesses. He breaks down the exact two-track playbook his team runs for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and electrical clients, and gives you one action you can take this week.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why 68 percent of US Google searches now end without a click, according to SparkToro's 2026 analysis of Similarweb data, and what that quietly costs you every week

• How the zero click rate jumps to 83 percent the moment an AI overview appears on the page

• The reason ranking on Google no longer means getting traffic, and what to chase instead

• Why 22 percent of homeowners are already using AI like ChatGPT to find a home service provider, up from a small fraction a year ago, per Scorpion's 2026 report

• The two customers you are actually serving, the one ready to book and the one still researching, and why one strategy cannot reach both

• What the map pack still rewards in 2026, from a complete Google Business Profile to fresh reviews on a steady schedule

• Why a review from yesterday now outweighs a five year old one, and how recency changed local ranking

• The keyword stuffing mistake that got a Plano plumber suspended, and what a clean profile like Roto-Rooter does instead

• The simple find the question, answer it with a clear heading, add the details format that gets your business quoted by AI

• Why 80 percent of home service businesses have no plan for AI search, and why that open window is your advantage right now

This one is for the home service owner who relies on Google for leads and suspects the ground has shifted but has not been shown exactly what to do about it.

Mentioned in this episode:

Mauricio's Calendar

Mauricio's Calendar

Your next customer might pick someone

before they ever see your name.

This is what local search

looks like

in 2026,

and most contractors

are only running half of it.

I'm a researcher runner from AI and Marketing Show.

Today is a solo episode with a two track

playbook.

map Pack.

The soul wins the ready to call homeowner,

and the AI answer

wins.

one who is still researching

plain English.

No theory,

just one action you can take this week.

This is the AI marketing show for home service pros.

Let's go.

This is AI in marketing for home service pros and the show for contractors who want to grow without wasting time or money. If you're in roofing, Hvac, plumbing, or any home service business, we break down how AI and modern marketing can help you book more jobs and close more leads, and build a business that runs without babysitting. Every task.

What's up guys this is Mauricio Cardinale with contractor marketing pros. Today we're hosting the Am marketing show. Today is going to be a solo podcast. And we're going to talk about how to rank in the map pack and get quoted by Google's AI. Obviously there's a big change in within the last couple of years, especially with AI, and how that has impacted local businesses and today's show is really about how to really get the best results with your business with a two track approach.

So we're going to go over a specific playbook that I created for you guys that you can follow. So not only by getting the majority of the calls within the map pack, which is obviously the number one way still to get more customers for a lot of local businesses, including a lot of home service businesses. But also how to really get start getting found with AI and ChatGPT and cloud and all these different tools.

We're going to go over some statistics that are going to surprise you about the relevance, with AI and, and how this works. So let's get into it. So what are you going to walk away with today is if you are a home service company, business owner relies on Google for leads. If you're running a small operation or even are running a, large operation doing over eight figures.

This is for you guys, right? Anybody who wants to generate more business, more leads, more visibility. Any trade business that the home service business in the in the trades. Hvac, plumbing, roofing, electrical. We work with all these types of businesses. We're going to be getting is a two track checklist that you can run yourself to hand to your team.

So we're going to use this checklist so you can actually start implementing some of the tools and things to do to get you right away. And the promise again, at the end of the day, it's not a long, podcast is it's not theory. It's actual implementation of things that are working today. So you can really start doing the results you need for your business.

One of the things that has shifted, right since this is really since the, I guess I would say, last year, the beginning of last year, things are really shift, especially with local search. AI is really becoming the, the relevant, the main way that people find business and the way people find information today is going to be with AI.

So things are really shifted. One of the things that has really shows, that is really shifting from SEO to a low angle. One year today. What happened is that people would find were look, look for, you know, bottom of the funnel searches. So things like AC company, repair near me or roofing company repair me.

Right, right. Or, Hvac, company, all these different things. Plumber near me, all these different things that are trigger, lsa right. Trigger the ads and others say, but also trigger the map where people are can see the businesses, right? They see the phone numbers, the star ratings. And you can see a call to action. It's very simple.

Direct is very familiar. But that has really shifted. So you have to understand how that shift today, what the shift today means, is that the shifted from the local modpack, which is really still relevant today to seeing a combination of local modpack, but also the AI overviews and the AI search. Local search did not die. It just split into two tracks.

And if you want only focusing on the old stuff, you really kind of really be, far behind. So that's kind of the thing that we're going to be talking about is the shifts and seeing how the shifts happen with different things. So I overviews with, the AI search with people more using Chatbot and Claude to actually find information instead of Google.

Obviously, people are still using Google, but obviously Google is really shifting to an AI. First, search engine the old way. Right? So this is kind of the old path. If you're still doing this, it still works, but you have to really adjust. You have to combine both strategies to maximize the results and really maximize the impact of the local lead generation.

So the old path is obviously searching Google, seeing a list of different businesses picking a name based on star rating and then making a call. Right. Depending on what you're searching. The new path is it's more it's more, it's more circular. It's not just one path. Google just call. It's people. They take a more circular approach.

They're going to be looking at different tools, different, platforms. They're going to be looking at all these different things to really get an idea of who they want to hire, especially if you're selling, you know, high ticket, right, for selling, big roof replacement. A be a big AC replacement. All these different things that are high ticket.

A lot of you are going to do more research. So they're going to, you know, ask questions on ChatGPT. They're going to ask questions on Google I o reviews. They're going to check out the reviews. They're going to watch a video. They're going to ask for referrals. Obviously that never change. People are still asking or been always asking for referrals, but they still do that as well.

Social media is also the new referral, if you think about that. They're going to be there. If you see videos of their friends and family posting about you and your business, that will have a big impact on who they hire, right? And then deciding who to call. So it's really about, showing up and more on on all those different stops and creating a, a basically a system and entity of your business, which I can crawl and kind of build a summary of who you are, what you do and who you help.

And this is something that you have to be thoughtful and mindful of in creating this. When doing this for your business, right. So the numbers behind the shift 68% of searches and then zero click. This is all us go Google searchers. And with a lot of click. This is according to spark Toro and 2026 analysis. And also similar web data.

So obviously people have shifted where before it was 40%. Now it's 68%. So which is kind of interesting. But you know, with that, with that approach, it's important to understand that traffic has been going down. So if you're if you're doing SEO, a lot of times it this happens with a lot of our clients. You see, organic, traffic, dip.

And this is because more people are searching, right? Google is still getting more, more people searching, more people using the tools every single day, every single year. Google searches go up, actually. But what people do is that Google is trying to, trying to hoard the traffic instead of sending it to third parties like your website. They're trying to give the answer, to, the person's question on Google right away so they can actually stay on Google's product.

So it's a way that's a business thing they're doing. But you have to adapt, right? It's not really the best thing if you think about for local businesses, anybody doing local SEO. But at the end of the day, you have to adapt. So the way you adapt is by making sure that your website. Yeah, your answers are printing on these zero click searches.

Right. The other thing, too, is 83% of, of answers of questions appears. Right. So when 83% of I o reviews and I over V appears zero click rate jumps to 83%. So you have to really the answer is about adapting at the end of the day, right? Google is always making announcements. Facebook. These big companies are always shifting.

They're always analyzing, data. They're they're always changing the things you have to really adapt as a local business owner. The thing they have to understand is that you have to structure your properties in your content in a manner that shows up in these different, I o reviews. That's the important lesson to understand. So now do the math about your business.

Think about where most of your leads come. I bet is still Google, right? Google still dominates. In the home services space, it doesn't really matter what, home service. Google stalking. But you have to understand how many of your next customers are getting their answer and picking someone before they even see your name. I want you guys to think about that for a second.

So how many people are not even good? We are in email, or using ChatGPT, or using YouTube, or looking at, you know, different things on Facebook or Instagram. How many people are actually doing that? How many? How much business are you losing every year? This is something that a lot of home service businesses are not adopting and not realizing how things have changed.

And it's a profound impact because people used to rely on, you know, the word of mouth, getting Google rankings, getting a five star rating, and that would provide a lot of business. And it still does provide a business, but you're still missing all the other business where people are really not really using these platforms as much. What is that is costing you and your business?

You have to understand what that looks like, what zero click actually means for you. Is that visibility is not no longer equals traffic. So that's important to understand. So you might get more visible. You might get more impressions. But if you are, and you're ranking well on Google, but it doesn't really lead to clicks. So that's important to understand.

You have to position your, your business in a manner that, is not only getting clicks, but also getting the leads at the end of the day. What we do. Right, which you're trying to hire, SEO company or marketing agency is, is to really grow your business. So you have to shift in a manner that. What am I doing?

All the things that I'm actually working towards. Is that going to lead to more, leads? Is that going to lead to more business, more visibility? That's important to understand. So it's not being about appearing in these different, zero clicks searches, but it's also about getting more leads. On that shift. So this is something to understand.

These are just two numbers to, to look at, really the the way this has shifted to understand is that informational searches are still really, the majority of searches and transactional searches are the searches that are lead to leads. So I'll give you an example. A transactional search is a company near me that is a transactional search.

That is somebody that is looking for an easy company that is wants to, hire, right away. And they want to hire with somebody locally. So that typically is if you see that you're going to see those ads on Google local service ads, you're gonna see the Google ads and you will see the map. Those are the kind of top three, those, transactional searches are people that are ready to book a call.

So when you're when you're doing the SEO, the Geo is you're going to be primarily targeting these these these keywords because they're the ones that lead to leads the the issue, the they're not the issue, but really the, the challenges that sometimes, well, many times is that these are of one of the most expensive, keywords. So everybody's targeting this, but you can actually go lower in the funnel and, and target more information on searches where people are actually, getting information where they can make a decision at a later time.

Because at the end of the day, if you look at if you take 100 people, those 100 people, and not everyone's going to be ready to buy, only about 33 to 30% of the people are going to be looking to buy. About 3% of the market is going to be ready to buy that looking for a contract. They're looking for somebody right away.

And then the other 30% are consideration. That's where you want to target the consideration stage, which is typically, you know, in more in the middle of the funnel. Right. So what this means is that before with SEO you want to target those people with blog content, right? You write information on content, that people search for you get you would get clicks, you would get information and people would get information from there.

Right? What was change basically, is that that informational content is really being seen with, I search. Right? So when people finding information, they're asking questions about, you know, the AC company, the plumbing company, you know, what kind of materials, those information is more people are shifting toward ChatGPT to cloud, to Google I o reviews. So instead of finding that information on your website, they're using ChatGPT and find.

So it kind of leads to the path where it's going to lead to a lead eventually. But more information on the surface. So that's kind of the thing to understand these two people. All right. Different points of the buying cycle. Right. One person is doing research. They help they use AI as a research assistant to help them gather information they need.

And then the other person is already kind of make decision. So the thing to understand is that many times, many, many of these people are gathering information and then they go transition to a transactional search, and then they find that information so that with AI it can lead to the actual transactional search. Right? So they're finding information which can lead to more transactional searches.

So you have to understand you have to target those people at the different stages of the actual buying cycle.

If you look at this, the two track local strategy, the track one is a map pack, which I explained already right, is basically about people that are ready to buy. They're ready to go. Go, it's an emergency. Many times a business versus out the night a pipe burst, a roof is leaking. You know, in the home services space, there's typically two types of businesses emergency services and more.

The high ticket, long services, those are the people that are looking to buy, right? If those are the people that are on Google local service, that Google ads, the map pack, those are kind of the the inbound traffic. The other one is again the I answer, which I explained earlier, they're researching. They're not ready to call yet.

They're reading AI summaries and building a short list of who to trust. That's the thing you have to track. So if you're going to do this to track local strategy, you have to, do both at the same time. You cannot pick one. Most people just go to the map and go to the people at the end. But you have to do both to really, really get the, benefit results.

So this is the map pack, right? This is something you're you guys are familiar with. It's obviously, ready to call homeowner. They find a few business names and a star rating, and they call. But. And so this is the top three, right? When somebody searches for a traditional keyword like AC company in Miami, you see the top three there.

If you look at the top three, they're most likely going to get, the first person call. Right. And if you click on More business in the bottom, you're going to get the top ten. But the top three is what, what really kind of drives a majority of the inbound traffic and the inbound leads. So everybody knows what this looks like.

That's a map pack. You do this by, you know, focusing on these keywords by star ratings on Google, by focusing on the optimizing your Google business profile. All that that's still is really relevant. It's still really, prevalent today. The thing is, I do have a listing right to to get to the map pack is again having an optimized Google business profile.

Every service filled in, all the listed all services. There's no gaps. Everything is actually ready to go. You're actually getting a lot of reviews. Extremely important with the reviews. One thing with reviews has changed, which, you know, you do an entire webinar on the importance of this is that the reviews, in terms of importance, the important thing that has as changes that recency of reviews.

If you're getting a lot of reviews on a recent manner, right, if you're getting reviews, you're going to outrank people that, have more reviews but are but are less frequent. So a review from five years ago is not going to carry the same weight as a review from yesterday. And if it's a good review, it's going to carry a lot more weight.

That's important to understand when you're ranking, locally. Right. Fresh reviews, steady flow, extremely important. Having all the consistent information, because it's a name, address, phone number across every editor, every directory. You know, I could do it. We could do an entire webinar on these things about really getting the heavy lifting. I just want to show you the importance these things still matter.

The store important, but the point is that you have to prepare for both and take two tracks to get the best results with with both. Good enough if not no longer gets a call. One thing with with one thing that has change right? One thing that has changed is that Google really watches the behavior of your Google business profile.

For example, call clicks in direction request. How long someone stays on your website, whether they bouncer or book. One of the tricks that people do with, with, with Google is basically, you know, having people ask for a direction requests. That's something that can actually boost your, your profile. Right. One thing with the other thing is that before sometimes they show one ranking right instead of three.

So you have to prepare for that. Right? So sometimes you're invisible if you're just showing one whenever one every aspect. So good enough no longer gets like all you have to do all these different things, you have to do all the, the you have to have video content, have a good website. I have a lot of reviews.

It's just getting the the bar is setting is getting higher. That's important to thing that are set. The bar is getting higher. And if you're not setting the bar then you're going to lose business with your competitors.

So. I want to show you guys this. If you look at the track one, this is a violation versus a complaint. The first picture I saw from, x on Twitter, this is somebody that is clearly violating, Google's guidelines by keyword stuffing. Right? They're just trying to rank for a lot of different keywords. If you look at in a spit in some plumbing, water heater, one, two, 34566 keywords, right in the Google business profile.

And whatever reason, Google, got approved. But I think this Google policies has banned them. A real business profile. You have, the name, right, with the with the high reviews. And then you also have the plumbing and water cleanup. That's the keyword. So when you're doing keywords, obviously you, you want to have, it's important to have the keyword in the name because it's a big ranking factor.

But which you see this, that's something they don't want to do. You see on the right there's something you do want to do.

So this is the track to this is something that people still have not adopted, which is what I talked about earlier. It's about making sure that your website, all your content is getting, found with getting recommended by I. It's about providing helpful information in a manners of civic way, which I'll explain a second, that helps people get the conversation started.

That's an important thing to understand. So you're basically, appearing. You're getting found, you're getting recommended before you go better even realizes what they hit on. Right. So that's the important thing. You have a first mover advantage. There's still wide open. And most local markets.

This is something that. This is something that should definitely surprise you right. This is according to Scorpion. They, they did a survey where they examined over 1000 home, service home service business owners and 1000 homeowners. And they found they asked homeowners how many of them are using IE, 22% of homeowners are using ChatGPT to find a home service provider.

Think about that. Should, last year it was basically maybe 5%. Now it's 22%. What's going to happen next year? Maybe it's going to be 3,040%, 50%. As people start adapting and start using these tools, it's going to get more and more. I mean, think about myself. I mean, I don't know if where you are when the AI curve at the end of the day, you know, people are at different stages.

You know, people are, if you look at what people are doing in terms of advancement, most people that are really advanced in terms of building AI agents and using all these different tools, that's basically just 1% of the population. But what's happened is that more of the common population, the regular Joes, right. The homeowners, the baby boomers, the, Gen X, those people are just using more of these tools together.

They're going to be using tools, and typically it's going to be chatty, petty, which is still, I think over 900 million weekly users. Claude is more on the business side, and I think Claude is superior. But in terms of, everyday, everyday use, people are using these tools and especially ChatGPT to find local providers. That's the important thing.

So they're going to be using AI, they're going to be asking for recommendations, who they would hire, what effects, what materials are using. They're going to be using them as their as their assistant. Right. As someone they trust. And if they they're going to trust AI. So you have to make sure that I trust you. That's the important thing to understand.

So like I said, basically this is something has shifted, right. So, a lot of people say, hey, my customers are older, typically with homeowners it's a little bit older generation. It's, you know, Gen X, right? Or older millennials. But this is change, right? This is change. Baby boomers, Gen X, all these different generations are using AI a lot.

So it's it's important to understand that the research shows this is really shifted. So companies, they're really turning to AI homeowners. Consumers are using this AI. So I really feel this is going to be the big shift if you use ChatGPT. I use cloud, for business, and I use ChatGPT as well. But if you use these tools, you're going to see that it does provide a superior experience to regular search.

So if I want to ask for recommendations on you know, places to visit or who to hire, right. I'll give you an example. If I, if I want to hire a roofer and I'm in a new city, I'm going to start GPT, right. I'm going to look at Google as well. When I said GPT, that's that's how things have shifted.

And you can ask more detailed questions and they give you more detailed answers. So you have to really understand the shift and how this is impacting businesses today. So the things to understand is that the industry is not ready. 80% of people are not, of homeowners. A home service business owners are not ready for AI search. This is according to, Scorpion.

They they surveyed over a thousand home, home service companies, and 80% are not ready for this search. So it puts you in an advantage if you are adapting to this model. Right. Foreign, foreign. Five computers with no plan 4 or 5 computers in your market have no strategy for AI search. So the window is open right now.

So what are you doing today to take advantage to appear on ChatGPT. To appear on Claude on Gemini. So the the person that, that uses these tools I have is going to have a head start versus the ones who don't. And the other thing to understand is that if you have be doing SEO, if you have been doing the reviews, the website, it just a few changes you have to make.

Right? It's an it's a it's not an entire shift, but it is a shift you have to make in your business. But a lot of people and I have been doing it for a long time. So we can do is is really start. And if you start you're going to have a head start with everyone else. I'm telling you, the, the clients, the businesses that have, you know, a high review count versus the ones that are don't are going to have a huge advantage.

There's just one example you can use. They have a lot of content, have a lot of trust, a lot of videos. Again, like I said earlier, these people are trust. I, I does not trust you. They're not you're not going to get recommended. So here's a how to get quoted. So use a form like it. Use pretty simple right.

You can write this down. And it's pretty simple. First obviously find the questions that people are asking. What are the most common questions. Well this actually can come from your sales team. What are the most common questions people ask? Answer those questions. Use exact heading. So when when you give, the questions have the questions answered. And I'm talking about the I'm not talking about regular I think I'm talking about really detailed information.

Right. Use the most common question that your customers have. One of the biggest ones is pricing. That is the most common question people have, especially for local businesses. What is the price giving that give that information, right. Give them information on their website, on your properties. Answer that. I know sometimes it can be complicated right? With with the with the different things you're quoting.

And pricing can be subjective. But if you give, pricing is going to help you with AI because it's going to give you more information to go on. Right. What what are the, different materials? What are the different things that separate you from you from other competitors? That's what that's going to pull. So people are going to Google what Google does, right is they, they, they they kind of scour the web and they, they actually take from different sources and then give you answers.

So when you look at AI overviews, they're taking information from many different sources to give you like a summary of what I found. So why not be the source? That's the whole point. Why not? Why not your company, your business? Be the source for that answer. And that is going to lead to more, more business. That's how it leads to more.

Eventually, the more leads. So before and after what gets quoted I before what skip basically hey areas we serve this every town and zip code in your photo. That's what like people are asking for. No structure, no answers, no headings that what I have seen is that this I got does get skipped over this because people don't. If you look at how people and ask questions, they're not really asking and questions about zip codes and stuff like that.

Right. They're asking questions like, how much is the, furniture replacement cost in my area? What are the materials that, I need to have? And, when I, when I replace a tile roof. Right. What are the things that I answer? Those are the things that kind of, that people answer and before it gets quoted.

So you have to keep that in mind when you're doing these questions and answers. So make sure that you write for the AI right of a human and, and, answer the questions that people have. Right. Answer the questions that people have in your business. Obviously, if you're in the, in the in the local business, it's going to be similar, questions.

And you have to provide, you know, good answers to those questions.

So the upside that nobody talks about 50% of clicks lost a top rank. So what that means is, is that even if you're getting the top rank, you're still losing about 50% of clicks because of AI reviews. But the thing is, is this if you are appearing in those things, those clicks are going to, are going to convert a higher level.

That's the thing that you have to understand. So when somebody, you know gets answers and questions from, I will give you some searches, what that what it does, it has, you know, what it does. Basically it's going to give you a warmer link. So when people search for, ChatGPT, use Claude, you're going to see the leads that come from there are going to be typically more warm, right?

Because they've done the research, they get answers. I trust you, they trust their AI, and they're going to use wherever they the AI recommends. And if they recommend you, that's how you get more, more warmer. It's much easier to close. So again, the two tracks you focus on, the old school stuff that's still works, right? Having the reviews, having a nice website, SEO content, right, having all the information.

These are all things that really, really, are important, today, even to even today, because I still build the foundation. And then obviously the two tracks when the researcher, when they're still deciding who to trust, why should they trust you? Right. Build a shortlist. You're, I, quite an answer. Put you in front of those people before your competitor even has a chance.

So, again, you're building content. You're building your system, your marketing strategy to serve, to answer the questions of the two, customers, one is almost ready to buy, which people just focus. 100% on, and the other person is not ready to buy yet. It doing research by one of some. They want to find someone they can recommend and trust.

So the most common mistake again, I think overall with SEO SEOs, I've been hearing this for a long time, for like 15 years. SEO is not dead. It is shifting. It is going to become a your first, your first. That is the big shift. I really see that, you know, SEO is going to become not as important as a CEO in jail.

That's going to be the big shift. I really think that's going to be a shift, because overall, I really do feel that, these tools do provide a better experience, for the user. Right. So ChatGPT and my opinion does provide a better experience and Google. Right, typically right. For the, the answers, your questions. So that's the thing you have to understand.

So it's going to be a big shift. Google is 100% in on this right. There are shifting AI first. So they're going to go they're going to they're going to compete directly with ChatGPT with all these different tools. And they're going to shift their their entire search, which they already announced. They haven't it hasn't happened yet to AI first.

So you have to shift along with it because obviously Google's Google's talking. So again you're one action week this week. It's very simple. List your top five questions. Write down the five questions homeowners ask before they call your trade your service. What are the most common questions? I mean, this is pretty simple to understand, and you look questions in one clear chunks, asking questions as a heading, show paragraph underneath and then supporting details and then publishing on a page.

Right. Publish all those. Put all those pages on the content. Typically for us, every time we do a piece of content, if it's a geo focused content, right, it's yeah, have a FAQ at the bottom so it can answer the most common questions that people have. And the good thing is that you can use ChatGPT. You can use claw to, to ask these questions.

What are the most common questions that my roofing company has? You know, ten questions. Okay. Answer the question. Do you have those questions? Help answer your questions yourself. That's another thing to do. Take that action to that. If you guys again track one, the map pack, clean business profile. This is the foundation having this and name, address and branding everywhere.

When the, when the, when the ready to call customers are today and they I answer actually, having the structure content on your site real questions, plain answers, clear headings when they reach you before they call anyone. And you guys, thank you for watching. If you guys have any questions, thank you for listening as well. Go to Cogito Marketers dot net slash kinder.

Book a call with our team, and we'll talk to you about how to implement this strategy for your business. Thank you guys.

Thanks for listening to AI in marketing for Home Service Pros. If you got value from today's episode, do us a favor. Follow the show. Share it with a contractor friend and leave a quick review. Want help using AI or smarter marketing to grow your business? Head to Contractor Marketing pros dot net and book your free strategy. Call.