From Pet Sitter SEO to Digital Law Marketing

Amy's path into SEO started when she worked for a small company that did website templates. She'd always been aware of digital marketing. She started all her children online at age two because she knew where the internet was going.

She started working in 2015, and that business started changing direction. In 2017 she left, but people kept asking her for SEO help. She'd built up a good group of friends and contacts in the pet sitting industry: pet sitters, dog walkers, groomers.

When she left, they asked what she was going to do because they still needed her. So she started a little business for about a year and a half doing SEO specifically for pet sitters. That's where Pet Sitter SEO came from.

She learned a lot from that experience and gained friends both in that business and among professional SEOs. She started communicating with people mostly on Twitter (sadly going down now for SEO). She made a lot of good friends in that community.

Eventually she migrated to one agency position, then got the one she has now at Digital Law Marketing, which she absolutely loves. The side benefit? She's surrounded by attorneys in real life. Her sister is an attorney, her dad was an attorney, her husband is one, and now her son is one. She felt comfortable in the niche.

What she does primarily now is Google listing management. She moved from doing SEO plus Google listing management to primarily focusing on Google listings for what she considers a large number of listings. Everything from periodic content updates to making sure listings don't go boom (get suspended), to troubleshooting why something didn't happen when it should have.

The similarity between working with pet sitters and attorneys? When you're in these groups for a while, you start understanding what needs to be on pages. With pet sitters, it's background checks, insurance and bonding, certifications from relevant groups. With attorneys, it's where you graduated college, where you graduated law school, any specialties, whether you're in Inns of Court, certifications in specialties.

The longer you're in an industry, the better you understand the certifications, terms, and what search engines look for. You don't have to do as much research because you just understand.

The Address Dilemma: Operating from Home vs. Showing Your Address

One of the biggest problems I see with smaller pest control owners (maybe $100K to $500K a year) is they start by putting their home address as their business address. I encourage them to get an office, even if it's just in the back of a friend's place. They're skeptical, but there's real value in having a proper address.

I asked Amy about the process of changing your location without getting suspended.

It's tough. First thing to note: you can very easily operate from your home. For pest control especially in smaller rural areas, operating from home is the way to go. It really is.

The issue? Your address cannot appear on your listing unless you have permanent signage there. Google doesn't want lawn signs or paper banners. They want a sign that's based in the ground, fixed and permanent.

If you have that signage, great. You can show the address wherever it is, whether it's your home or not. If you cannot have signage out there, you cannot have your address show. That's just Google's rules.

Some people say they'll just do it anyway. But when you get suspended, Google's going to want to see photos. If you can't show them permanent signage, they're not going to verify you. You're going to stay offline until you either put the signage out or turn the address off.

Here's something crucial about visibility: you do get more visibility if your address shows. That's been proven despite what some big companies say. That's why a lot of people prefer showing their address.

Another thing people forget: where Google promotes you changes when you move. If you're in town with an office and you move to your home on the outskirts of town, you're now going to be recommended based on that new address.

Google really still uses a centroid system. You used to be able to set it (two miles, five miles, whatever). They don't allow you to do that anymore, but that's still where you're recommended from.

When you're choosing a location, you have to remember where your audience is. Do you want to be seen in an area with more affluent homeowners and businesses? You have to be located in that area to be seen there.

People forget this when they turn off the address. They think they can just go anywhere. You can't really. Visibility is based on wherever your address is, whether it shows or not.

Creative Solutions for Address Requirements

Amy shared a great story about creative problem-solving. She had someone in Texas who worked out of her home and moved 45 minutes away. She asked if that was okay. Amy said no, because you have to update your Google address. The woman wasn't happy because she was now 45 minutes from her service area.

Amy explained the situation and said the best thing would be to get a paid office in the original area. You have to have someplace you can provide supporting documentation for: rent, lease, utilities.

What happened next shocked Amy. The woman went to one of her clients who had a lot of land and outbuildings and asked if she could use a building. The client said yes.

Amy told her two things to make sure of: first, make sure there's a suite number or office number the post office will acknowledge. Second, make sure if the client has a business there, he's not using the same category as you.

There's a local filter. When two businesses share an address and have the same primary category, only one of them will show.

The client's business was at the main building. She'd be at another building. The post office recognized it. She went to verify it all worked. Now she's in her service area with an address she can show publicly.

Amy had another client moving away from their service area. She said if you have to get a closet-sized office, that's fine. Wouldn't you know, that's what the person found. The office had to be 12 feet deep by about 4 feet wide. It looked like it previously had been a janitor's closet without the sink.

One side had a desk. The client said it's actually good because she can meet people when she's in town, talk to clients, and keep her equipment there. She paid hardly anything for it, but it satisfied all Google's guidelines as long as the address was on official paperwork.

Sometimes when you move, you have to be creative, especially when moving far from your service area. If you updated the address to your new home, you'd no longer be recommended in that area. These businesses knew that, which is why they did what they had to do.

How Far Can You Expect to Rank Out?

I asked Amy about ranking distance. I've heard different theories: five miles out, maybe 10 or 20. What are her thoughts?

She doesn't think there's a set number. It has to do with population and geography to some degree. A few years ago you used to designate your service area in terms of miles out. But think about Manhattan. It's really long and narrow. When people said they could do a mile out, half their mile was in either the East River or the Hudson River. They'd hit Queens or New Jersey.

When Google changed to the current system, Amy thinks it's a lot better. Though it's not discussed officially, the centroid pretty much does exist. But it depends on where you are and where your address is.

In sparsely populated places like Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana (those areas), she thinks you're going to be seen a lot further out. In New York City, you can't even base it on zip code because the population is so dense. You'll be seen within a mile and that's it.

The way to expand that out? Service area pages. Amy has five set pages she always tells service area businesses they need. One is a service area page that lists the areas you go to. Then you have actual location pages.

She usually advises location pages for places where you currently get the most business from, places you aspire to get the most business from, or places on the periphery you don't expect to come up with naturally.

She's found that really helps. Some people are surprised when they start adding those pages.

The Complete Google Business Profile Suspension Appeal Process

This is the part where Amy gave me the best explanation I've ever heard about appeals. I asked her to walk me through what happens when a client gets suspended and needs to appeal.

First, let's knock on wood that doesn't happen to any of us.

But if it does, they'd get an email leading them to a place where they can log in and appeal their suspension. The first mistake people make? They say "my listing's fine, Google's wrong" and press submit. Big mistake.

The first thing you want to do is contact your agency before you even breathe. Send them a copy of the email. If you don't have an agency, here's how to proceed.

Get all paperwork together: licenses, tax information, bank information, business registration. Have you registered in your city, state, or province? Do you have tax information? Bank accounts? Credit card accounts? And the big one: do you have a license?

Amy's guess is in a lot of pest control cases, depending on what type you do, you'll have licenses for chemicals or for animals. You'll have special training. Get all of that together.

If you're on your own, you submit it to Google. If you're with an agency, make sure they have everything and can look through it. You want to make sure everything is consistent. The name of the business is on everything.

Google doesn't want to see your personal bank account that you use for the company but only has your name on it. Doesn't matter. Throw it out. You can't use it. People have sent invoices. Doesn't matter. Can't use it.

As Amy's husband says (riffing on a TV ad): Google doesn't care. They don't want to see business cards. They don't want to see bank cards. They don't care about flyers. They don't care about your bio on a website.

What they care about: paperwork from authoritative bodies. City, state, federal tax authorities. Licenses from those same groups. Bank accounts. Credit card accounts.

Some people say they won't give bank account info. Amy's response? Google uses it and never looks at it again. And here's the elephant in the room: if you don't give it to them, your listing's not coming back. You have to make a decision.

You want as much supporting documentation as you can. Here's the critical part: when you go in to start the appeal process, once you start entering information, Google alerts you that you have 60 minutes. Six zero minutes to get it all in.

Amy's average is about 10 minutes because she knows what to do and is ready to submit everything. But you need to have your paperwork ready over on the side. Even if you need to look something up quickly, you have 60 minutes. Once you put it in, that's it.

Once you click submit, you should fairly soon get an email acknowledging you submitted. That email will give you something called a case ID. Hold onto that. Do not get rid of it no matter what. That's a really important number.

There's something called the appeals management tool. That link will let you know where things are. Keep an eye on that. You should hear back within a few days. Sometimes it's been a little longer recently, but the backlog seems to be clearing up.

If your appeal is accepted, you'll get an email and your listing will come back. Recently reviews and photos have been coming back a little separately, but they do come back within 5 to 7 days.

If you're rejected, depending on where you're located, you may get a second appeal option. If not, Amy knows there's a link for a second appeal if you weren't granted one. You can do it again.

If it didn't work the first time, go back and look at that Google listing. Make sure you're not breaking any rules. Get more paperwork if the listing was fine. Try again. Submit everything again.

If that's accepted, you'll get the email and everything will come back (possibly separately, but it'll come back).

If you're rejected a second time or weren't offered a second appeal, your only option is to have a Google Product Expert escalate for you on the forum. You can either contact somebody privately (an agency with a Google Product Expert on staff, or someone like Amy privately), or you can post on the Google Business Profile forum and ask for help.

That help will be free, but not everybody gets a response. Some posts just hang forever. But hopefully those people can guide you to see whatever you missed, and they can escalate it. That's the highest level of human Google support. Hopefully at that point it will come back.

There are times when it doesn't work. Google makes all those decisions. If anybody promises you they can get your listing back or help you get reviews removed, Amy tells people they're either naive or lying to get your money.

If you work with somebody who says they can't guarantee it but will do everything they can, see if you trust them and go for it.

Just remember: Google goes in waves. Everybody gets in for a while, then there are periods when nobody gets approved. Right now Amy's facing tough times sometimes with review removal, though that could be specific to what she's dealing with.

For appeals: have good quality paperwork from authoritative bodies. No invoices, no bank cards, no business cards. If you have an agency, don't touch anything until you talk to them. If you're on your own, you may want to try once yourself, but then Amy recommends talking to somebody.

If you get to that third step with no more appeals and nothing else, your only options are posting on the forum asking for help or contacting an agency or individual who specializes in this.

Why You Should Treat Your Google Listing Like Gold

Something Amy emphasized: these are assets. Your Google Business Profile might be half of how you're getting leads. If your profiles go down, your business essentially goes down.

Make sure you have paperwork that's going to get your listing back. Do you have licenses? Do you have proper documentation? Just make sure you have it. Hopefully you won't ever need it, but it's something to keep in the back of your mind to start compiling right now.

Think about it from Google's eyes: does Google want to show a company that hasn't gotten a review in 3 years, or one that gets one every single day? Which one seems more credible and trustworthy?

Google is optimizing for users. Obviously a profile getting a review every single day with good, legit reviews looks like a great company.

Amy emphasized legit reviews. They're starting to label listings with suspicious review activity in the UK. When businesses say they found a service to get 100 reviews in two weeks, that's when Google's filters catch them.

Google has gotten very good filters recently. They can tell review attacks and all sorts of things. The labels in the UK say the listing has suspicious review activity. You can't leave a review on them. The reviews will go away. You'll get labeled and can't leave reviews during that time.

They don't know yet how that will affect listings after the time period goes off, but it's going to leave a serious sting.

Amy's advice? Have a healthy attitude of being scared of Google. Do everything as white hat as possible. No fake reviews, no click-through rate manipulation, no sketchy backlinks. Google is cracking down hard on everything.

How Amy Became a Google Diamond Product Expert

I asked Amy how she got Diamond status and what that process looked like.

A few years ago, either just prior to or at the beginning of lockdowns in 2020, she'd posted in the Google Forum with questions. People she knew (she knew people at this point) would answer her questions, help her out, or escalate something.

A friend named Jason told her she should start answering questions and try to become a Google Product Expert. She said she didn't know enough. He said she knew a lot more than the people on the forum.

She decided to try. Here's what she advises everyone to do if they're interested: go into the forum and for a few weeks do absolutely nothing but figure out what the stock answers are to common questions. Start collecting those.

Amy thinks her collection is now about 70 pages. She still takes notes on things. Once she felt comfortable and understood the vibe, she started answering questions. Then she signed up for the first level, which basically means you want Google to acknowledge you'd like to go further.

She started moving up. Moving up is a combination of points (you need a certain amount of interaction) and breadth of knowledge. If you just deal with one thing, you're not in the right position. But if you're answering questions on a whole bunch of different things, that shows you have well-rounded knowledge of the product.

This exists for all Google products. They have forums for almost everything. She took it on as a hobby and started climbing the levels. There are five levels altogether. Earlier in 2023, she got to the highest level: Diamond.

She does a lot. Sometimes people get it because they're just around a lot, they've got knowledge. But she thinks sometimes people get it because they're just doing it constantly, always there. She's one of those people.

It's a great community. The Product Experts are a lovely bunch. They have great conversations, checking if anyone else is seeing certain issues. Everybody has specialties.

Amy's specialties? Reviews and review attacks. Reviews not showing when you say you get 10 reviews but only 5 are showing. She knows what to do with that. Reinstatements when your listing goes away or suddenly doesn't exist.

Everybody's got a niche. There's somebody who specializes in hospitality (restaurants and hotels). Other people specialize in attorneys. Amy will do attorneys to a degree, but not within the US because she already works for attorneys in the US. No conflict of interest.

It's a really good community of puzzle solvers. A lot of times it's like customer service. People come from all globally. Amy's answered questions basically everywhere but the Arctic and Antarctic. Most English-speaking countries and a few non-English (thank you Google Translate).

It's nice to help. You'll hear Product Experts get grumpy about things, but the reason is they're trying to help users. It's really helpful in her job too. She loves being able to protect the clients their agency works with.

They occasionally want to do things like change the name of their business. You have to work in a very specific safe path to get that done so Google doesn't suspend your listing. Same thing with moving addresses.

One of three things will happen when you move: they'll accept it and all is good, they'll accept it but ask for video verification, or they won't accept it and they'll suspend you.

Amy's had very good luck having them all accept moves. They have standard operating procedures now for when things happen and how to deal with them. Prior to her specializing in this, they didn't deal with issues until they came up. Now they're more prepared at the outset. When things come, they go right into action. They know exactly what's required and what to do.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Amy is that your Google Business Profile address location matters enormously for rankings. Where you're physically located determines where Google recommends you, whether your address shows publicly or not. You can't just turn off your address and expect to rank everywhere.

The second takeaway is the detailed appeal process. Having proper documentation from authoritative bodies ready before you ever need it could save your business. No invoices, no business cards. Only licenses, tax documents, bank statements, credit card accounts, and business registrations with your exact business name.

The third thing is that Google profiles are assets that need to be treated like gold. For many small pest control companies, the Google Business Profile drives half their leads. If it goes down, the business essentially goes down. Be proactive about having documentation ready.

The fourth lesson is that consistency matters more than volume with reviews. It's not about having 60 reviews total. It's about consistently getting reviews over time. Google wants to see that you're an active, legitimate business serving customers right now.

If you want to learn more from Amy or need help with Google Business Profile issues, you can email her at localamy@amytomanseo.com. You can also find her on LinkedIn under Amy Tomman or see her answering questions on the Google Business Profile Forum.