The Four-Hour Work Week Philosophy That Actually Works

One of the first things Mike and I talked about was the Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, which changed how he thinks about outsourcing. The key insight wasn't about literally working four hours. It was about giving people a monetary buffer for decisions they can make without you.

Tim Ferriss talks about setting a threshold, like $50, where if something costs that amount or less, people should just do it without asking. The reasoning is simple. It costs more for you to get involved than to just let someone handle it.

Mike applied this to citation building for local businesses. When he first started, he did all of them himself. It was monotonous and took forever. He realized he could outsource to a contractor who could do it full-time, which was cheaper than buying the service when needed. As Mike explained, "If I sat there for two hours doing it now, I just either do a form fill out in five minutes or I go, hey, here's our client, you already have the SOP, I do the standard operating procedure once and then I just go, yeah, now do it again."

The lesson is understanding where your time is most valuable. By outsourcing repetitive work, you free yourself to focus on strategic decisions that move your business forward.

The Contractor Strategy That Beats Virtual Assistants

Mike tried the VA route that so many agencies push, especially during the social media marketing agency craze right before the pandemic. He got sold on hiring VAs and diversifying his business model, but it didn't work for him. The problem was he had to train the VA every time, and if he wasn't telling them exactly what to do, they weren't doing anything. It wasn't a lot of money, but it wasn't worth the hassle.

Now Mike's approach is completely different. He uses VAs only for specific, limited tests. For everything else, he hires contractors who specialize in exactly what he needs. Back in 2016 or 2017, he hired an SEO contractor and told him exactly what he does and what he needs done. That contractor is still with him today and has become his operations manager.

The contractor told Mike that people in his network ask if he has a contract with Mike. His response was perfect: "Mike and I have been together since 2016, 2017. I don't really worry about that contract. He pays me right away. Like he gets paid first." That relationship has been built on trust and consistent work over years.

Mike's contractor is based in India and has a couple other clients, but Mike is a big bulk of his work. Mike found him on Upwork years ago when the platform was different than it is now. He qualified the contractor carefully, looking for someone who could be molded to what he needed but also knew enough that Mike didn't have to hold their hand all the time. The contractor fell in perfectly there.

Now Mike has built out a whole team of contractors. He has an operations manager, link builders, a content writer, a web developer, and a graphic designer. When he needs them, he taps them in. He's created all his SOPs and internal training, so if they need a link builder brought on, the operations manager can just give them access to the training. They can learn the process and the standards and just execute.

For vetting contractors, Mike emphasized that Upwork has gotten weird. You can find someone and they're really just a piece of a bigger agency network overseas. It's hard to vet properly. His recommendation is to find someone like him who has a contractor and a network of people they can connect you to. A good VA will have more VAs in their circle that they trust, and they know their reputation is on the line.

When looking for contractors or VAs, Mike looks for fluent English, especially if they're going to do anything client-facing like answering emails. You can use boxed responses if the English isn't perfect, but ideally you want fluency. He also looks at work ethic and experience level. If you get someone new, you're going to get a better deal, but they're going to have to learn the ropes. If you get someone seasoned, they'll cost more but you won't have to train them as much. Mike usually likes to find someone specific in the solution he needs rather than a generalist VA who he'd have to train on everything.

Why Buyer Intent Always Wins Over Branding

Mike's philosophy on advertising is incredibly clear and practical. He loves ads, but only specific types. He focuses almost entirely on buyer intent marketing. If someone wants something, he wants to be the first result. As Mike said, "If I can be the local service ad, the map pack, and the organic results, I'm doing it. If I can be the search ad, if I can be the ad in the map, if I can be the first location in the map and then the organic, I'm going to do it."

He doesn't do much YouTube pre-roll except for specific industries like auto dealers or home builders where there's value in keeping the brand top of mind. For pest control and other home services, it's a solution people want now. They're not browsing YouTube thinking about pest control companies. Mike would only use YouTube ads for remarketing to people who already visited the site. That makes sense because they were already shopping for the service.

Facebook advertising is decent because it's cheaper and better for branding and remarketing. If someone was already shopping for what you have and then they see you again on Facebook, they're more likely to click. But Mike's clear about his priority: "Most likely my ads are mostly buyer intent. I want anyone that I'm paying, I want money back."

This applies to SEO as well. Mike can get you found for anything with no difficulty or competition, but the question is whether it's going to work on your bottom line. It can help for topical authority, which is valuable, but really he wants clients to rank for the main keywords that are a solution to someone's problem. That's where the revenue comes from.

His favorite advertising platform is Google, specifically local service ads. He highly suggests that if your business qualifies, you should run them because you will see that ROI. People will call you, and if it's not a qualified call, you get your money back from Google. They're Google guaranteed local services, and they're great.

For businesses just starting with ads, Mike's advice is incredibly simple. Run ads for your service and your location. Pest control Miami. Exterminator Miami. Just run ads for that and see if you get a return. You're either not going to spend a lot of money, or you'll spend money and get results. As long as you're not running broad search and you use phrase or exact match, you'll figure it out and get an ROI.

The Website Audit Process That Reveals Everything

When Mike takes on a new client, he first assesses whether he can actually help them. Some businesses are already maxed out and should start another service line instead of trying to squeeze more from what's working.

He looks at reputation immediately. If a company has terrible reviews, that's an operational problem, not a marketing problem. Mike has clients with 3.7 star ratings who still dominate because their local SEO is strong, but he warns they'll eventually see a drop without improving reviews.

Website health is critical. If anything is broken significantly, whatever links or content Mike creates won't work. If search engines can't scan it, even AI can't interpret it for search result summaries.

Mike also checks the Google Business Profile. If you don't have images, you look untrustworthy. It's like a social media profile with no posts. If you don't care about your profile, why would customers care?

For specific errors when scanning sites, canonical issues are huge. If you have HTTP, HTTPS, www, and non-www versions, that's potentially six duplicate versions. Mike once saved a website from tanking just by fixing canonical errors.

Other critical items are sitemaps, broken links, and anything affecting user experience. Metatitle issues are big because that's the first thing Google and users read. Alt text for images is another easy fix that people often miss.

The Google Business Profile Strategy That Gets Results

Mike's approach to Google Business Profile optimization is refreshingly practical. He likes to act like a novice and see what information is getting fed to people. He'll look up "what is Google Business Profile" and see what YouTube videos come up. The opinions on what are the most deciding factors are interesting, but you have to focus on people who are actually running stats, not just claiming things work.

The absolute best practice is filling the business profile out completely. Give users everything they need to know. Your information shouldn't be confusing. Mike owns a dog and does road trips, so he looks up "dog friendly near me" all the time. It annoys him when someone says dog friendly and he shows up and it's outside in the winter. That's not dog friendly. Understanding what people actually need and being transparent about it creates a better experience.

Mike wishes more of his clients would use Google messaging. None of them want to use it, and he doesn't understand why. Google wants businesses to use it because they want to offer the best service and direct contact. Why wouldn't you want someone who's actively asking for your business to connect with you right away?

Filling out services is critical. People don't fill out the services properly. They just let it auto-populate with no descriptions. Even if keywords aren't necessarily in there for Google to scan, people want to understand what you offer. Fill out the description. Google could say tomorrow that the next update prioritizes businesses that mention the actual services in detail.

Reviews are obviously important, but Mike made an interesting point about Google potentially bumping older reviews and expiring them. This is especially relevant when there are transfers of ownership. If a business's old reviews were awesome and a new owner comes in with bad reviews, or if your competition's old reviews start expiring and your new reviews are better than their new ones, you're going to get ranked ahead. So getting consistent fresh reviews matters.

For review strategy, Mike's approach is simple. Whenever someone says they love you or they're happy, give them the review link. Have your Google link ready. His favorite example was getting keys made for his car. The guy who came to him had the review link in his text message. It was probably automated based on positive experience signals, and Mike actually left a good review and added a photo of his car with the keys because it was that easy.

As soon as someone says they're happy, ask what made them happy and what their favorite part was. Tell them to let other people know. People like having that opinion and sharing it. For pest control specifically, having the technicians ask right after the service is ideal. The longer you wait, the less likely they are to leave a review. If the customer is happy and says thank you, that's permission to send the link. Tell them it really helps people find you and find a better solution to their problem, and ask them to let people know what you removed from their house.

Mike also emphasized letting people know how much reviews mean to you personally. Most people make it transactional, like they don't actually care about the customer, they just want the review for their own benefit. People feel weird asking for reviews, but if you don't ask, not everyone's going to do it. More likely if they hate you, they're going to leave a review because it's their little revenge. Tell customers that taking one minute to leave a review makes a big difference in your business, and people will respond to that.

The Location Page Taxonomy That Scales

For businesses with multiple locations or service areas, Mike emphasized that taxonomy is critical. You have to decide where you want to grow with your business. If you're going to stay in one area and not expand, your taxonomy can just be your services. But if you have two locations or service several locations, think about that ahead of time.

The decision between location-first or service-first in your URL structure depends on your business model. For a marketing agency that might want to expand beyond local, Mike suggests doing services first and then adding locations later as you expand. For most home service businesses, it's going to be location then service because you service specific locations and want to show everything about you in that location.

For example, if you're in Middletown, New Jersey, which is in Monmouth County, you might structure it as pestcontrol.com/middletown-nj. That gives you a place to put case studies. Every house you service in Middletown can go on that page. You can even name specific locations like "house near this middle school" or "house near this library." This is really valuable because mentioning local landmarks naturally incorporates local signals that Google looks for.

If there's a common pest issue because of a nearby park, you can mention that. You get to naturally mention local stuff that proves you actually operate in that area. Mike got excited talking about this because it's such a powerful way to build local relevance while also creating valuable content for users.

The Page Speed Fixes That Actually Matter

Page speed can be technically complex, but Mike had practical advice. The large contentful paint metric is the big one. He uses Google Tag Manager more than adding code directly to sites.

Image optimization is huge. Think about where people actually see the page. Does an image need to be 5,000 pixels wide? Most computers are 17 inches max. Focus on smaller sizes that still look good.

On mobile, transfer video backgrounds to image backgrounds. People aren't going to watch videos on mobile. Anything above the fold needs to load instantly.

Mike was honest that he doesn't do technical fixes himself. He has a developer he tells "this is the issue" and they fix it. If you're not technical, hire someone smarter than you. You can be a great business owner without doing the implementation yourself.

The SEO Tools Worth Using

Mike uses a variety of SEO tools, but his philosophy is to stick to one primary tool because they all have different data. Google doesn't tell you "this is the authority of this website." Moz makes up their own version. Search difficulties are based on the amount of links and various factors. Just scan sites and gather information.

For local specifically, he mentioned Local Viking, Bright Local, Semrush, and Ahrefs as the main platforms. But his number one recommendation for any business is to have a site scanner. Whether you use GTmetrics.com or Screaming Frog or others, scan your site and make sure there are no errors. That's the number one priority.

Mike actually goes on AppSumo and buys a bunch of different scanners to see what's happening. One of his client's hostings uses Cloudflare and he can't scan it with one of his tools, so he's always getting new ones to work around issues like that.

For WordPress sites, Mike recently switched from Yoast to RankMath and loves it so much that he reached out to get an affiliate code. The schema markup and local schema features you get for free are insane. Every piece has a number grade rather than colors, and they really push you to take specific actions to move forward. Mike feels more secure that he's doing things right with RankMath.

RankMath also does pillar content in the free version (or he thinks it's in the free version, he has the paid version). You choose your pillar page that you want to rank, and as you're writing blogs, it reminds you to link to that pillar piece. The local FAQ and article schema is all built in. They do all the different sitemaps. The user interface and dashboard are awesome because you can turn off features you don't use.

For keyword research, Mike uses Google Keyword Planner, then Semrush, then Uber Suggest (he has the lifetime membership), and he recently bought a new tool off AppSumo that's supposedly based on current interactions. He contrasts and compares all of them to get a full picture.

His final recommendation for everyone is definitely get a site scanner, and if you use WordPress, check out RankMath. The pro version does an insane amount, but the free version is still better than the Yoast free version.

My Main Takeaway

1. The biggest lesson from Mike is that buyer intent marketing should be your priority over branding. If someone wants something, you want to be the first result. Mike focuses on dominating local service ads, the map pack, search ads, and organic results all at once for buyer intent keywords. He doesn't waste money on YouTube pre-roll or broad Facebook campaigns unless it's for remarketing to people who already visited the site. For pest control and home services, people want a solution now, not brand awareness. Mike's philosophy is simple: if you're paying for ads, you want money back. That means targeting people actively searching for your service in your location, not hoping someone remembers your brand six months from now when they have a problem. The same applies to SEO. You can rank for anything with no competition, but the question is whether it drives revenue. Focus on the main keywords that solve someone's immediate problem.

   
   

2. Hiring specialized contractors beats hiring general virtual assistants every time. Mike tried the VA route during the social media marketing agency craze and it didn't work because he had to train them constantly and tell them exactly what to do. Now he only uses VAs for specific limited tests. For everything else, he hires contractors who specialize in exactly what he needs. His SEO contractor from 2016 is now his operations manager and runs day-to-day operations. The key is finding someone who can be molded to what you need but also knows enough that you don't have to hold their hand. Mike found his contractor on Upwork, qualified him carefully, and built a relationship on trust and consistent payment. Now that contractor has brought in link builders, content writers, web developers, and graphic designers. Mike created all the SOPs and training once, and now the operations manager can onboard people using those systems. The best way to find good contractors is through referrals from people who already have them, because a good contractor's reputation is on the line when they recommend someone.

   
   

3. Website health and technical SEO must be fixed before anything else works. Mike won't even build links or write content if a website has significant errors. If the search engine can't scan your site, nothing else matters. The most common critical errors are canonical issues where you have multiple versions of your website (HTTP, HTTPS, www, non-www) creating duplicate content. Mike once saved a website from completely tanking just by fixing canonical errors. Other critical issues are broken sitemaps, broken links, missing or duplicate metatitles, and missing alt text on images. User experience is everything because the better people can use your site, the more favorable search engines treat it. Mike's recommendation is to scan your site with GTmetrics or Screaming Frog, find the issues, and either learn to fix them yourself or hire someone who can. If you're a business owner, your job is to run your business, not become a coder. Understand the problem and hire the specialist to solve it.

   
   

4. Google Business Profile optimization is about giving users everything they need to know, not just checking boxes. Fill out your profile completely, including services with detailed descriptions even if you're not sure Google scans them for keywords. Use Google messaging because Google wants to offer direct contact and you should want to talk to people actively asking for your business. Get consistent fresh reviews because Google may start expiring older reviews, which matters especially if there are ownership transfers or if your competition's old positive reviews start dropping off. Make review requests easy by having the link ready and asking customers right after service when they're happy. Tell them specifically that one minute to leave a review makes a big difference in your business and helps people find better solutions. Don't make it transactional. Make it personal. Mike's favorite example is the key guy who had the review link automated in his text messages based on positive experience, and Mike left a great review with a photo because it was that simple.

   
   

5. Location page taxonomy needs to be planned ahead based on your growth strategy. If you're staying in one area and not expanding, your taxonomy can be services-based. But if you service multiple locations or plan to expand, think about that structure ahead of time. For most home service businesses, it should be location then service (yoursite.com/middletown-nj/pest-control) because you service specific locations. This structure gives you a place to put case studies for every house you service in that area. You can naturally mention local landmarks like schools, libraries, and parks, which helps prove to Google you actually operate there. If certain pests are common because of a nearby park, you can mention that context. This naturally incorporates local signals while creating valuable content for users. Planning this structure from the beginning makes scaling much easier than trying to restructure later.

You can find Mike Forgie on LinkedIn where he's most active sharing business-focused content. He's also on Facebook and Instagram, though Instagram is mainly his travel and photography. Mike mentioned he's working on launching a YouTube channel soon. His website is nextstepconnect.com, and on the homepage there's a free tool to scan your website for your keyword. It'll tell you if you're ranking and who your competitors are in that area. Mike's incredibly generous with his knowledge and genuinely loves helping local businesses compete against the big franchises. As he said, Google is giving local businesses the exact way to win, so let's take on those giant corporations.