# City Ranked | City Ranked Media, Inc. | Nationally recognized digital marketing and advertising agency serving the entire United States. > At City Ranked we specialize in growing service area business, such as: Pest Control Services, HVAC, Roofers, Landscape Companies, House Painting, Septic Pumping, Flooring, Home Windows, Siding Companies, Excavation, Tree Care Services, and much more. through innovative digital marketing and advertising services paired with advanced MarTech tacks to help our business owners scale faster than traditional models. > City Ranked has been touted as one of the United States best digital marketing and advertising companies for service area businesses, such as Pest Control, HVAC, and Roofing Companies. ## Pages - [Our Pricing](https://cityranked.com/pricing/): Founding offer — Conversational AI Agent: build fee waived + first 60 days free. Limited to the first 15 clients.... - [Book a Demo](https://cityranked.com/book-demo/): BOOK A DEMO OR REVENUE RECOVERY AUDIT See the system. Then see your number. The Revenue Recovery Audit is a... - [Website Portfolio](https://cityranked.com/website-development/website-portfolio/): OUR BEST WORK (SO FAR) Where innovation meets impact. We build more than just websites, we build sustainable growth, putting... - [Marketing Automation](https://cityranked.com/marketing-automation/): AI-POWERED MARKETING AUTOMATION We don’t just run your marketing. We engineer it to run itself. City Ranked is a deeply... - [Landscape Contractors](https://cityranked.com/home-services/landscape/): LANDSCAPING You don’t need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows... - [Plumbing Contractors](https://cityranked.com/home-services/plumbing/): PLUMBING You don’t need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows... - [HVAC Contractors](https://cityranked.com/home-services/hvac-contractors/): HVAC You don’t need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows... - [Enterprise](https://cityranked.com/enterprise/): ENTERPRISE PE & M&A Fragmented marketing is a risk to your thesis. One team, deployed the same way across every... - [10-Levers](https://cityranked.com/our-system/10-levers/): OUR SYSTEM THE 10 LEVERS Most agencies have two or three ways to get you leads. We have ten, and... - [CR Suite](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/cr-suite/): ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 06 CR SUITE Most agencies bolt a dozen plugins onto your site. We built one. CR Suite... - [Summit](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/summit/): ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 05 SUMMIT REVIEWS A homeowner picks who to call before your phone ever rings. Your reviews make... - [Agentic AI](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/agentic-ai/): ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 04 AGENTIC AI Your next customer reaches out at 10:00 pm. Skout is already answering. Skout’s agentic... - [GPS-SEO](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/gps-seo/): ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 01 GPS-SEO Your trucks serve 20 zip codes. You only rank in three of them. GPS-SEO is... - [Skout](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/skout/): ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 02 SKOUT Your advertising generates the lead. Skout makes sure your business actually keeps it. Skout is... - [Our System](https://cityranked.com/our-system/): WHY CITY RANKED You don’t have a marketing problem. You have a systems problem. Rankings, clicks, and lead counts are... - [Skout IVR](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/skout-ivr/): ASCENT TOOLKIT · TOOL 03 · SKOUT IVR While you run routes,the Skout IVR runs your front desk. Every inbound... - [The Ascent Toolkit](https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/): THE ASCENT TOOLKIT · THE GEAR Six tools. One system. Built in-house. Most agencies show up with channels. We show... - [AI Chatbot Build - Pest Control Intake Form](https://cityranked.com/ai-chatbot-pest-control-intake-form/): Fill out the form below to get started. Growing your business is a journey that begins with a single step. - [Senior Care Authority Intake Form](https://cityranked.com/sca/): Fill out the form below to get started on a local marketing package. Growing your business is a journey that... - [Our Work](https://cityranked.com/work/): Our Best Work (So Far) Where Imagination Meets Impact We build more than just websites; we build sustainable growth. Browse... - [Digital Marketing Audit vs. Marketing Process Audit](https://cityranked.com/grow-your-pest-control-business/): If you’re looking to tap into nearby markets you haven’t reached yet or improve brand visibility across your service area,... - [Pest ID Ai Tool](https://cityranked.com/pest-id-ai-tool/) - [Expert Digital Marketing Review](https://cityranked.com/our-system/digital-ramp/digital-marketing-review/): Is your digital marketing sending the right message? Is your message reaching the right people? Call us for an expert... - [Referral Program](https://cityranked.com/referral-program/): Refer a friend and save. Save money on your digital marketing by bringing your friends to join the City Ranked... - [GPS SEO by City Ranked](https://cityranked.com/seo/gps-seo/): GPS SEO:A powerful plugin that puts you on the map. Clearly communicate your services and service area to search engines... - [HighLevel Marketing Automation Agency](https://cityranked.com/highlevel-marketing-automation/): Looking for a HighLevel Agency Partner for your business? City Ranked is experienced in building custom automations, programming complex API... - [Pest Control Digital Marketing & Advertising](https://cityranked.com/pest-control-digital-marketing/): Schedule a Call Growing pest control businesses since 2011. Looking for a reputable digital marketing agency to help scale your... - [Pest Control](https://cityranked.com/home-services/pest-control/): PEST CONTROL You don’t need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. For 15... - [Home Services](https://cityranked.com/home-services/): MARKETING FOR HOME & COMMERCIAL CONTRACTORS If you serve homes and businesses,we know how to grow you. For fifteen years... - [Skout Privacy Policy](https://cityranked.com/privacy-policy-skout/): This privacy policy sets out how Skout uses and protects any information that you give when you use this website.... - [Pest Control Advertising Case Study](https://cityranked.com/case-studies/pest-control/): PEST CONTROL CASE STUDY Rocket Pest Control We are proud to partner with Rocket Pest Control, a trusted pest control... - [Landscaper Advertising](https://cityranked.com/case-studies/landscaper/): LANDSCAPING CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting We are proud to partner with Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting, an esteemed... - [Plumber Advertising](https://cityranked.com/case-studies/plumber/): PLUMBING CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY D&F Plumbing City Ranked has had the honor of partnering with D&F Plumbing for over a... - [HVAC Contractor Advertising](https://cityranked.com/case-studies/hvac/): HVAC CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY Apex Air City Ranked has had the privilege of working with Apex Air for over 7... - [Digital Marketing Case Studies](https://cityranked.com/case-studies/): CASE STUDIES Real examples of our success. We specialize in harnessing the unique qualities of each business we work with,... - [The Digital Ramp Model](https://cityranked.com/our-system/digital-ramp/): THE DIGITAL RAMP MODEL Predictable growthfor your business. Selecting the right marketing partner is one of the most important decisions... - [Merger & Acquisition Marketing Agency](https://cityranked.com/enterprise-digital-solutions/): The City Ranked Approach to Enterprise Digital Solutions When you’re laser-focused on growth, meeting your goals while maintaining consistent ROI... - [Reviews & Reputation](https://cityranked.com/reviews-reputation/): Online reviews and reputation management are even more important to your digital strategy than you may realize. They make search... - [Social Media Marketing](https://cityranked.com/social-media/): SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Your customers are already scrolling. Make sure they find you there. Social media is your community hub,... - [Marketing Automation](https://cityranked.com/skout/): Meet Skout – Our Easy-to-Use Marketing Automation Platform Looking to turn more prospects into customers? The path is created through... - [Search Engine Marketing](https://cityranked.com/sem/): SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING We don’t win you keywords. We win you customers. Customers are out there searching for what you... - [Careers](https://cityranked.com/careers/): CAREERS AT CITY RANKED It’s our people whoset us apart. We pride ourselves on our holistic approach to building local... - [Contact Us](https://cityranked.com/contact/): Let’s Talk About Growth Focusing on just a few marketing channels doesn’t cut it anymore. With the evolving landscape of... - [Website Schema Generator](https://cityranked.com/seo/website-schema-generator/): Free JSON-LD Schema Generator If your website doesn’t currently have schema markup, you’re missing out on a big SEO opportunity.... - [GBP Review Link Generator](https://cityranked.com/seo/gbp-link-generator/): Get reviews for your business on Google Custom Link for Google Business Profile Reviews Generate a link that sends your... - [Free Website and SEO Audit Tool](https://cityranked.com/seo/seo-audit/): Get a detailed SEO Analysis of your website with our FREE Website & SEO Audit Tool, including why you may not... - [Your SEO Report is on its way.](https://cityranked.com/report-success/): Your report will take just a few minutes to generate. Check your email! This report grades your website on the... - [Technical Support](https://cityranked.com/support/): In Need of Technical Support? Contact Our Team. Our team is dedicated to supporting our clients with questions and concerns.... - [Blog](https://cityranked.com/blog/): WATCH & FOLLOW See what we are building. From client wins to behind-the-scenes at City Ranked, our latest videos are... - [Local SEO](https://cityranked.com/seo/local-seo/): SEO · LOCAL SEO Get found by customers in your zip code, not looky-loos three states away. There is a... - [Search Engine Optimization](https://cityranked.com/seo/): SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Good SEO doesn’t chase rankings. It brings you customers. SEO is not about picking keywords and posting... - [Website Development](https://cityranked.com/website-development/): WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN Your website should grow your business. Not just sit there looking nice. Grow your brand, get... - [Thank you](https://cityranked.com/thank-you-skout/): A member of our team will be in touch with you shortly. We look forward to connecting with you. - [Ready to grow your business?](https://cityranked.com/book-a-demo/): It starts with a conversation. Growing your business is a journey that begins with a single step. That step? Reach... - [Testimonials & Reviews](https://cityranked.com/about/reviews/): CLIENT REVIEWS Don’t take our word for it. What’s it like partnering with City Ranked? These are the words of... - [City Ranked Legal](https://cityranked.com/legal/) - [Terms and Conditions](https://cityranked.com/terms-and-conditions/): Marketing communications preferences for Email and/or SMS/MMS Messaging. - [About Duane Baumgartner](https://cityranked.com/about/duane-baumgartner/): CITY RANKED, FOUNDER Duane Baumgartner Founder & CEO Duane had a front-row seat to the evolution of digital marketing, from... - [Who We Are](https://cityranked.com/about/): WHO WE ARE We fix the marketing. But we lead with the people. We can fix your title tags, sharpen... - [Digital Marketing Agency](https://cityranked.com/): TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN ADVERTISING AND MARKETING · EST. 2011 The technical advertising agency building revenue engines that scale business growth. Since 2011,... - [Privacy Policy](https://cityranked.com/privacy-policy/): | Originally Effective: 03-22-2019 This privacy policy sets out how City Ranked (“we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and protects... ## Posts - [6 Things Your Service Business Has to Fix After Google's May 19th Announcement](https://cityranked.com/blog/6-things-your-service-business-has-to-fix-after-googles-may-19th-change/): Our 6 Point Checklist To Get Your Business Ready For Google’s Announced AI Search Changes. If your agency isn’t telling... - [What Is Review Manipulation and Why Does It Matter?](https://cityranked.com/blog/what-is-review-manipulation/): Review manipulation is any intentional action that disrupts or steers a customer’s natural feedback process. For a local service business,... - [Google's Agentic Web: How search will be forever changed](https://cityranked.com/blog/googles-agentic-web-how-search-will-be-forever-changed/): Google Just Retired the Blue Links. We’ve Been Building for This Since 2022. On May 19th, at its annual I/O... - [The Ascent Toolkit: AI-Powered Revenue Growth for Pest Control](https://cityranked.com/blog/ascent-toolkit-for-pest-control/): Introducing the Ascent Toolkit The Fully Managed AI-Powered Revenue System Built Specifically for Pest Control After fifteen years of working... - [The Agency Model Is Dead. Here's how we fixed it.](https://cityranked.com/blog/the-agency-model-is-dead-heres-how-we-fixed-it/): After fifteen years building advertising systems for pest control businesses, City Ranked is announcing the most significant evolution in its... - [Why Right Now Is a Great Time for Your Business to Invest in Paid Digital Ads](https://cityranked.com/blog/why-invest-in-paid-digital-ads/): Paid ads are pretty simple. Paid Ad Campaigns = Leads = REVENUE! Right? ? OK, so it’s not quite that... - [AI-Powered RoAS Bidding: Supercharge Your Paid Ads ROI](https://cityranked.com/blog/ai-powered-roas-bidding/): Cracking The Code: How to train AI using The Skout IVR for Paid Media RoAS Bidding In the competitive verticals... - [Announcing the City Ranked Marketing Automation Team](https://cityranked.com/blog/the-city-ranked-marketing-automation-team/): City Ranked’s Marketing Automation Team At City Ranked, we’ve always believed that data-driven strategy and cutting-edge innovation are the twin... - [Understanding AI Traffic & Visibility Analytics](https://cityranked.com/blog/understanding-ai-traffic-visibility/): AI Traffic Measurement and Analytics For your SEO strategy to be successful, you need to be able to analyze your... - [The Modern Revenue Growth Alternative to Traditional Agency Models](https://cityranked.com/blog/the-modern-revenue-growth-alternative-to-traditional-agency-models/): How City Ranked Drives Revenue Growth – A Modern Alternative to Traditional Marketing Agencies For service-area businesses, like pest control,... - [Jennifer Coker named President of City Ranked Media, Inc.](https://cityranked.com/blog/jennifer-coker-president-city-ranked-media/): Vancouver, Washington – January 14, 2026 – City Ranked Media, a leading digital marketing and web development agency based in... - [5 Marketing Automations to (Almost) Instantly Grow Your Pest Control Business](https://cityranked.com/blog/5-marketing-automations-to-almost-instantly-grow-your-pest-control-business/): I’ve seen just about everything when it comes to advertising pest control companies in my almost 25 years in the... - [How Plumbing Companies Can Surge Profits in 2026 - The AI & Automation Advantage](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-plumbing-companies-grow-2026-ai-automation/): In 2026, the secret to a highly profitable plumbing business isn’t just about finding more leaks—it’s about plugging the “leak”... - [The 2026 Blueprint for Scaling Your Pest Control Business into a High-Value Asset](https://cityranked.com/blog/2026-blueprint-for-scaling-your-pest-control-business/): As we turn the corner into 2026, it’s becoming clear that the pest control industry has reached a pivotal inflection... - [An Effective Content Strategy for Brands [With a Proven Checklist]](https://cityranked.com/blog/an-effective-content-strategy-for-brands-with-a-proven-checklist/): Your business has value, but if your digital content doesn’t connect with the right people at the right time, that... - [Google’s “Have AI Check Prices” is live. How does your business stack up?](https://cityranked.com/blog/googles-have-ai-check-prices-how-does-your-business-stack-up/): Well, Google has done it again. They’ve quietly rolled out a new feature that will surely have a lot of... - [Is It Better to Play It Safe with Your Content, or Stand Out?](https://cityranked.com/blog/is-it-better-to-play-it-safe-with-your-content-or-stand-out/): Should You Rethink Your Content Strategy in the Digital Echo Chamber? Open a new tab and search for any type... - [Combining Marketing Data, AI, and Automation for Predictable Business Growth](https://cityranked.com/blog/business-growth-ai-automation/): The modern business environment is rapidly changing with the release of AI-powered business tools. For home services businesses, staying relevant,... - [Why You Should Create and Optimize Content for AI Platforms](https://cityranked.com/blog/ai-content-optimization/): Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the way users find brands and convert into leads. Search engines, assistants, and copilots now... - [Pest Control - Increase Profits by reducing Customer Cancellations](https://cityranked.com/blog/pest-control-increase-profits-by-reducing-customer-cancellations/): Pest control companies can increase profitability by reducing customer churn through the use of marketing automation and AI. One of... - [Hyper-Local Growth Using GPS-SEO](https://cityranked.com/blog/hyper-local-growth-using-gps-seo/): GPS-SEO by City Ranked Video Transcript Hello, I’m Duane Baumgartner, CEO and Founder here at City Ranked. Today I want... - [How Social Media and SEO Work Together to Boost Your Online Visibility](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-social-media-and-seo-work-together/): Have you ever been out with a friend, and then you run into another friend? You start to introduce your... - [Using AI in Google Ads - Embracing the AI Revolution](https://cityranked.com/blog/embracing-ai-in-google-ads/): Optimizing Your Google Ads Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) The digital advertising landscape is constantly transforming, and at the forefront of... - [How We Target the Right Audience for Your Google Ads Campaign](https://cityranked.com/blog/audience-targeting-google-ads-campaigns/): The difference between an ineffective Google Ads campaign and one that’s leading to conversions often comes down to who’s seeing... - [10 Proven Marketing Ideas For Your Pest Control Business](https://cityranked.com/blog/10-proven-marketing-ideas-for-pest-control-businesses/): How to Improve Your Pest Control Marketing by Duane Baumgartner I’ve been marketing pest control companies for over twenty years,... - [The FTC Ban on Fake Reviews & What It Means for Your Business](https://cityranked.com/blog/ftc-ban-on-fake-reviews/): In response to growing concerns from consumers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been making moves for the past couple... - [How Should I Handle Negative Reviews and Customer Feedback?](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-should-i-handle-negative-reviews-and-customer-feedback/): Once a steady stream of online reviews starts rolling in, it feels easy. Your business’s overall rating rises, which leads... - [How small businesses can use marketing automation and AI to increase lead generation ](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-small-businesses-can-use-marketing-automation-and-ai-to-increase-lead-generation/): Small business owners have never had more competition for their time. The days of casually posting on a Facebook or... - [How Can I Encourage Satisfied Customers to Leave Positive Reviews?](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-can-i-encourage-satisfied-customers-to-leave-positive-reviews/): So you’ve decided to make gathering reviews a bigger part of your online marketing strategy – that’s great! Now, the... - [How Can Online Reviews Impact My Business?](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-can-online-reviews-impact-my-business/): Reviews have always been extremely important for local businesses. Imagine a friend tells you, “Avoid that restaurant – I saw... - [Ranking #1 on Google isn’t a strategy, it’s a reward.](https://cityranked.com/blog/better-ranking-strategy/): Let’s get this straight from the beginning: every small business owner wants their website to rank higher on Google –... - [Summit Reviews: Our New Offering](https://cityranked.com/blog/summit-reviews-our-new-offering/): Introducing our New Text Review App No matter the size, type, or industry, your business will benefit from reviews. In... - [FTC Proposes Ban on Fake Reviews](https://cityranked.com/blog/ftc-proposes-ban-on-fake-reviews/): Last month, City Ranked spoke about the importance of Online Reviews. ( And the importance of not buying them )... - [Could the way you run your business affect your Google rankings?](https://cityranked.com/blog/business-operations-rankings/): Short answer? Yes. Your customer’s in-person experience directly impacts your rankings on Google. But the way you can affect it... - [Supercharge Your Reviews to Crush the Competition](https://cityranked.com/blog/supercharge-your-reviews-to-crush-the-competition/): Undoubtedly, the significance of reviews is important, yet many businesses fail to fully grasp the key role they play in... - [Getting Reviews For Your Business Online](https://cityranked.com/blog/getting-reviews-business-online/): Getting Online Reviews For Your Business Consumers rely on reading reviews these days to form opinions and decisions on everything... - [Conversion Rate Optimization: Increasing Website Conversions For City Ranked Customers](https://cityranked.com/blog/increase-website-conversions/): Incrementally Increasing Website Conversions With New WordPress Programming As a web design and search engine optimization company, we’ve always maintained... - [Programming Innovation: Get Customer Reviews Through Text Messaging](https://cityranked.com/blog/get-customer-reviews-text-messaging/): The GoLocalReviews. com Text Review App (Demo video at the bottom of this article) With an ever-increasing number of savvy... - [SEO Code Innovation: Targeting SEO Through GPS Location](https://cityranked.com/blog/targeting-seo-gps-location/): GPS Targeted SEO We here at City Ranked have been busy testing, retesting, and refining SEO tactics based upon GPS... - [JSON-LD Schema Structure for Local SEO](https://cityranked.com/blog/json-ld-schema-structure-local-seo/): New SEO Schema Markups Released and Tested First it might be helpful to explain what schema markup is. Back in... - [SEO Code Innovation: Local SEO and Google's Doorway Page Update](https://cityranked.com/blog/local-seo-google-doorway-page-update/): Targeting Local SEO After Google’s Doorway Page Update Way back in March of 2015, Google released its Doorway Page Update... - [3 questions to ask before hiring a web advertising company](https://cityranked.com/blog/3-questions-to-ask-before-hiring-web-advertising-company/): Know the right questions to ask a web advertising company Hiring a reputable Internet Advertising company for your small business... - [Expert SEO Quiz](https://cityranked.com/blog/expert-seo-quiz/): Consider yourself an Expert at SEO in 2015? Take our quiz and find out how you rank. - [Is your Small Business Website and SEO Strategy Forward Thinking?](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-seo-strategy/): I want to cover a topic I think many small business owners rarely think about, the viability, and scale-ability of... - [8 Sure Signs Your SEO Company Sucks](https://cityranked.com/blog/8-sure-signs-your-seo-company-sucks/): Last year I wrote an article titled “10 Signs You’re Buying SEO Snake Oil“. Since I’m into SEO, I thought... - [Poor Man's Guide: Website and Internet Advertising on a Budget (Part 3 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-3-of-3/): Promoting and Updating Your Small Business Website I get it as a small business owner, you’re busy. There’s a million... - [Poor Man’s Guide: Website and internet advertising on a budget (Part 2 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-2-of-3/): Website SEO on a Budget Self guide to getting your business website on the search engines Awhile back I wrote... - [Is Your SEO Company a Copycat?](https://cityranked.com/blog/is-your-seo-company-a-copycat/): Why you shouldn’t work with an SEO company that copies your competitions’ strategies. As a business owner nothing can more... - [What Your SEO Company Might Be Doing To Hurt Your Rankings](https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-company-might-hurt-rankings/): Is your SEO company hurting your websites rankings? I get it, as a business owner it’s really easy to let... - [5 things you need to know before hiring someone to build you a website in WordPress](https://cityranked.com/blog/5-things-need-know-hiring-someone-build-website-wordpress/): Here at City Ranked Media we primarily work in WordPress and all of our new client websites are built using... - [Cheap website SEO, does it really exist? Learn the facts here](https://cityranked.com/blog/cheap-website-seo-really-exist/): Just about any business small or large will at some point be faced with the decision on how to properly... - [Google Pigeon, what happened to your Google listing and rankings?](https://cityranked.com/blog/google-pigeon-listings-rankings/): Did you loose rankings with the Google Pigeon update? Late Thursday, Google quietly released its newest update to its local... - [Poor Man's Guide: Website and internet advertising on a budget (Part 1 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-1-of-3/): Many small business owners build their own website, perform simple SEO when they start out to save, here's a simple... - [How much should SEO cost?](https://cityranked.com/blog/much-seo-cost/): How much should SEO cost your business? The answers to this question are as plentiful as websites returned on any... - [Are you really dealing with an SEO expert?](https://cityranked.com/blog/really-dealing-seo-expert/): The 10 warning signs that the person you’re talking to is not an SEO expert. In this day and age... - [Why your SEO needs to be continually worked on](https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-needs-continually-worked/): SEO and Your Old & Tired Website SEO and first page rankings One of the questions we get a lot... - [Measuring The Effectiveness of Your SEO and PPC Campaigns](https://cityranked.com/blog/measuring-effectiveness-of-seo-ppc-campaigns/): The Basics of measuring your marketing efforts How to measure the effectiveness of your SEO and PPC efforts When it... - [What kind of website are you really buying, and why should you care](https://cityranked.com/blog/cheap-or-expensive-web-design/): Drag & Drop Websites – WYSIWYG website programs are they worth it? Finding someone to build your business a website... - [Looking for a SEO company? 5 internet advertising myths debunked](https://cityranked.com/blog/5-myths-seo-debunked/): So you’re in the market for an SEO Company? For many small businesses, looking for a qualified local SEO Company... - [SEO Quiz](https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-test/): Want to test your SEO knowledge? Try the 10 questions below to see how you score. View Survey - [Three questions to ask anyone trying to sell you search engine optimization](https://cityranked.com/blog/three-questions-to-ask-seo/): Hiring a reputable Internet Advertising company for your small business may seem like an easy task. There are many choices... - [How Google's Penguin Update could affect your small business website](https://cityranked.com/blog/how-googles-penguin-update-could-affect-your-small-business-website/): The Penguin Update and your small business website Google recently announced an update to their search ranking algorithms that in... - [Website Ranking Factors For Small Business (Part 3 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-3-of-3/): In this final article of Website Ranking Factors For Small Business, I will cover factors that can get your website... - [Website Ranking Factors For Small Business (Part 2 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-2-of-3/): In my prior article in this series, I discussed website On-Page Ranking Factors for small business websites. This article will... - [Website Ranking Factors For Small Business (Part 1 of 3)](https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-1-of-3/): In this article series I will cover top-level factors that search engines use in determining where a website will rank... - [WordPress Ratings Setup](https://cityranked.com/blog/wordpress-ratings-setup/): WordPress comes equipped with a built in system for readers to interact with your blog / website by allowing them... # # Detailed Content ## Pages - Published: 2026-07-27 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/pricing/ Founding offer — Conversational AI Agent: build fee waived + first 60 days free. Limited to the first 15 clients. Claim a spot → City Ranked · Home Services Marketing You pay for results, not hours on a timesheet. Most agencies bill you for the time they spend. We price around the outcomes you actually care about — qualified leads that turn into booked jobs — through a transparent token system. When we get faster and smarter, you benefit. See the plans How our pricing works How our pricing works A different model, built for how home services businesses actually grow. ▲ Outcome-based Priced to results, not hours Your plan is measured in what we produce for you — not how long it took. A faster, smarter way to hit your goals is a win for both of us, never a smaller invoice for us. ▲ Transparent You always know what you’re buying Fixed monthly plans, agreed in advance. Any platform costs we pass along are billed at cost — never marked up. No surprise line items. ▲ Built to compound It gets better over time As tactics prove out, we automate them into your foundation — so results compound month over month and your cost per result trends down, not up. The unit of work What’s a token? A token is a standardized unit of work. Your plan includes a monthly allocation, and you and your dedicated Ascent Guide decide together where to spend it — put more behind... - Published: 2026-06-30 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/book-demo/ BOOK A DEMO OR REVENUE RECOVERY AUDIT See the system. Then see your number. The Revenue Recovery Audit is a 45-minute conversation with a senior strategist who has spent years inside service-area businesses. No sales pitch. A real read on where your revenue engine is leaking, and a written plan you keep regardless of what happens next. US-based guidesNo sales pitchThe analysis is yours to keep SELECT A TIME THAT WORKS FOR YOU Grab a spot on the calendar. Find out how City Ranked's Ascent Toolkit works and whether it is right for your business. Bring whatever data you have, or none at all. We find the gaps either way. NO MATTER WHAT YOU DECIDE What you will walk away with. 1Your actual lead-to-MQL rate measured against the 37% industry benchmark. Not an estimate. Your real number. 2The specific points in your call and contact flow where leads are disappearing before they reach your CRM. 3Which parts of our Ascent Toolkit fit your operation, and what the capture-rate improvement would look like for your business specifically. 4A written analysis that is yours to keep, no strings and no obligation, whether or not you ever work with City Ranked. WHO YOU WILL MEET Real experts. Not a junior sales rep. Duane Baumgartner Founder & Marketing Expert James Mannion Business Development & Software Expert "City Ranked has been guiding businesses since 2011. We do not need to convince you in one call. We just need to show you the trail. " INDUSTRY... - Published: 2026-06-30 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/website-development/website-portfolio/ OUR BEST WORK (SO FAR) Where innovation meets impact. We build more than just websites, we build sustainable growth, putting you in a position to reach your goals and exceed them. Our proven approach combines innovative strategies, data-driven decision-making, and our own proprietary technology that drives real success you can actually see. Browse our recent work and see how we can help take your business to the next level. PEST & WILDLIFE Deep Roots Pest and Wildlife Innovations LLC Deep Roots set out to build a pest control company that replaces corporate bureaucracy with community focus, and outdated methods with smart and responsible solutions. As a local, family-owned business with "deep roots" in the Pacific Northwest, we created a website that highlights the company's eco-friendly philosophy, conscientious approach to pest control, and belief in doing things the right way. Visit Deep Roots → ART GALLERY Holland Fine Arts Renowned for preserving and promoting time-honored Dutch artistic techniques, Holland Fine Arts is a one-of-a-kind nexus for art lovers and collectors seeking to acquire historically significant works. Since its inception, the gallery has showcased pieces by artists ranging from Rembrandt to Jan van Luyken. The design and content aim to capture the unmistakable feeling of strolling through the corridors of a museum. Visit Holland Fine Arts → HVAC Kombi's Heating and Cooling Because there's never a convenient time for your heating or cooling system to break down, we built Kombi's Heating and Cooling a website that stands out for being clean, clear,... - Published: 2026-06-29 - Modified: 2026-07-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/marketing-automation/ AI-POWERED MARKETING AUTOMATION We don't just run your marketing. We engineer it to run itself. City Ranked is a deeply technical agency. We design and build AI-powered automations that put your most repetitive marketing and sales tasks on auto-pilot, capturing leads, qualifying prospects, managing reviews, and pressing complete records into your CRM, 24 hours a day, without a human touching a keystroke. Schedule a Demo Built in-house Runs 24/7 Integrated with your CRM Measured in MQLs A DIFFERENT KIND OF AGENCY Most agencies buy software. We build it. Over fifteen years we have engineered a proprietary AI-powered automation stack, the Ascent Toolkit, specifically for service-area businesses. It is the reason we can do something most agencies cannot: take the repetitive, error-prone work that leaks revenue every day and put it on auto-pilot. 01 Capture every lead AI agents answer web chat, SMS, social DMs, and inbound calls in under 30 seconds, day or night, so the lead you paid for never slips away because the office was closed. 02 Qualify without a human Each contact is qualified against your MQL criteria and assembled into a complete contact card, then pressed into your CRM by API. No CSR login. No manual entry. No lead lost to someone's memory. 03 Compound results Clean conversion signals train Google and Meta on real buyers, automated workflows nurture and re-engage, and reviews build a reputation moat. The longer it runs, the more efficient your spend becomes. The result is a marketing engine that works while... - Published: 2026-06-29 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/home-services/landscape/ LANDSCAPING You don't need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows landscaping contractors by fixing what actually caps growth: calls lost before they reach your CRM, slow response on a new design or install request, and one-time jobs that never convert to recurring maintenance. Not more spend. A system. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Proven with landscaping contractors Built for Aspire, LMN, and Jobber Design-build and recurring maintenance THE REAL PROBLEM The leads are already calling. Most never reach your CRM. Landscaping contractors are told they need more leads. The data says otherwise. The prospects are already finding you. They are lost in the gap between the phone ringing and a sale being attempted. 37% of high-intent calls were ever recorded in the CRM, before Skout IVR. 78% of buyers hire whoever responds to them first. 391% higher conversion when you respond within 60 seconds. 88% research online before they ever pick up the phone. None of these are lead-volume problems. They are capture and speed problems. Every one is revenue you already paid to create, lost before anyone tried to close it. BUILT FOR HOME SERVICES Most agencies learn landscaping on your budget. We have grown it. Most agencies were built for a generic service business and then pointed at yours. City Ranked has spent 15 years building revenue systems for home services contractors. We understand landscaping's seasonal swings, the difference between a one-time install and a... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/home-services/plumbing/ PLUMBING You don't need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows plumbing contractors by fixing what actually caps growth: emergency calls lost before they reach your CRM, slow response on a burst pipe at 2am, and customers who never call you back for the next job. Not more spend. A system. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Proven with plumbing contractors Built for ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, and Jobber Emergency calls and repeat work THE REAL PROBLEM The leads are already calling. Most never reach your CRM. Plumbing contractors are told they need more leads. The data says otherwise. The prospects are already finding you. They are lost in the gap between the phone ringing and a sale being attempted. 37%of high-intent calls were ever recorded in the CRM, before Skout IVR. 78%of buyers hire whoever responds to them first. 391%higher conversion when you respond within 60 seconds. 88%research online before they ever pick up the phone. None of these are lead-volume problems. They are capture and speed problems. Every one is revenue you already paid to create, lost before anyone tried to close it. BUILT FOR HOME SERVICES Most agencies learn plumbing on your budget. We have grown it. Most agencies were built for a generic service business and then pointed at yours. City Ranked has spent 15 years building revenue systems for home services contractors. We understand plumbing's emergency demand, the burst pipe at 2am, the difference between... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/home-services/hvac-contractors/ HVAC You don't need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. City Ranked grows HVAC contractors by fixing what actually caps growth: calls lost before they reach your CRM, slow response on a no-cool emergency, and customers who never get booked for the next tune-up. Not more spend. A system. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Proven with HVAC contractors Built for ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, and FieldEdge New installs and recurring maintenance THE REAL PROBLEM The leads are already calling. Most never reach your CRM. HVAC contractors are told they need more leads. The data says otherwise. The prospects are already finding you. They are lost in the gap between the phone ringing and a sale being attempted. 37%of high-intent calls were ever recorded in the CRM, before Skout IVR. 78%of buyers hire whoever responds to them first. 391%higher conversion when you respond within 60 seconds. 88%research online before they ever pick up the phone. None of these are lead-volume problems. They are capture and speed problems. Every one is revenue you already paid to create, lost before anyone tried to close it. BUILT FOR HOME SERVICES Most agencies learn HVAC on your budget. We have grown it. Most agencies were built for a generic service business and then pointed at yours. City Ranked has spent 15 years building revenue systems for home services contractors. We understand HVAC's seasonal demand swings, the difference between a no-cool emergency and a routine tune-up, the... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/enterprise/ ENTERPRISE PE & M&A Fragmented marketing is a risk to your thesis. One team, deployed the same way across every acquisition, removes it. Private equity firms, platform companies, and multi-location operators do not need another agency. They need a documented, repeatable revenue engine that deploys consistently across every brand they acquire, so performance is predictable in diligence, through the hold, and at exit. That is the City Ranked One-Team model. Book a Discovery Call Talk to Our M&A Team Partner to national operators since 2017 One team, not nine Built for the exit multiple THE RISK TO THE THESIS Unpredictable marketing is a risk you cannot underwrite. The marketing technology landscape surpassed 15,500 tools in 2026, and the traditional agency model has not kept up. Across a portfolio, that means fragmented agencies, rising costs, and diminishing returns, with performance that swings from one brand to the next. For an investor, that is not a marketing problem. It is risk sitting on the thesis. 01 A portfolio of agencies, none accountable Each brand runs its own agency on its own standards. No one has visibility across the portfolio, and when something breaks on one site, nobody is watching the whole board to catch it. 02 Performance you cannot forecast Marketing that swings month to month and brand to brand is a number you cannot put in a model. A revenue ramp you cannot predict is a thesis you cannot defend to your own investors. 03 A weak digital footprint surfaces at... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/our-system/10-levers/ OUR SYSTEM THE 10 LEVERS Most agencies have two or three ways to get you leads. We have ten, and we pull the right one every week. When your growth rides on one or two channels, a single algorithm change or a slow season can put you in a hole you never saw coming. The 10 Levers are ten distinct ways City Ranked produces qualified leads. Your Ascent Guide reviews your numbers every week and pulls the right lever the moment the pace falls behind, so your growth is never one channel away from trouble. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Ten ways to produce MQLs Reviewed every week, not every month New customers and repeat revenue THE RISK A channel list was never the problem. What happens between the channels is. Every agency you have worked with handed you a list. SEO. PPC. Social. Maybe email. It looked comprehensive, and the results never matched the promise, because a list of channels is not a plan for what to do when one of them stalls, and it answers none of the questions that actually decide whether you grow. 01 One or two channels is a bet When your leads come from one or two places, a Google update, a rising cost per click, or a slow season can erase a month before you can react. That is not a strategy. It is exposure you cannot see until it costs you. 02 A monthly report is a rear-view mirror... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/cr-suite/ ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 06 CR SUITE Most agencies bolt a dozen plugins onto your site. We built one. CR Suite is the proprietary WordPress plugin City Ranked has developed over more than a decade. It runs your structured schema, your Geo-Block territory signals, your reviews, your offers, and your GPS-SEO pages from a single system on your own site. One engine instead of a tangle of third-party plugins. No migration, and nothing slowing your site down. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Built, not bought No plugin bloat Ready for AI search BUILT, NOT BOUGHT When the technology is built for the job, your site is faster, cleaner, and ready for what is next. Most agencies assemble your site from a stack of off-the-shelf plugins, each one adding weight, conflicting with the next, and breaking on its own update schedule. City Ranked built CR Suite over more than a decade to do the work of that whole stack from one place, tuned for performance and for the way search is heading. 01 No plugin bloat One proprietary system replaces the tangle of third-party plugins that slow a site, conflict with each other, and open security holes. Fewer moving parts, fewer things to break. 02 Faster, with better Core Web Vitals Lean code built for speed. A faster site is one Google rewards in rankings and one your customers actually feel the moment the page loads. 03 Ready for AI search The schema and structure are built for how... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/summit/ ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 05 SUMMIT REVIEWS A homeowner picks who to call before your phone ever rings. Your reviews make that choice for them. Summit builds review velocity on autopilot. It asks every satisfied customer at the right moment, routes them to the platforms that decide rankings, and catches problems before they ever become a one-star review. It is the reputation that lets you charge more and get chosen first. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Asks at the moment of service Google, BBB, and Nextdoor Complaints caught before they post THE REPUTATION GAP Your happiest customers stay quiet. Your one unhappy customer does not. The best moment to earn a review is the moment a customer tells you they are happy. That moment passes in seconds, and most of it is left to memory and good intentions. So the people who would rave never post, while the one frustrated customer, motivated and unanswered, defines your rating for everyone deciding who to call. 01 The moment passes The ideal time to ask is at the job, while the customer is relieved and grateful. A technician gets busy, the day moves on, and the ask never happens. A reminder text two days later lands when the feeling has faded. 02 Silence from the satisfied Happy customers rarely think to leave a review on their own. Without a nudge at the right time, on the right platform, your profile quietly understates how good your work actually is. 03 The vocal... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/agentic-ai/ ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 04 AGENTIC AI Your next customer reaches out at 10:00 pm. Skout is already answering. Skout's agentic AI is your front desk that never closes. It engages every prospect across web chat, SMS, social, and voice the moment they reach out, holds a real conversation to qualify them, and builds a complete lead record for your CRM. Conversational and voice. Always on. No Customer Service Rep required. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Responds in under 30 seconds Conversational and voice Every channel, around the clock SPEED TO LEAD The first to respond usually wins. A human cannot be first at 11pm on a Sunday. A homeowner with a burst pipe or a wasp nest is not in a patient, leave-a-voicemail mindset. They search, they reach out, and they go with whoever answers first. The window is measured in minutes, not hours. Your team is asleep, out on a route, or already on another call, and every contact that waits is a lead you already paid for, handed to whoever picked up faster. WIDELY CITED INDUSTRY RESEARCH ON SPEED TO LEAD 78% of buyers choose the company that responds to them first 391% lift in conversion when a lead is answered within the first minute 88% of prospects research online before they ever call a provider Skout closes that window. It answers every contact in under 30 seconds, day or night, so the fastest responder in your market is you, even while the lights are... - Published: 2026-06-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/gps-seo/ ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 01 GPS-SEO Your trucks serve 20 zip codes. You only rank in three of them. GPS-SEO is the local search system that anchors your business to every neighborhood, suburb, and zip code your trucks actually drive to. So when a homeowner two towns over searches for what you do, you have a far better chance of showing up, because the search engines clearly understand what you do and where you do it. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Proprietary since 2012 Tested in every major US market Map-pack level, not just city pages THE LOCAL VISIBILITY GAP Your rankings disappear the moment someone searches from neighboring cities and suburbs. Most service area businesses rank in their home city, and almost nowhere else. The map pack and organic placement show you in one city, but the homeowner in the next city over searching for exactly what you do never sees your business. You serve the area, you provide the exact services being searched, yet these homeowners never see you because the search engines do not understand your business. YOU SERVE 20 zip codes your trucks drive to but YOU RANK IN 3 of them on local search Every neighborhood you provide services to, but do not rank in, is demand handed to a competitor for free. Our proven GPS-SEO closes that gap, one neighborhood, city, and territory at a time. HOW GPS-SEO WORKS Most SEO's stop at city pages. GPS-SEO goes to the hyper-local map pack.... - Published: 2026-06-24 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/skout/ ASCENT TOOLKIT TOOL 02 SKOUT Your advertising generates the lead. Skout makes sure your business actually keeps it. Skout is the intelligence layer that sits between your advertising and your CRM. It captures every inbound contact, qualifies it against your MQL criteria, and presses a complete contact record into the CRM you already use. No CSR login. No manual entry. No lead lost to a slow response or a missed call. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Not a chatbot Not an answering service Not call tracking THE PROBLEM SKOUT WAS BUILT FOR Your leads are not bad. They are lost. Across more than $7M in tracked ad spend, only 37% of the highest-intent inbound contacts ever made it into a CRM. The advertising worked. The prospect responded. Then the lead vanished in the gap between the phone ringing and a record being created. Most owners never see this happen. They conclude the spend underperformed and go hire another agency. The cycle repeats. 01 The missed call Regional operators miss 15% to 40% of calls driven by paid advertising. The belief that a serious prospect will leave a voicemail is a generation out of date. They hang up and call the next result on Google in under ten seconds. 02 The undocumented lead Even when the call is answered, up to 40% of qualified callers are never entered into the CRM. The Customer Service Rep gives a price, the prospect says "let me think about it," and the... - Published: 2026-06-24 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/our-system/ WHY CITY RANKED You don't have a marketing problem. You have a systems problem. Rankings, clicks, and lead counts are symptoms. The real question is whether your business is growing. For 15 years, City Ranked has installed the proven system that makes growth repeatable, then backed it with revenue you can actually audit. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Inc 5000 Honoree 2023 and 2024 15 years in business Closed-loop revenue tracking THE REFRAME You're shopping for the symptom. Almost every business that goes looking for an agency starts in the same place. They decide the problem is their rankings, their ads, or their website, then go hire someone to do those things better. Those frustrations are real. They are not the reason the business stopped growing. What you think you need ×Higher search rankings ×A lower cost per click ×A better looking website ×Another agency to try What actually grows revenue A repeatable system, run the same way every time Every qualified lead captured in your CRM Marketing measured against sales, not clicks Revenue you can trace back to the dollar Better rankings do not equal growth. A lower cost per click does not equal growth. A system does. And there is one gap in that system most owners never see. THE GAP NO ONE NOTICES Most of your best leads never reach your CRM. We studied more than $7 million in tracked advertising spend with two large home-services operators. The number we found is the one... - Published: 2026-06-22 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/skout-ivr/ ASCENT TOOLKIT · TOOL 03 · SKOUT IVR While you run routes,the Skout IVR runs your front desk. Every inbound contact is classified from the first ring. New prospects route to Voice AI and land in your CRM as a documented MQL. Existing customers are isolated so your Google data stays clean. Everyone else is filtered out. No CSR intervention required. Get Your Call Intelligence Audit Schedule a Demo 37% to 60%+ MQL capture · 85% Voice AI parse rate · 24/7 automated · 0 manual CRM entries WHAT THE SKOUT IVR IS Clean signals in. Better buyers out. The Skout IVR is a lead-intelligence layer that sits on every inbound call. It classifies each caller in the first few seconds, captures the qualified ones as documented MQLs in your CRM, and fires the right conversion signal to Google and Meta automatically, with no CSR in the loop. 01 Classify every call New prospect, existing customer, or other. Each caller self-identifies in the first few seconds, so the right thing happens automatically. 02 Capture clean MQLs Genuine new-customer calls are pressed into your CRM as documented leads. Customer and vendor calls are kept out of your acquisition data. 03 Train Google & Meta Only real buyer signals fire to the ad platforms, teaching their AI exactly what a paying customer looks like in your market. Here is why that matters. Google and Meta's algorithms only get smarter when you feed them clean data. Most businesses fire a conversion on every... - Published: 2026-06-22 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ascent-toolkit/ THE ASCENT TOOLKIT · THE GEAR Six tools. One system. Built in-house. Most agencies show up with channels. We show up with proprietary technology. The Ascent Toolkit is the gear City Ranked deploys inside every engagement: six tools that capture leads, train Google's AI, lock your service area, and build the reputation that earns you premium pricing. None of it is available off the shelf. All of it runs inside your revenue engine, powered by our Ascent Toolkit. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Proprietary · Built in-house · Runs as one connected revenue engine HOW IT WORKS Six tools. One Revenue Engine. Most agencies hand you a list of tactics. We hand you a system. Every tool in the Ascent Toolkit is built to work with the others. Not alongside them. Not in parallel. One connected Revenue Engine running inside your business. GPS-SEO locks your service area. Skout captures every lead. Summit builds the reputation that earns you premium pricing. Agentic AI trains Google to send you better leads over time. They do not operate in silos. They operate as gear. GPS-SEO Skout Skout IVR Agentic AI Summit Reviews CR Suite THE GEAR Six tools inside every engagement. 01 GPS-SEO Lock your service area. Own it on Google. GPS-SEO is a hyper-local SEO system built specifically for home service businesses. It plants your brand in every zip code, city, and neighborhood you serve. Google Maps starts showing you first when qualified buyers search. Learn more → 02... - Published: 2026-05-26 - Modified: 2026-05-26 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ai-chatbot-pest-control-intake-form/ Fill out the form below to get started. Growing your business is a journey that begins with a single step. - Published: 2026-04-08 - Modified: 2026-07-07 - URL: https://cityranked.com/sca/ Fill out the form below to get started on a local marketing package. Growing your business is a journey that begins with a single step. Local Optimization Packages Click the package names below to see details. Basic Package Details+ Standardized Reporting + Dashboard Call Tracking Review Reputation Monitoring Initial Google Business Profile (GBP) Optimization Initial Bing Listing Optimization GPS SEO Basic Schema Markup Basic Review Automation Bronze Package Details+ Advanced Reporting + Dashboard Call Tracking & SMS Review Reputation Monitoring Advanced Google Business Profile (GBP) Optimization Advanced Bing Listing Optimization Hyper-Local GPS SEO Advanced Schema Markup Review Automation Monthly Online Listing Management Data Aggregation Services Summit Reviews App Daytime Automation Technical Support - Published: 2026-04-03 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/work/ Our Best Work (So Far) Where Imagination Meets Impact We build more than just websites; we build sustainable growth. Browse our recent work to see City Ranked's methodology in action: where transparent strategies, continuous innovation, and powerful marketing technology combine to drive real success. Deep Roots Pest and Wildlife Innovations LLC As a local family with deep roots in this community, we felt a personal commitment to offer that better way. We set out to build a company that replaces corporate policy with community focus, and outdated methods with responsible innovations and smarter solutions—ones that are safer for families, pets, and the beautiful region we all call home. This vision is the foundation of everything we do at Deep Roots Pest and Wildlife Innovations. Deep Roots Holland Fine Arts Holland Fine Arts has a rich history specializing in artworks from the Dutch Golden Age. Since its establishment, the gallery has concentrated on showcasing pieces by prominent, collectible artists. Renowned for its dedication to preserving and promoting Dutch artistic heritage, Holland Fine Arts assists collectors in acquiring historically significant works that might otherwise be lost to time. Holland Fine Arts Kombi’s Heating and Cooling When your heating or cooling system goes out, it’s never at a convenient time. Maybe it’s a freezing Sunday morning or a sweltering Tuesday night when you’re finally trying to relax. We get it. That’s why Kombi’s Heating and Cooling is here for you 24/7, with no after-hours fees. Emergencies don’t check the calendar, and neither should... - Published: 2026-03-20 - Modified: 2026-03-26 - URL: https://cityranked.com/grow-your-pest-control-business/ If you’re looking to tap into nearby markets you haven’t reached yet or improve brand visibility across your service area, we have an offer to create a winning strategy for you. Our Marketing Process Audit is designed specifically for pest control businesses ready to scale. At City Ranked, we specialize in helping pest control companies achieve growth through comprehensive digital marketing strategies that are sustainable and measurable. Book Your Free Audit What’s Included? This 45-minute deep audit of your marketing process covers: Marketing Funnel Review From brand awareness to conversion, we’ll examine how you’re capturing consumer interest at every stage. Scalability Roadmap We’ll outline digital marketing tactics needed to drive growth at a rate your business can sustain. Brand Visibility Assessment Are leads finding you in every area you service? We’ll identify gaps in your web and social performance. How We’ve Scaled Other Pest Control Companies We’re proud to partner with pest control leaders who expand and improve offerings to their regional service areas. Our clients see results through higher-quality lead generation (from organic and paid channels) and increased brand visibility in target service areas. Through our omnichannel approach (combining new website development, local SEO, content marketing, geo-targeting, paid search campaigns, and review management), we empower pest control companies with the tools needed to achieve their growth goals. Limited Availability With Our Business Development Expert Only six audit spots are available per month. So don’t let your competitors claim markets you’re ready to service! Book Your Free Audit Get Started... - Published: 2025-09-04 - Modified: 2026-07-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/our-system/digital-ramp/digital-marketing-review/ Is your digital marketing sending the right message? Is your message reaching the right people? Call us for an expert digital marketing review and get the answers you need. Your digital marketing efforts should actively grow your business. If your strategy isn’t working on every level, it’s not working hard enough. After all, these days, the ways to reach and engage consumers online are practically limitless.   If you’re not 100% positive about your current digital marketing strategy and the results you’re seeing, call City Ranked today for a complimentary review. Don’t wait – because if you want to drive digital growth in three months, now is the time to act. And if you want long-term, sustainable growth for years to come, you need to build that foundation right now. Give us ten minutes for a quick call, and we’ll give you real, actionable insights into your overall digital presence and help you plot your roadmap to long-term sustainable success. You put everything into your business, and you deserve a digital marketing strategy that works just as hard.   Reach out now and get the ball rolling on your expert digital marketing review. What’s Included in Our Digital Marketing Review? Your comprehensive digital marketing review draws on our expert team’s knowledge and experience. We’ll evaluate everything from technical benchmarks, including site speed and page load times, to on-page SEO factors like heading and structured data optimization, and much more. In creating your complimentary digital review, we’ll provide high-level recommendations in... - Published: 2025-06-27 - Modified: 2025-07-31 - URL: https://cityranked.com/referral-program/ Refer a friend and save. Save money on your digital marketing by bringing your friends to join the City Ranked family. Refer a friend Refer a friend. Get rewarded. We believe great clients know other great businesses. Help us connect with them — and we’ll return the favor with a credit that helps your business grow too. (Only eligible on recurring services). How it works. We’ve made it simple — refer a friend, and when they join, you get rewarded. Share the love. Submit your referral's details using the form below. They join City Ranked. We onboard your referral as a new City Ranked customer. You get rewarded. We match their first month's spend as credit on your bill. Ready to refer? Know a business owner who could benefit from City Ranked's digital marketing services? Fill out the quick form below to refer them — and we’ll credit your account if they become a client. - Published: 2025-05-29 - Modified: 2026-04-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/gps-seo/ GPS SEO:A powerful plugin that puts you on the map. Clearly communicate your services and service area to search engines using our proprietary website application. Free Demo See the results Be the first business that local customers find. GPS SEO installs seamlessly on your website, boosting a combination of signals to search engines across a targeted geographic area of your choosing. Whether you’re searching for more high-quality leads in your existing service area or you’re ready to supercharge expansion into new territories, GPS SEO ensures search engines understand your core offerings and where you provide them. Make local SEO work for your business. Using a combination of on-page optimizations, API connections, and technical SEO factors, GPS SEO sends clear and proven signals that teach search engines what your business is, which services it offers, and where you offer them. Think of it like your wireless signal – installing GPS SEO is like going from one bar to four. It’s a clearer, steadier signal that can be picked up in more places. GPS SEO helps more customers find you in more places: Increase local search ranking We help your business appear in search results when people nearby are looking for what you offer. Attract higher-quality leads Our tools connect you with people already searching for your specific services in your area. Easily grow into new cities or regions You can add new service areas without starting over or rebuilding your website. Automate hundreds of SEO tasks Our software takes care of... - Published: 2025-04-11 - Modified: 2026-02-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/highlevel-marketing-automation/ Looking for a HighLevel Agency Partner for your business? City Ranked is experienced in building custom automations, programming complex API connections, and eliminating repetitive marketing tasks allowing your team to focus on driving more revenue. Using HighLevel to streamline your businesses revenue growth with a proven Digital Agency Increase your marketing ROI with over 50 proven pre-built automations that keep your revenue flowing day and night. From our “Done For You” snapshots to completely customized workflows, City Ranked has your business covered. Over 200 different marketing and business management automations on one platform! Our Skout Platform is best described as a Pre-CRM, better known as a Prospect Relationship Management tool designed to manage and optimize your company’s interactions with potential customers (prospects) before they become Sales Qualified Leads (SQL). This tool focuses on building relationships with potential customers, engaging with them through their chosen communication channel, and then nurturing them through the decision process to do business with your company. Web chat → SMS Convert potential customers with a web chat widget installed on your website to continue the conversation anywhere through SMS, all automated until Skout determines the prospect is ready to buy. Over 200 powerful automations The Skout platform combines the ability to use over 200 different actions combined with proprietary SEO and CRO programs built and backed by our nationally recognized digital marketing agency. Versatile mobile app Manage your new sales pipeline, respond to potential customers, add new leads, and generate new sales all from your smartphone,... - Published: 2025-03-27 - Modified: 2026-02-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/pest-control-digital-marketing/ We’ve grown over 500 pest control brands. Shouldn’t yours be next? Schedule a Call "*" indicates required fields Schedule a Call "*" indicates required fields Growing pest control businesses since 2011. Looking for a reputable digital marketing agency to help scale your pest control business? If so, you’ve come to the right place. City Ranked has been involved in pest control advertising since 2011, and our roots in the pest management advertising industry started with our founder Duane Baumgartner’s experience working with several pest control companies all the way back to 2004. Effortlessly sync with your Pest Control CRM. Some pest control companies we’ve grown. Why experience in pest control marketing matters. When it comes to selecting a digital agency to represent your brand, understanding what an agency will do for you and your business is paramount to the success of your campaigns and the growth of your business. “Whenever we acquire a new client, their very first piece of feedback is they called us due to the professionalism and design of our website. ” Ashli Uphoff Zenith Properties “I'm extremely grateful to have City Ranked on my team. They hold down an important element of business freeing up my time and focus on other aspects. ” Trent Barry Akepele Apparel “I have used City Ranked for my pest control business website as well as for our pest control industry Conference! Duane is always so accommodating with all my changes relating to both websites. Duane is a Godsend! Sean” Sean... - Published: 2025-03-11 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/home-services/pest-control/ PEST CONTROL You don't need more leads. You need to stop losing the ones you already pay for. For 15 years, City Ranked has grown more than 500 pest control companies by fixing what actually caps growth: leads lost before they reach your CRM, slow response, and customers who quietly cancel. Not more spend. A system. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo Pest control since 2011 500+ PCOs grown Built for PestPac, FieldRoutes, and GorillaDesk THE REAL PROBLEM The leads are already calling. Most never reach your CRM. Pest control owners are told they need more leads. The data says otherwise. The prospects are already finding you. They are lost in the gap between the phone ringing and a sale being attempted. 37% of high-intent calls were ever recorded in the CRM, before Skout IVR. 78% of buyers hire whoever responds to them first. 391% higher conversion when you respond within 60 seconds. 88% research online before they ever pick up the phone. None of these are lead-volume problems. They are capture and speed problems. Every one is revenue you already paid to create, lost before anyone tried to close it. BUILT FOR PEST CONTROL Most agencies learn pest control on your budget. We have run it. Most agencies were built for a generic service business and then pointed at yours. City Ranked was built inside pest control. Our team includes former management and director-level people from PCT Top 20 and Top 50 operators, and our founder has... - Published: 2025-03-11 - Modified: 2026-07-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/home-services/ MARKETING FOR HOME & COMMERCIAL CONTRACTORS If you serve homes and businesses,we know how to grow you. For fifteen years as an agency, and nearly twenty-five for our founder, City Ranked has built revenue engines for the contractors who keep homes and businesses running. From the first phone call to a closed invoice, we install a proven system that turns your advertising into measurable, predictable growth. Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit Schedule a Demo 15 years as an agency Hundreds of contractors grown Measured in MQLs and revenue THE REAL PROBLEM You don't have a marketing problem. You have a systems problem. Most contractors think they need better rankings, cheaper clicks, or a nicer website. Those are symptoms. The real issue is that the leads you already pay for leak out of a broken funnel before they ever become revenue. Across nearly $7M in tracked ad spend, only 37% of inbound calls ever reached a CRM. The leads were not bad. They were lost. One proven system The same repeatable revenue engine we have refined since 2010, installed for your business and tuned to your market, not a pile of disconnected tactics. Expert humans plus AI US-based specialists run our proprietary Ascent Toolkit, capturing and qualifying every lead and pressing it straight into your CRM, 24/7. Held to one number We are measured on Marketing Qualified Leads delivered and tracked closed-loop to revenue, so the question "is our advertising making money" finally has an answer. See how the system works... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/privacy-policy-skout/ This privacy policy sets out how Skout uses and protects any information that you give when you use this website. Skout is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement. Skout may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 12/1/2024. We may collect the following information: Name and job title. Contact information including email address. Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests. Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers. What we do with the information we gather: We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons: Internal record keeping: We may use the information to improve our products and services. We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customize the website according to your interests. Security: We are committed... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-16 - URL: https://cityranked.com/case-studies/pest-control/ PEST CONTROL CASE STUDY Rocket Pest Control We are proud to partner with Rocket Pest Control, a trusted pest control company serving the southeastern United States. Rocket is a local leader in several cities with lofty ambitions of regional expansion across the Southeast. With their commitment to excellent service and outstanding reputation, we knew they were an excellent match for City Ranked, and their goal was possible. Their plan began with a new website and organic and paid SEO strategies to build immediate momentum into nearby markets they had not yet tapped. +32%Sessionsfirst quarter +128%Conversionsfirst quarter +117%Sessionsfollowing quarter +128%Conversion Ratefollowing quarter +42%YoY Leads04/23 to 2024 Fast and friendly pest solutions that fit your life. "Our expert team is committed to providing effective pest control solutions that are convenient and tailored to fit your lifestyle. From your home to your business, you can count on Rocket to keep pests out of your world, for good. " gorocketpest. com → DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS New Website (Optimized for SEO & UX) Local SEO (GBP & Listings) Content Marketing Service Area GPS Targeting (GPS SEO) Paid Media (PPC, LSA, Programmatic) Review Generation (Summit Review App) THE STRATEGY Our omnichannel approach to marketing for pest control. Our approach is a comprehensive process that brings together content marketing, organic optimization, search engine geo-targeting, paid search campaigns, and Local Service Ads. With each channel working as one unified strategy, our omnichannel approach gives Rocket Pest Control the tools to achieve its ambitious growth goals. Local Search Visibility... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-06-29 - URL: https://cityranked.com/case-studies/landscaper/ LANDSCAPING CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting We are proud to partner with Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting, an esteemed landscape lighting and irrigation contractor based in Florida. With Brightwater's unmatched expertise in breathtaking outdoor lighting designs and our strategic digital marketing, including a brand-new website, powerful SEO, and effective paid search campaigns, we continually deliver outstanding results in business growth. Through our ongoing partnership, we illuminate their brand and showcase their exceptional services to a growing audience. +111%Call Volume187 first-time callers +130%Organic Traffic +540%Local VisibilityOrlando Metro 14. 4%Conversion Rate $15. 34Organic CPA A vibrant, well-lit landscape brings your property to life, even at night. "At Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting, we strive to help you transform your outdoor space with gorgeous landscape lighting and sustainable irrigation systems. From energy and water conservation to visual designs that complement your style, we can help with it all. " brightwaterfl. com → DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS New Website (Optimized for SEO & UX) Local SEO (GBP & Listings) Content Marketing Service Area GPS Targeting (GPS SEO) Paid Media (PPC, LSA, Programmatic) Review Generation (Summit Review App) THE STRATEGY Our omnichannel approach to marketing for landscape design. We started by designing and developing a brand-new website built to showcase Brightwater's outdoor lighting and irrigation work, meticulously optimized for search to improve visibility and attract relevant organic traffic. From there, we layered on the channels that put Brightwater in front of customers across the Orlando metro at every stage of their search. Local Search Visibility &... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-16 - URL: https://cityranked.com/case-studies/plumber/ PLUMBING CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY D&F Plumbing City Ranked has had the honor of partnering with D&F Plumbing for over a decade. By closely aligning our strategies with their business goals, through thorough market research, content optimization, technical SEO best practices, and effective paid advertising, D&F Plumbing has established itself as a prominent player in the local plumbing industry, capturing valuable search traffic and generating high-quality leads. They have grown so much in business and reputation that they expanded into a new vertical, now offering Heating & Cooling services. +111%Call Volume1,514 first-time callers +140%Organic Traffic +180%Local VisibilityGBP Views 12. 3%Conversion Rate $5. 33Organic CPA Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes they wear plaid. "D&F Plumbing, Heating and Cooling is proud to service a wide area of customers throughout the Portland Metro area. Whether your plumbing emergency happens in the middle of the night, on a weekend, or a holiday, you can count on D&F to help you when disaster strikes. " dandfplumbing. com → DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS New Website (Optimized for SEO & UX) Local SEO (GBP & Listings) Content Marketing Photoshoots & Job-Site Drone Shoots Service Area GPS Targeting (GPS SEO) Paid Media (PPC, LSA, Programmatic) Recruiting Services (LinkedIn & Radio Ads) Review Generation (Summit Review App) THE STRATEGY Our omnichannel approach to marketing for plumbers. One key milestone in D&F's journey was the strategic rebranding to "Plumbers in Plaid," a more approachable, locally branded feel that fits the Portland market. We built a new website that showcased their expertise... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-16 - URL: https://cityranked.com/case-studies/hvac/ HVAC CONTRACTOR CASE STUDY Apex Air City Ranked has had the privilege of working with Apex Air for over 7 years. Over the course of this partnership we have achieved remarkable results together, using a comprehensive approach to digital marketing and search engine optimization. By aligning our efforts with Apex Air's business objectives, conducting thorough market research, optimizing website content, implementing technical SEO best practices, and supporting it all with paid advertising, we positioned Apex Air as a prominent player in the local HVAC industry, capturing valuable search traffic and generating high-quality leads. +148%Call Volume365 first-time callers +112%Organic Traffic +110%GBP Maps Views 12. 9%Conversion Rate $30. 33CPA, All Channels Over 55 years of combined experience keeping local homes comfortable. "Apex Air was started with the simple belief that everybody should have a quality, efficient HVAC system at a price to fit any budget. Our skilled staff has the experience and technical knowledge to design, install, and maintain today's most energy-efficient commercial and residential heating and cooling systems. " apexairco. com → DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS New Website (Optimized for SEO & UX) Local SEO (GBP & Listings) Content Marketing Service Area GPS Targeting (GPS SEO) Paid Media (PPC, LSA, Programmatic) Review Generation (Summit Review App) THE STRATEGY Our omnichannel approach to marketing for HVAC contractors. After launching a highly optimized website with a heavy focus on local visibility and user experience, we implemented a comprehensive omnichannel strategy to target users at every stage of the customer journey, integrating multiple channels, online... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/case-studies/ CASE STUDIES Real examples of our success. We specialize in harnessing the unique qualities of each business we work with, guiding them to the summit of success and attracting high-quality prospects along the way. We have scaled market sectors from plumbing to roofing to the legal landscape, leaving behind case studies that show the impact we can have on your business. Tailored strategies, remarkable results. Gear up and join us on the expedition. Let's Talk HVAC CONTRACTOR Apex Air A 7-year partnership with a local Vancouver, WA HVAC contractor, built on a comprehensive approach to digital marketing and SEO. The result: a prominent player in the local HVAC industry. Digital Marketing and SEO for HVAC → PLUMBING CONTRACTOR D&F Plumbing One of our most fun examples of combining advanced paid targeting with local SEO. D&F has grown so much over the past decade they expanded into a new vertical: Heating & Cooling. Digital Marketing and SEO for Plumbers → LANDSCAPING CONTRACTOR Brightwater Irrigation & Lighting Brightwater's unmatched expertise in outdoor lighting design, paired with our locally targeted SEO strategy, has delivered outstanding growth across the Orlando region. Digital Marketing and SEO for Landscaping → PEST CONTROL Rocket Pest Control A local pest control leader serving the southeastern US with ambitions of regional expansion. Their excellent service and reputation made them a perfect match for City Ranked. Digital Marketing and SEO for Pest Control → PARTNERS WHO BELIEVE IN US GET STARTED Big dreams? Let's make them happen. Let's make your... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/our-system/digital-ramp/ THE DIGITAL RAMP MODEL Predictable growthfor your business. Selecting the right marketing partner is one of the most important decisions in growing your business. You need more than an agency that performs marketing activities. You need a scalable, repeatable, and predictable system for new customer acquisition. That system is City Ranked's Digital Ramp Model, a digital marketing process proven and refined since 2010 that has scaled hundreds of businesses across the US, from small companies to some of the largest in the nation. We remove the guesswork and replace it with a proven, process-driven roadmap built for predictable, sustainable growth. Let's Talk See the 10 Levers THE AGILE FRAMEWORK Digital Ramp, built using the Agile Framework. At City Ranked, we deeply believe in the Agile Framework, a flexible approach to managing client projects that prioritizes customer feedback and involves quick, repeated cycles of work, rather than following a rigid, long-term plan. It breaks down large, complex projects into smaller, manageable chunks called sprints. After each short cycle, our clients and internal teams review their progress, gather feedback, and adapt the plan for the next cycle. This lets our teams respond quickly to change, improve processes on the go, and continuously deliver products and services that meet evolving customer needs. Our performance is measured weekly against client-directed and agreed-upon KPIs, allowing our teams to be flexible in delivering real-time results that help our clients scale and grow. HOW WE MANAGE YOUR ACCOUNT Agile and Waterfall, working together. Most agencies pick one... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-02-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/enterprise-digital-solutions/ The City Ranked Approach to Enterprise Digital Solutions When you’re laser-focused on growth, meeting your goals while maintaining consistent ROI can be challenging. And that goes double when relying on traditional agency models. City Ranked’s innovative approach to merger and acquisition marketing solves that problem for you. With our ONE-TEAM model, it’s like having an in-house digital marketing department down the hall. Want to reach your M&A goals while staying lean and mean? City Ranked’s scalable enterprise digital solutions can get you there. Partners who believe in us One-Team: The scalable solution to enterprise M&A growth Successful M&A firms are built on efficiency, and in all likelihood, having an in-house digital department is a luxury you can’t afford. That’s why we created the ONE-TEAM model. Rapidly growing businesses need increased capabilities – but without all the overhead. ONE-TEAM gives you get a fully managed turnkey solution tailored to your business. Marketing specialists anticipating your needs Your ONE-TEAM will be made up of digital marketing specialists with expertise in everything from search engine optimization to paid media marketing, organic social to advanced automation, reviews and reputation management to development and much more. ONE-TEAM is the only team you’ll ever need to help you plan and achieve your digital marketing goals. Flexibility when you need it Need extra capacity? No problem. Our model gives you the option for extra capacity when it’s needed. Your pricing will reset at the beginning of the following month, giving you a fresh start, and allowing you... - Published: 2025-02-27 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/reviews-reputation/ Online reviews and reputation management are even more important to your digital strategy than you may realize. They make search engines more likely to recommend you, and customers more likely to click. And as we move into the age of automation and AI, high-quality reviews and testimonials from real humans will only grow in importance. The good news is it’s not too late to get started. Now is the perfect time to revamp your review gathering and reputation strategy. Schedule a demo with our experts today – and we’ll make sure your business is always putting its best foot forward. Real-time review monitoring Online reviews can arrive at all hours, and businesses need to be ready to respond ASAP. This shows customers that you’re open for business, and they can count on the same careful attentiveness if they work with you. We track your reviews on all major platforms – including Google, Facebook, and Yelp – and respond within one business day. What can the human touch do? It’s amazing how a human response can quickly turn around a negative customer experience. Customers occasionally need to vent, and our team lets them by responding promptly, compassionately, and with a human touch. This can lead to customers revising negative reviews, giving you another chance, and turning bad experiences into loyal long-term customers. Google Business Profile optimizations In a world where Google still gets about 90% of all search engine queries, it’s important to use every tool they give you. Your Google... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-06-30 - URL: https://cityranked.com/social-media/ SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Your customers are already scrolling. Make sure they find you there. Social media is your community hub, digital storefront, and brand megaphone in one, reaching people in your neighborhood or across the globe. We make sure you are part of the conversation, with every post working in harmony with your broader marketing goals. Schedule a Demo Organic and paid social Every major platform On-brand content Tied to your revenue goals OUR APPROACH Content that builds a brand and brings in customers. From organic content to paid campaigns, every post is built to support your broader marketing goals, not just collect likes. Organic content that converses The best organic content invites people in and makes them want to keep talking. We deliver valuable, engaging posts that build trust and grow your reach. Reach a younger audience Millennials and Gen Z expect to find you on their platforms. If they cannot, your business looks sketchy. We help you connect with every demographic on their turf. Paid social advertising Using each platform's targeting and analytics, we promote your services with precision and scale to capture attention and drive meaningful conversions. Every platform, tailored Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and more. The landscape changes fast. We keep you active on the right channels with messages tailored to each audience. In your brand voice We assume your voice and showcase your values and personality, so your presence feels like you while it engages a wider audience. Agentic AI for social media Social media relies... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-04-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/skout/ Meet Skout - Our Easy-to-Use Marketing Automation Platform Looking to turn more prospects into customers? The path is created through strategic touchpoints that keep you connected until your customer is ready to move forward. Skout, our intelligent marketing automation platform for businesses, can show you the way. Integrating seamlessly with your CRM, Skout takes over repetitive and time-consuming tasks and makes nurturing leads a breeze. Schedule custom messages or simply touch base with warm prospects at the tap of a button. Skout’s automations are easy to use and help you never miss another opportunity. AI-enhanced marketing automation to streamline revenue growth Catapult marketing ROI with 200+ powerful built-in automations that work for you day and night. In today’s digital landscape, conversion paths travel across multiple channels and devices. Every customer has a preference, and with Skout, you can be sure you’re getting it right. More than a Pre-CRM, it’s a precision tool that strengthens relationships with prospects before they become qualified leads. If your sales process involves a pipeline, Skout can help you optimize it. 200+ powerful built-in automations Skout has more than 200 marketing automations ready for you to use right out of the box – and more are released all the time! Funnel leads into groups with custom conversion paths that keep the engagement going! Integrated web chat widget From web chat to two-way SMS messaging, you can keep the conversation going no matter where it’s happening. Customize the widget’s look and feel to match your branding. And... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/sem/ SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING We don't win you keywords. We win you customers. Customers are out there searching for what you do, but search is a crowded place. Our paid media team flips the script: instead of hoping they find you, we find them. Using the latest AI-powered analytics and proprietary technology, we target high-quality leads and drive them straight to your business. Schedule a Demo PPC and paid search Real-time bid management Industry-leading attribution Local-first targeting OUR APPROACH Paid media that targets customers, not just clicks. SEM is a data-driven discipline, not a gut feeling. Here is what a dedicated paid media specialist brings to your account. Find your ideal audience We do not target demographics, we target customers: the people most likely to convert, brought right to your website for the consistent ROI that fuels growth. Creative that converts The right message matters as much as the right person at the right time. Our creative team crafts engaging, compelling ads built to drive clicks. Real-time bid management We continuously optimize bidding to maximize performance, lift click-through rates, and deliver cost-effective results in a competitive landscape. Data-powered keyword insights We start with comprehensive keyword analysis, not just the most competitive terms, but the ones that will actually drive your business forward. Industry-leading attribution Attribution keeps getting harder. We invested in best-in-class attribution so you always know exactly which channels and campaigns produce your leads. Real-time spend and CPA reporting A live dashboard for spend, conversions, and cost-per-acquisition, any time. You... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/careers/ CAREERS AT CITY RANKED It's our people whoset us apart. We pride ourselves on our holistic approach to building local relevance for our clients' websites, turning local traffic into qualified leads, and, ultimately, growth for every client's business. We are always looking for new talent, even when the positions are not active on Indeed or LinkedIn. If you think you would be a great fit for our team, we would love to hear from you. View Open Roles on Indeed Email Us Your Resume W2 employees · Medical & dental · Matching 401k · Flexible schedule THE WORK WE DO The roles that build the engine. Every result we deliver comes from a team of in-house specialists. These are the seats we are always looking to fill with the right people. Content writers Creating engaging content for websites, social media, and more. Content Writers produce engaging website content, blog posts, social media campaigns, email marketing campaigns, landing pages, and other digital marketing content to execute broader strategies. Content Strategists conduct research, manage editorial calendars, run content audits, and create plans for successful campaigns, crafting compelling writing in the client's voice that is also optimized for search engines. Account management The liaison between clients and our team. Our Account Management team works directly with clients to strategize solutions for lead generation, conversion rate optimization, customer engagement, long-term retention, and overall business growth, then develops the plans and timelines to implement those strategies internally. The ideal candidate has a passion for working... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/contact/ Let's Talk About Growth Focusing on just a few marketing channels doesn’t cut it anymore. With the evolving landscape of digital marketing and shifts in consumer behavior, your business needs to be everywhere at once. From designing and building websites to SEM and SEO, we take a full-funnel approach to grow your business by staying on top of the trends and ahead of your competitors. When you’re ready to take your business to new heights, give us a call. Get in touch. City Ranked17800 SE Mill Plain Blvd, Suite 190Vancouver, WA 98683 (360) 433-9870 Office HoursMonday-Friday8:00am – 5:00pm WATCH & FOLLOW See what we are building. From client wins to behind-the-scenes at City Ranked, our latest videos are below. Follow us on your platform of choice to keep up. ‹ › Instagram @cityranked Follow → Facebook City Ranked Media Follow → LinkedIn City Ranked Follow → YouTube @CityRanked Subscribe → - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-03-12 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/website-schema-generator/ Free JSON-LD Schema Generator If your website doesn’t currently have schema markup, you’re missing out on a big SEO opportunity. Navigating the schema. org library can be mind-boggling. Let us take out some of the mystery by generating Local Business schema for you. Complete the three simple steps below to generate your Local Business schema. Type of Business Name | Address | Phone Business Name Street Address City State Zip Code Phone Operations Info Your Main Service Your Service Area Business Hours Select Weekday References & Services Link to Your Website Link to Your Logo Links to Pages on Your Website that Describe Your Services Number of Links Social Media Profile Links Number of Links Generate Schema Copy What is Schema Markup? Simply put, schema markup (JSON-LD) is code that helps search engines understand and display website information more clearly, improving visibility and search results. Schema markup is a structured data vocabulary that helps search engines understand and interpret the content on a website more effectively. It provides additional context and meaning to the information presented, allowing search engines to display rich and informative results in search engine result pages (SERPs). By implementing schema markup, website owners can enhance their visibility and improve the chances of their content being featured in rich snippets, knowledge panels, and other enhanced search results. Schema markup can include various types of data, such as product details, reviews, events, recipes, and more. JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a lightweight data interchange format... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/gbp-link-generator/ Get reviews for your business on Google Custom Link for Google Business Profile Reviews Generate a link that sends your customers directly to leave a review on your Google Business Profile. Just type in your business name below! Start by entering your business name below. If your business is listed on Google, your business will appear, select it to get you direct link to share with your customers to get reviews on your Google Business Profile. Your Review Link Copy Google Business Profile Review Link Create links that take your customers directly to the review section of your Google Business Profile. A direct link saves your customers time and effort, resulting in more reviews – a crucial ranking factor that boosts your online presence. Customer reviews not only influence purchasing decisions but also impact your search rankings on Google. Accumulating more reviews enhances your credibility and attracts a larger customer base. - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-03-12 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/seo-audit/ Get a detailed SEO Analysis of your website with our FREE Website & SEO Audit Tool, including why you may not be showing up in the search results for your important keywords. Free SEO Audit: Enter your website URL and we will send a report to your email with free tips and changes to improve your online presence. Audit your website below Using an Online Audit Tool for Website SEO & Technical Issues In today’s digital landscape, a strong online presence is vital for businesses aiming to reach a broad audience. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a critical role in helping websites rank higher in search engines which increases visibility and traffic. One of the most effective ways to enhance your website’s SEO is by using an online audit tool. These tools can offer many areas for improvement and can significantly impact your website’s performance and ranking. 1. Comprehensive Website Analysis Online website audit tools provide a detailed analysis of your website, highlighting critical issues that may affect its SEO performance. These tools can examine various aspects, such as broken links, duplicate content, slow page load times, and mobile responsiveness. By identifying these issues, an audit tool allows you to make informed decisions on how to best optimize your website for better search engine rankings. 2. Improved User Experience A well-optimized website not only ranks higher but also offers a better user experience. Audit tools can help spot areas where your website may be falling short, such as slow-loading pages, navigation... - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-05-19 - URL: https://cityranked.com/report-success/ Your report will take just a few minutes to generate. Check your email! This report grades your website on the strength of a range of important ranking factors, including: On-page SEO Off-page Backlinks Social Media Website Performance Security And so much more. - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/support/ In Need of Technical Support? Contact Our Team. Our team is dedicated to supporting our clients with questions and concerns. If you are experiencing any technical issues with our software please utilize our support request form, and a member of our team will reach back out promptly to assist you. Please make sure to describe your issue to allow our team to investigate further. If you are in need of immediate support, please call our office at (360) 433-9870. - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-16 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ WATCH & FOLLOW See what we are building. From client wins to behind-the-scenes at City Ranked, our latest videos are below. Follow us on your platform of choice to keep up. ‹ › Instagram @cityranked Follow → Facebook City Ranked Media Follow → LinkedIn City Ranked Follow → YouTube @CityRanked Subscribe → - Published: 2025-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/local-seo/ SEO · LOCAL SEO Get found by customers in your zip code, not looky-loos three states away. There is a real difference between SEO and local SEO. If your business relies on local customers, you need an agency that understands it. Our local search experts put you in front of the people near you who are searching for exactly what you offer, and ready to decide now. Schedule a Demo Map Pack visibility Neighborhood-level targeting Listings management GPS-SEO since 2012 THE DIFFERENCE SEO and local SEO are not the same thing. If your roofing company gets lots of traffic, your SEO is working, right? Not so fast. If you are in Oregon but the traffic is coming from all over the country, that is wasted attention. You would trade it in a heartbeat for a handful more quality leads in your own area. When someone searches for a local business, Google knows they are ready to choose, and they want the best option now. That is where we come in. We build your site to send the precise signals that you are the right business to recommend, right here, right now. WHAT WE DO Your map to local search success. Local search levels the playing field and gives you control over exactly where you do business. Here is how we win it for you. Neighborhood-level targeting Micro-target specific neighborhoods near you or expand into competitive new markets, with precise signals that say you are open for business. Map Pack visibility... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/seo/ SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Good SEO doesn't chase rankings. It brings you customers. SEO is not about picking keywords and posting optimized pages. It is about understanding who is searching for you and why, then reaching those people, because you want customers, not empty traffic. We build long-term organic strategies that grow your business, not just your rankings. Schedule a Demo Technical, on-page, and local SEO GPS-SEO proven since 2012 Data-driven and measurable OUR APPROACH SEO that earns rankings the durable way. SEO is not a shouting contest. It is more like a choir, with hundreds of small parts ringing out in harmony. Here is what we get right. Technical and on-page Title tags, load speed, localized content, permalinks, and structured data. We get the details right so search engines hear a clear, resonant signal. Built for the long term Be skeptical of promises to vault you to the top of a keyword overnight. We track algorithm updates like the weather and build durable strategies that yield short-term wins and consistent long-term results. Tracking and attribution Everything is data-driven and measurable. Google Analytics, Search Console, and custom goals for calls, forms, and purchases show exactly what drives conversions and revenue. A dedicated SEO team A team that keeps up with every algorithm update and consumer shift, runs routine site check-ups, and monitors Core Web Vitals in real time, so you stay ahead of the curve. Advanced call tracking We attribute phone calls to the exact campaign, keyword, and channel, with machine-learning... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2026-07-23 - URL: https://cityranked.com/website-development/ WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT & DESIGN Your website should grow your business. Not just sit there looking nice. Grow your brand, get discovered, and turn visitors into customers. We design and build fast, custom WordPress websites engineered to convert, and wired into the same system that grows your revenue. Schedule a Demo Custom Development WordPress Mobile-first and fast Built using CR Suite You own your website as an asset DESIGNED TO CONVERT A website built to win customers, not just compliments. A great website stays in people's minds, so they come back when they are ready to buy. Here is what goes into every site we build. Clean, modern, custom A custom design visitors understand the moment they land, with nothing cluttering the path between them and the next step. Mobile-first and fast Most of your traffic is on a phone. We build mobile-first and tuned for speed, because a slow site loses the customer before the page even loads. Conversion-focused Every page is built around the action you want a visitor to take, so the design works as hard as the advertising that brought them there. Engineered for SEO Built on a clean, structured foundation search engines can read, with our injected schema and GPS-SEO baked in from the start. Persuasive content Words that do the selling. Clear, confident copy that turns a curious visitor into a booked job. Portfolio Examples See some of our latest website design and development projects, completed right here at City Ranked. Every site is designed... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2025-05-06 - URL: https://cityranked.com/thank-you-skout/ A member of our team will be in touch with you shortly. We look forward to connecting with you. - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/book-a-demo/ It starts with a conversation. Growing your business is a journey that begins with a single step. That step? Reach out to us and say hi. - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/about/reviews/ CLIENT REVIEWS Don't take our word for it. What's it like partnering with City Ranked? These are the words of the business owners we have grown, in their own voice. Leave a Review “Whenever we acquire a new client, their very first piece of feedback is they called us due to the professionalism and design of our website. ” Ashli Uphoff Zenith Properties “I'm extremely grateful to have City Ranked on my team. They hold down an important element of business freeing up my time and focus on other aspects. ” Trent Barry Akepele Apparel “I have had nothing but exceptional help from this company. I’m always impressed by the quick email replies and execution of plans. ” Lindsay Malkovich Lindsay Blair Photography Curtis B. 2 months ago “Working with them feels like having an in‑house marketing team that actually cares. They take the time to understand our goals, explain what they’re doing, and show us exactly how it impacts our business. The communication is excellent, the results are real, and the partnership has been a game‑changer for us. Couldn’t ask for a better marketing company. ”read morehide Joe H. 3 months ago “City Ranked has taken care of our website for about 15 years now. The past two years we have worked with James to improve our search position, improve our site to make it more user friendly and create a good experience for our visitors. He and his team meet with us monthly for changes and updates and... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2025-02-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/terms-and-conditions/ Introduction1. 1 These terms and conditions shall govern your use of our website https://cityranked. com/. 1. 2 By using our website, you accept these terms and conditions in full; accordingly, if you disagree with these terms and conditions or any part of these terms and conditions, you must not use our website. 1. 3 If you register with our website, submit any information to our website or use any of our website services, we ask you to expressly agree to these terms and conditions. 1. 4 You must be at least 16 years of age to use our website; and by using our website or agreeing to these terms and conditions, you warrant and represent to us that you are at least 16 years of age. 1. 5 Our website uses cookies; by using our website or agreeing to these terms and conditions, you consent to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of our privacy policy. Credit2. 1 This document was created using a template from SEQ Legal (http://www. seqlegal. com). Copyright notice3. 1 Copyright (c) 2001 – 2026 by City Ranked. 3. 2 Subject to the express provisions of these terms and conditions:(a) we, together with our licensors, own and control all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in our website and the material on our website; and(b) all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in our website and the material on our website are reserved. Licence to use website4. 1 You may:(a) view... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/about/duane-baumgartner/ CITY RANKED, FOUNDER Duane Baumgartner Founder & CEO Duane had a front-row seat to the evolution of digital marketing, from selling ad space in the old yellow pages to building one of the Pacific Northwest's most innovative agencies. More than two decades later, his commitment is unchanged: help clients grow their businesses through forward-thinking digital marketing. From the Yellow Pages to the future of marketing Duane Baumgartner had a front-row seat to the evolution of digital marketing as we know it. After beginning his career in contract security services, in the early 2000s, Duane found himself working for Verizon, selling ad space in the old yellow pages. That's right, phone books, those big blocky doorstops that were delivered to your home every year. "Those ads were shockingly expensive, but they were effective, and they worked," he remembers. "Whoever paid the most got the biggest ads, the best placement, and therefore most calls. " The digital landscape started shifting with the introduction of search engines and smartphones. Phone books weren't cutting it anymore, and consumers needed to find information for businesses no matter where they were. Duane became the go-to guy at Verizon for demonstrating to businesses how digital ads were the future of advertising. And they indeed were. As the weeks and months went by, he saw what a huge leg-up it gave his clients. At this same time, his oldest daughter was just entering kindergarten, and he loved being able to walk her to the bus in the morning.... - Published: 2025-02-25 - Modified: 2026-08-04 - URL: https://cityranked.com/about/ WHO WE ARE We fix the marketing. But we lead with the people. We can fix your title tags, sharpen your bid management, and turn a sluggish website into a lean conversion machine. But digital marketing only begins to define us. We are artists, technicians, readers, writers, gamers, parents, pet parents, river rafters, runners, dancers, home chefs, optimists, and realists. Above all, we are people. And we look forward to getting to know you. Founded 2011 Vancouver, Washington 40+ full-time team members HOW WE WORK Built on innovation. Run by humans. Leading by innovation Follow the leader? Not our style. Since day one, City Ranked has run on a different code: question everything and test relentlessly. That spirit has produced innovations other agencies are now chasing, and it still drives everything we build. A human touch Today our full-service agency in Vancouver, Washington has over 40 full-time team members. Every day we learn from each other, push each other to grow, and find creative solutions to the problems our clients face. We would not want it any other way. MEET THE TEAM Choose your fighter. A picture is worth a thousand words. Hover (or tap) any teammate to meet their alter ego. Jenn Coker President Hailey Ankeny Senior Operations Manager James Mannion Business Development Manager Duane Baumgartner Founder & Account Manager Angela Hockabout One-Team Account Manager Alyson Rodgers Account Manager Krystal Lewis Automations Account Manager Holly Cooper Senior Project Manager Destiny Billington Project Manager Erin Killilea Senior Social Media Specialist... - Published: 2024-10-17 - Modified: 2026-07-29 - URL: https://cityranked.com/ TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN ADVERTISING AND MARKETING · EST. 2011 The technical advertising agency building revenue engines that scale business growth. Since 2011, City Ranked has paired expert US-based employees with proprietary, AI-powered marketing software to grow service-area businesses. Web design, SEO, paid media, social, and a proven marketing toolkit we built ourselves, run as one system and measured against a single number: qualified leads delivered into your CRM. Schedule a Demo Get Your Revenue Recovery Audit 15 years independent 500+ businesses grown Proprietary technology Measured in revenue WHY CITY RANKED IS DIFFERENT A technology company that happens to run your advertising. Most agencies license the same off-the-shelf software everyone else uses. We spent fifteen years building our own. When a tool we needed did not exist, we built it. When something we built could be better, we rebuilt it. That is what it means to be an innovation-first company. 01 We built our own tools Proprietary, AI-powered marketing software engineered specifically for service-area businesses, not generic dashboards rented from the same vendors your competitors use. 02 Real W2 employees You work with dedicated City Ranked employees who learn your business and own your revenue number. For roughly the cost of one in-house manager, you get a full advertising department. 03 This week's numbers We review advertising results and make changes every seven days. While most agencies sit twelve to fourteen weeks behind on a monthly report, we act before the revenue window closes. TYPICAL AGENCY 12 to 14 weeks from a result... - Published: 2024-10-08 - Modified: 2026-07-24 - URL: https://cityranked.com/privacy-policy/ Last Updated: July 24th, 2026 | Originally Effective: 03-22-2019 This privacy policy sets out how City Ranked ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects information when you use this website or our services. City Ranked is committed to protecting your privacy. If we ask you to provide information by which you can be identified, it will only be used in accordance with this policy. We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last Updated" date above, and where required by law, we will provide additional notice. Information We Collect Name and job title. Contact information including email address. Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests. Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers. Information generated through your interactions with AI-powered tools on our website (see "Artificial Intelligence and Automated Processing" below). How We Use Your Information We use this information to understand your needs and provide better service, including: Internal record keeping. We may use the information to improve our products and services. We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customize the website according to your interests. Artificial Intelligence and Automated Processing City Ranked uses... ## Posts - Published: 2026-06-15 - Modified: 2026-06-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/6-things-your-service-business-has-to-fix-after-googles-may-19th-change/ Our 6 Point Checklist To Get Your Business Ready For Google's Announced AI Search Changes. If your agency isn't telling you about the below, you may want to reconsider your digital strategy. On May 19th 2026 at Google I/O Conference, Google told the entire internet how its AI will now decide which businesses get found, and which ones disappear. Buried under these acronyms are six concrete changes every service-area business needs to make, or risk going invisible. Read them, then ask one simple question: is the agency you are paying every month actually doing these six things? Because for the record, City Ranked has been doing all six of these for over a decade, and we will show you the proof on each one. On May 19th at the Google I/O Conference, Google said the quiet part out loud. It told us exactly how its AI reads a website, decides who is trustworthy, and chooses which business to put in front of a homeowner who is ready to buy. Most owners will read about this, become overwhelmed, and do nothing. Worse, most agencies will keep selling the same old tactics they have for years, a book of tactics that will now actively working against you as the business owner. So I compiled the below list as a resource for you as a reference of the main things you as a business owner should be paying attention to when it comes to attaining rankings for your business in Google's new AI... - Published: 2026-06-12 - Modified: 2026-07-17 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/what-is-review-manipulation/ Key Takeaways: Review manipulation involves intentionally steering customer feedback to create a more positive picture than would emerge naturally. It now carries severe legal and platform penalties. Google's recent policy updates ban asking for employee names, setting staff review quotas, pressuring customers on-site, and suggesting specific keywords. Prohibited practices include fake or AI reviews, review gating, buying positive ratings, hiding negative feedback, and using shared company devices. Businesses can still legally gather reviews in a variety of ways. Enforcement has spiked because AI-driven search engines now scan and rely on authentic review text to recommend local businesses. Review manipulation is any intentional action that disrupts or steers a customer’s natural feedback process. For a local service business, this includes faking reviews, selectively hiding negative complaints, or controlling exactly what, when, and how a customer posts their experience online. Why is it important to know about review manipulation now? Because online reviews are more important than ever for service businesses (yes, really! ) – and the penalties for review manipulation can be extremely costly. With the stakes higher than they’ve ever been before, let’s take a look at what has changed recently with review manipulation and how you can make sure you stay compliant. The Big Recent Change? The Maps Rating Manipulation Policy Update in April 2026 Ever read online reviews for a business and a bunch of them mention the same person over and over? “John is the best. Quick worker and always polite. ” “Great service and appreciate the... - Published: 2026-06-01 - Modified: 2026-06-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/googles-agentic-web-how-search-will-be-forever-changed/ Google Just Retired the Blue Links. We've Been Building for This Since 2022. On May 19th, at its annual I/O conference, Google did something it has been inching toward for years and finally committed to, in writing: it's retiring the ten blue links interface we've all been accustomed to as the default search experience. Not pushed them down the page, it's planning to eliminate them. What replaces them is what Google is now calling the Agentic Web, a search box that no longer hands you a list of websites to go visit, but instead understands your situation, synthesizes the options, builds a custom answer in real-time, and in a growing number of cases, takes the next action for you. It can compare providers, it can check availability, and it can place the call to a local business on the searcher's behalf to book the job; all without the person ever landing on a website. If you run a service area business like plumbing, HVAC, pest control, or something similar, read that last sentence again. It can compare providers, it can check availability, and it can place the call to a local business on the searcher's behalf to book the job; all without the person ever landing on a website. The customer who used to find your listing online, click your website, then dial your number may never do any of these three things again. An AI Agent will complete these tasks, without the consumer talking to you, visiting your website,... - Published: 2026-05-15 - Modified: 2026-05-19 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ascent-toolkit-for-pest-control/ Introducing the Ascent Toolkit The Fully Managed AI-Powered Revenue System Built Specifically for Pest Control After fifteen years of working inside the pest control industry, managing campaigns for some of the largest operators in the country, building and rebuilding systems, and learning hard lessons about what actually moves revenue, City Ranked is announcing the official release of the Ascent Toolkit. This is not a rebrand. It is not a new service package with a fresh name. The Ascent Toolkit is the culmination of everything we have built, tested, and proven across hundreds of pest control operators nationwide, assembled into a single, fully managed system designed to do one thing: produce consistent, measurable revenue growth for the pest control companies we serve. Explore all the features of the Ascent Toolkit and how together they help PCO's scale revenue growth. Visit the Ascent Toolkit website - Pest Control Edition Why We Built the Ascent Toolkit The pest control industry has a marketing problem that goes deeper than most owners realize. Most agencies serving pest control companies were not built for pest control. They were built for a generic service business and then applied to yours. The result is a mismatch that costs you revenue every single month, leads that fall through the cracks, reporting that tells you what happened four to six weeks after it happened, and a team that has never dispatched a technician, managed a seasonal route, or understood the difference between a termite swarm and a general pest call.... - Published: 2026-05-08 - Modified: 2026-05-08 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/the-agency-model-is-dead-heres-how-we-fixed-it/ After fifteen years building advertising systems for pest control businesses, City Ranked is announcing the most significant evolution in its history — and naming the industry problems no agency has been willing to address honestly. TL;DR — The Agency Model Is Dead. Here's How We Fixed It. Most pest control businesses are losing leads before a single sale attempt is made. Across nearly $7 million in tracked ad spend, City Ranked found that only 37% of inbound phone calls — a pest control company's highest-intent contacts — ever make it into a CRM. That is not a Google problem or a lead quality problem. It is a systems problem, and no traditional marketing agency was built to solve it. City Ranked spent three years building something different. The result is the Ascent Toolkit — a fully managed system that captures, qualifies, and delivers Marketing Qualified Leads directly into a pest control company's existing CRM, then tracks every lead from first contact through closed invoice in a closed-loop revenue system. The core of it is Skout. The IVR classifies every inbound call the moment it arrives, separates new prospects from existing customers, and fires the correct conversion signal to Google — training the algorithm on genuine buyer behavior, not call volume. After implementing Skout's IVR component alone, City Ranked's tracked data shows CRM capture rates jumping from 37% to over 60%, with an 80%+ capture rate projected once the Voice Intelligence Layer launches in September 2026. The rest of the Toolkit... - Published: 2026-04-10 - Modified: 2026-04-30 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/why-invest-in-paid-digital-ads/ Paid ads are pretty simple. Paid Ad Campaigns = Leads = REVENUE! Right? ? OK, so it’s not quite that simple. But we can make it pretty simple for you – as part of an overall digital strategy. Here at City Ranked, we’ve worked with a lot of contractor clients, and the best way to describe the role that paid ad campaigns play in your digital marketing strategy is to picture a job site. The job site is your overall digital marketing strategy. It’s organized, well thought out, and making good progress – but the progress isn’t as fast as you would prefer.   Now picture a portable generator. Adding a generator to the job site expands the possibilities, and accelerates your ability to accomplish your goals. Paid ad campaigns are lead generators. If you want leads, all you need to do is add fuel and turn it on? Yes, but... remember, your generator is in service of the overall project – the job site – the thing you’re ultimately building: your digital marketing presence. You need to have the rest of it in place. SEO and AIO/AEO, marketing automation, responsive user-friendly site design, local geo-targeting, and a cohesive social strategy. These play a huge role also. You can’t take a generator to an empty dirt lot and expect it to build something for you by itself. Listen to an audio version of this article, or check out or video guide! But if you do have the pieces in place,... - Published: 2026-04-10 - Modified: 2026-04-12 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ai-powered-roas-bidding/ Cracking The Code: How to train AI using The Skout IVR for Paid Media RoAS Bidding In the competitive verticals of home services, where the difference between high-revenue HVAC installations and low-margin maintenance calls can dictate a business's quarterly success, the traditional metrics of digital marketing are fast becoming obsolete. For years, business leaders have been conditioned to focus on "Cost Per Lead" (CPL) metrics; however, in an era defined by machine learning and significant algorithmic sophistication, optimizing for lead volume alone is a regressive and increasingly outdated strategy. The modern home service business, whether in roofing, pest control, or plumbing, must transition from a volume-based lead mindset to a value-based paid media architecture. This shift is centered on attaining 'Return on Ad Spend (RoAS)' bidding, or 'Value Based Bidding' (VBB) as Google coins it, a data-driven strategy that prioritizes revenue over raw inquiries. By integrating advanced MarTech solutions like City Ranked’s Skout IVR, businesses can finally bridge the divide between a digital click and a closed sale, training the AI models of Google and Meta to find not just 'callers', but 'high-value customers'. The Architecture of Intelligence: How Skout IVR Transforms Inbound Signals To understand the power of RoAS bidding, one must first look at the infrastructure required to support it. Most agencies provide a 'black box' approach to lead generation. They report on 'conversions,' but those conversions often include wrong numbers, existing customers seeking service updates, sales and bot calls, or low-intent inquiries that never reach the 'Closed-Won'... - Published: 2026-02-26 - Modified: 2026-07-14 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/the-city-ranked-marketing-automation-team/ City Ranked's Marketing Automation Team At City Ranked, we’ve always believed that data-driven strategy and cutting-edge innovation are the twin engines of a process-driven, growing business. Today, we are thrilled to announce a significant milestone in our agency’s MarTech evolution: the launch of our dedicated Marketing Automation Team to support our Skout Marketing Automation platform and other major automation and CRM platforms, such as: Salesforce, Asana, PestPac, Sales Center, Pest Routes, ServiceTitan, FieldRoutes, GorillaDesk, Jobber, HousecallPro, ClickPoint, and others. This isn't just a new tech team; it’s a reinforcement of our commitment to being the most technology-forward, process-driven agency in the service area business vertical. As MarTech continues to evolve and AI reshapes the digital landscape, City Ranked is staying ahead of the curve to ensure our clients are positioned as early adopters in the ever-changing digital landscape. Welcoming Back a Familiar Face, Krystal Lewis To lead this new initiative, we couldn’t think of anyone better than Krystal Lewis, our new Marketing Automations Account Manager. Krystal, being one of our first 10 employees, spent over seven years helping build our agency's Account Management foundation, including creating the processes and management training for our One-Team Model, which has now transformed into our Digital RAMP Program. After three years away, where she managed marketing communications and operations for one of the nation’s largest pest control brands, Krystal has returned to City Ranked to head up our Marketing Automation team. She brings with her: Deep Marketing Expertise: Unmatched knowledge of the service area... - Published: 2026-02-23 - Modified: 2026-03-02 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/understanding-ai-traffic-visibility/ AI Traffic Measurement and Analytics For your SEO strategy to be successful, you need to be able to analyze your data and attribute where your traffic is coming from. If you can’t do that, you aren't strategizing – you’re guessing. Think of it like standing outside during a downpour. No, you don’t need a weather report to tell you water is hitting your skin. But you do need the weather report to tell you how large the storm is, and where it’s headed. With traditional SEO, numerous tools and analytics reports can deliver this data to you with ready-made insights. But with AIO or AEO (“Artificial Intelligence Optimization” or “Answer Engine Optimization”), the data is a lot murkier. Currently, search engines and artificial intelligence platforms share virtually zero data regarding traffic generated. And that’s a problem. How do you make the right decisions with limited insights? How are you supposed to understand your AI traffic and visibility if you don’t know which way the wind is blowing?  Here’s the good news: there are some traffic data and insights we can glean. The key is understanding what’s available and what it tells you. What's Measurable with AI Platforms? AI analytics are much less transparent than traditional search; that’s the bad news. Fortunately, there are still ways to extract meaningful data. While the data isn’t as straightforward as with traditional SEO, there are still some valuable insights we can learn AI Search (including Google’s AI Overviews, Bing’s Copilot Search)Measurement CapabilityAI Clicks and... - Published: 2026-02-09 - Modified: 2026-02-10 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/the-modern-revenue-growth-alternative-to-traditional-agency-models/ How City Ranked Drives Revenue Growth - A Modern Alternative to Traditional Marketing Agencies For service-area businesses, like pest control, roofing, HVAC, plumbing, and other home service categories, business growth isn’t about vanity metrics. Traffic, impressions, keyword position, and clicks don’t pay bills. Revenue growth does. Since 2011, City Ranked has built scalable and repeatable processes that help home service businesses grow predictable revenue. Unlike most traditional agencies that focus on fragmented tactics and generic reporting, City Ranked aligns marketing, sales, and technology around one singular goal: revenue growth. Since we began, our agency has been created to be different - an agency focused on delivering results using the latest innovations and industry-leading marketing technology. Not only are we focused on delivering marketing results, but more importantly, we are focused on driving revenue growth month over month and year over year. Below is a side-by-side comparison of how City Ranked differs from most traditional agency models - and why that difference matters. City Ranked vs. Traditional Agencies - A Process-Driven Comparison DisciplineTraditional Agency ApproachCity Ranked Media ApproachWebsite DevelopmentWebsites built for aesthetics and basic conversions; often templated, slow, and disconnected from CRM and sales workflows. Revenue-first websites engineered for conversions, speed, and integrations. Built to capture, qualify, and route leads into Skout and CRM pipelines for immediate sales scoring and action. Coded for Search Engine understanding. User Experience (UX)Generic UX frameworks with limited testing and minimal industry specialization. UX designed specifically for service-area buyers, including frictionless conversion flows, mobile-first design, and... - Published: 2026-01-14 - Modified: 2026-01-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/jennifer-coker-president-city-ranked-media/ Vancouver, Washington - January 14, 2026 - City Ranked Media, a leading digital marketing and web development agency based in the Pacific Northwest, is proud to announce the appointment of Jennifer Coker as the company’s new President. This leadership transition marks a pivotal moment for the agency as it continues to expand its footprint in the digital advertising, marketing automation, and AI landscape. Jennifer Coker, who previously served as Director of Customer Accounts, has been an integral part of the City Ranked team. During her tenure, Jenn has played a key role in strengthening internal processes, scaling service delivery, and ensuring City Ranked Media consistently delivers measurable results for its clients. With more than a decade of leadership experience across customer care, operations, and people management, Jenn brings a disciplined yet people-first approach to agency leadership. Prior to City Ranked Media, she served as Customer Care Director for a multi-state organization, overseeing distributed teams across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California. In that role, she led large-scale operational transitions, developed standardized processes, supported mergers and acquisitions, and partnered cross-functionally to drive retention, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction. Jenn is widely recognized for her ability to build trust at every level of an organization and for creating cultures where teams feel empowered, accountable, and motivated to perform at their best. Her leadership style is direct, fair, and grounded in integrity, with a strong emphasis on long-term relationships - both with clients and employees. In her new role as President, Coker will steer... - Published: 2025-12-29 - Modified: 2025-12-31 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/5-marketing-automations-to-almost-instantly-grow-your-pest-control-business/ I’ve seen just about everything when it comes to advertising pest control companies in my almost 25 years in the business. Inevitably, when a pest control business owner looks to start growing their business, in most cases, the immediate response is “we need more leads”.   What if I told you there are less expensive and faster ways to jumpstart your pest control company’s growth? Not saying leads aren’t essential, but below I’ve compiled 5 Marketing Automations proven to work for pest control, helping you to close more business. Pest control has become an extremely expensive endeavor when it comes to purchasing leads online. Here at City Ranked, we manage hundreds of pest control companies' advertising efforts across the US, and lead costs have risen sharply over the last 5 years. Increased competition, brands merging through M&A activity, and 3rd-party lead-generation companies have all begun competing for the same leads, significantly eroding the returns on investment from traditional paid advertising channels. Many pest control operators are now paying more than they will make on an account the entire first year, just for the chance at renewing that customer for subsequent years, a situation no pest control business owner wants. Using AI & Marketing Automation to Grow Your Pest Control Business I get it, implementing new technology and software into your business can be a challenge for any pest control owner. Likely, you’re already using a pest control CRM like PestPac, Gorilla Desk, Pest Routes, or something similar, so why the... - Published: 2025-12-29 - Modified: 2025-12-29 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-plumbing-companies-grow-2026-ai-automation/ In 2026, the secret to a highly profitable plumbing business isn't just about finding more leaks—it’s about plugging the "leak" in your customer database. While many plumbing owners focus solely on new lead generation, the most successful plumbing companies are leveraging Marketing Automation and AI to reduce customer churn and maximize the value of every home they visit. I’ve spent over two decades in the home services marketing space. When I sit down with a plumbing business owner, typically one of my intial questions is: "What is your customer retention rate? " In the plumbing world, we see a wide spectrum of answers. Many plumbers operate on a "one-and-done, and onto the next job" model, retaining only 40-60% of their clients. However, top-tier plumbing companies, especially those with membership or service agreement programs strive for 70% retention or higher. If you aren't hitting those numbers, you’re leaving significant profit on the table. The Massive Impact Retention Can Have on Your Plumbing Business Data from industry consultants shows that for the home services vertical, a mere 10% increase in customer retention typically leads to a 25% to 50% increase in net profit. As the cost of acquiring a new plumbing lead (CPA) continues to rise in 2026, retaining your existing customers is the fastest and most cost-effective way to scale. Increase Your Plumbing Company Valuation To calculate the impact on your bottom line, we use the industry-standard "The Marketing Profit Multiplier". Since you already paid the high cost to acquire these... - Published: 2025-12-22 - Modified: 2025-12-22 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/2026-blueprint-for-scaling-your-pest-control-business/ As we turn the corner into 2026, it’s becoming clear that the pest control industry has reached a pivotal inflection point, with the landscape having fundamentally shifted. For years, the go-to strategy was simple: buy leads (SEO, PPC, and SMM), close new customers, and move on, and at the end of the month, the question was always the same: Did I net a positive increase on my customer accounts, and did I do it profitably? For pest control business owners, this approach is now inefficient and a business strategy of years past. TLDR: 2026 Pest Control Business Growth Strategy Takeaways: Leverage AI Operations: Move beyond manual processes to AI-driven routing and 24/7 automated lead intake to maximize technician capacity. Prioritize Density over Distance: Focus marketing on hyper-local neighborhoods to drive higher margins per route. Remove Consumer Friction: Meet "Uber-style" expectations with instant online booking and real-time technician transparency. Scale by the Numbers: Replace "gut-feeling" decisions with a ruthless focus on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Lifetime Value (LTV). As we turn the corner into 2026, it’s becoming clear that the pest control industry has reached a pivotal inflection point, with the landscape having fundamentally shifted. For years, the go-to strategy was simple: buy leads (SEO, PPC, and SMM), close new customers, and move on, and at the end of the month, the question was always the same: Did I net a positive increase on my customer accounts, and did I do it profitably? For pest control business owners, this approach is now inefficient and a business strategy of years past.   Building a Growing Technology-Forward Pest Control Company As we enter 2026, the true winners in the pest control industry won’t rely on leads alone; they’ll focus on engineering a high-value, data-driven business, building on repeatable processes to increase their dominance in local markets, positioning themselves for sustained growth well into the future. As AI and Marketing Automation become widely adopted in the Pest Control industry, the message will become clear: if you want to scale your business, you will have to... - Published: 2025-12-22 - Modified: 2025-12-26 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/an-effective-content-strategy-for-brands-with-a-proven-checklist/ Your business has value, but if your digital content doesn’t connect with the right people at the right time, that value goes unnoticed. And with AI and zero-click optimization, your online presence is more important than ever. So the key here is that your content has to be effective. An effective digital content strategy is about creating the right content that solves real problems for real people. You can’t forget the benefits of good content, such as increased engagement, better visibility to your target audience, and more brand awareness. What does ‘good’ content look like? Good content feels like a conversation with a trusted expert, not a sales pitch. It answers questions before customers even ask them. When someone lands on your site feeling confused or frustrated about a specific pain point, good content makes them think, ‘finally, someone who gets it. ’ Instead of talking about how great your services are, it shows how you solve specific problems. It builds trust by providing real value before asking for anything in return. For example, if someone is experiencing a faucet leak in their kitchen, they’re likely going to search ‘how to fix a kitchen faucet leak. ’ If your content is visible to them (or even better, a top result in search), you’ve got yourself a potential lead! It’s all about strategy: knowing your audience, setting clear goals, choosing the right channels, creating with collaboration, measuring, and auditing. And a checklist will help you get on track. Content Marketing Strategy... - Published: 2025-12-11 - Modified: 2025-12-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/googles-have-ai-check-prices-how-does-your-business-stack-up/ Well, Google has done it again. They’ve quietly rolled out a new feature that will surely have a lot of businesses scratching their heads and wondering why an AI employee from Google is calling asking questions about their services, pricing, and availability. It’s no secret that there is an AI race with several contenders vying for the top spot. Google has been rolling out updated features in search results, prompting businesses and agencies to adjust their internal processes to accommodate them. This new AI-assisted price comparison feature is just the latest in a series of rollouts. Another change that just rolled out was very similar for Google’s Local Services Ads (LSA) Platform, which essentially does something very similar, sending AI shoppers to the top 4 LSA ads to request competitive bids with just a few lines of information needed from the consumer. Google Business Profile - Have AI Get Prices Local Services Ads - Get Competitive Quotes What Does AI Price Shopping Mean for Your Business? We here at City Ranked have been saying this for the last few years, but here it is again. Businesses that habitually miss phone calls, rely on prospects leaving a voicemail, or wait to respond to online inquiries, now is your time of reckoning. Transparency in pricing will undoubtedly become an AI Ranking Signal for LLMs, and arguably is already a factor in feature rollouts like this. For many years, since the advent of voice assistants like Siri in 2011 and Google Now in... - Published: 2025-11-20 - Modified: 2025-12-19 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/is-it-better-to-play-it-safe-with-your-content-or-stand-out/ Should You Rethink Your Content Strategy in the Digital Echo Chamber? Open a new tab and search for any type of business – electricians, movers, HVAC companies, financial planners, it doesn’t matter. As you scroll through the search results and click on a few sites, you’ll start to notice something: everyone is saying the same thing. Almost verbatim, they describe themselves the same way. The service pages list the same features. The blog posts all have the same five generic tips. It’s a digital echo chamber. It stems from the fact that so many businesses, especially small ones, are afraid of coloring outside the lines. It makes sense on the surface – it’s working for them, so it should work for me, too. But in an era when SEO is more competitive than ever, and customers can get generic answers to questions in seconds from AI, this strategy is beginning to crumble. Getting your business seen isn’t enough anymore – you have to get noticed and remembered.   Why Businesses Play It Safe with Content Many business owners who want to play it safe with content strategy have a few things in common: They misunderstand how modern SEO works Have you ever been taught the “Keywords x Links x Content = Rank” model of how SEO works? Where, as long as your page is well-written and optimized for the keywords you want, you could expect to be crawled and searched? This is an outdated model. In addition to having those... - Published: 2025-10-27 - Modified: 2025-10-30 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/business-growth-ai-automation/ The modern business environment is rapidly changing with the release of AI-powered business tools. For home services businesses, staying relevant, let alone achieving scalable revenue growth, requires a marketing partner that doesn't just manage ads and simple optimizations, but actively adapts to new consumer behaviors and emerging technologies. City Ranked’s Digital Ramp Model - Real-Time Marketing Management "The old marketing management model puts agencies at least six weeks behind the curve, reacting to last month's stale sales data. At City Ranked, our Digital Ramp Model provides real-time data, allowing our teams to make proactive, weekly adjustments and truly drive revenue growth for your business. " Duane Baumgartner - City Ranked, CEO & Founder Big Company Technology and Processes Scaled Down for Small Businesses Since our inception, City Ranked has built our entire business and management philosophy on innovation and testing boundaries. Our system, the City Ranked Digital Ramp Model, is a proven, process-driven roadmap refined since 2010 that has successfully scaled hundreds of businesses nationwide, many to the point of acquisition. With our Digital Ramp Model, we remove the guesswork that comes with traditional marketing and advertising, replacing it with a dynamic approach focused on data-driven decisions, Full Marketing Attribution, next-gen tech (AI and automation), all built and managed using the Agile Marketing Framework. Marketing Data and Full Marketing Attribution Sustainable business growth can't be based on assumptions or "vanity metrics" like clicks or keyword position anymore. It must be built on data that connects marketing spend directly to revenue,... - Published: 2025-09-18 - Modified: 2025-09-18 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ai-content-optimization/ Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the way users find brands and convert into leads. Search engines, assistants, and copilots now summarize, cite, and make recommendations for readers. These new systems collect information from various sources across the web. They use data from sites, knowledge graph signals, product feeds, and third-party references to form answers to queries. So if your brand isn’t a source in a user’s query, your overall site visibility may go down (meaning fewer leads). But the right approach to your content strategy, search visibility can turn into growth for your brand. Innovative Content With AI Optimization Having “AI-optimized” content means getting answers to potential leads’ questions in fewer, or even zero clicks. This includes: Quality and structure with clear hierarchy, scannable paragraphs, consistent formatting, and cited sources. Natural, conversational language to write how people ask. Anticipate questions, objections, and tasks AI needs to complete on a user’s behalf. Specificity and usefulness with solution-forward content that addresses real pain points. Rich media with context, including images, charts, and video with transcripts, alt text, and captions. Internal links to connect related assets and pages. Sound familiar? These methods are already intertwined with search engine optimization (SEO) best practices. Features like Google snippets have existed for many years, and the rollout of AI systems and AI overviews (AIOs) is just another industry shift.   But this time around with generative AI in search, SEO experts have to consider the likelihood of users not clicking into a site. Some have even... - Published: 2025-08-20 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/pest-control-increase-profits-by-reducing-customer-cancellations/ Pest control companies can increase profitability by reducing customer churn through the use of marketing automation and AI. One of the easiest ways to increase a pest control company's profits is by reducing customer cancellations. I’ve been involved in the pest control marketing and advertising game for over 20 years, and as part of my discovery process with any pest control business owner, I will always ask what their customer retention rate is for their pest control services. Over the years I’ve been told numbers as low at 60% retention and as high as 90%+ retention. In most cases I’ve found for recurring residential pest control services, quality pest control companies typically retain 75% or greater of their customer base, and I would say that unless you’re retaining 85% or better of your customer base, you have room for significant improvements. Increase Customer Retention to Increase Profits A study completed by Kemp Anderson Consulting found that customer retention in the pest control industry has a staggering effect on the company's bottom line. Increasing retention a mere 2% has the same effect on the profitability of a company as reducing expenses by 10%. The same article explains that pest control operators should strive for retention rates between 82% and 87% for residential and 94% for commercial. How Retaining Your Pest Control Customers Affects Your Bottom Line Marketing Cost Savings: Some studies suggest that it’s up to seven times less expensive to retain a current customer than to find a new one.... - Published: 2025-07-31 - Modified: 2025-07-31 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/hyper-local-growth-using-gps-seo/ https://youtu. be/AI_M-2fE0a0? feature=shared GPS-SEO by City Ranked Video Transcript Hello, I’m Duane Baumgartner, CEO and Founder here at City Ranked. Today I want to introduce you to our GPS-SEO software. This software has helped hundreds of service businesses just like yours scale their lead generation online by sending very specific signals to search engines like Google to help them understand your business's service offerings, where you provide these services, and even which of your Google Business Profiles services these areas. To understand our GPS-SEO software, I’m going to take you all the way back to 2011 when I started City Ranked. Back then I had this idea that service area businesses such as plumbers, HVAC contractors, landscaping, pest control, roofers, and other service area businesses that deliver their services to home owners and businesses shouldn’t be limited to ranking in their own neighborhoods and cities if they could or did serve people in adjacent cities, so I set out on testing a revolutionary idea for the time with a few of our customers; and guess what... the idea worked; it worked really well. So well that the first two customers I tested it on grew at such a fast rate, they were both acquired and sold within a few years of us installing our software on their websites and running their digital marketing.   The first, a local pest control company here in the Pacific Northwest, grew from $800,000 to over $5,000,000 in revenue, in just 6 years... all with... - Published: 2025-07-28 - Modified: 2025-07-31 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-social-media-and-seo-work-together/ Have you ever been out with a friend, and then you run into another friend? You start to introduce your friends, but it turns out they already know each other. Huh, you think to yourself, I would have never guessed they'd get along so well. They seem so different. That’s social media and SEO. Two friends and cornerstones of any successful digital marketing strategy. And while on the surface it might not seem like they have much in common, they’re actually much more connected than you realize.  So, how can you get your social media and SEO to work together to boost your online visibility and amplify your reach? We have a few ideas. How can you use social media to improve your seo? Simply having a social media presence and an SEO strategy isn’t enough. If they’re not working together, it’s a lost opportunity. Even though social media and SEO seem like an unlikely pair, when you align them, it turns good marketing into great marketing.   Here are a few simple ways you can leverage your social media channels for better SEO: Claim and optimize all of your social profiles: Don’t send mixed signals with your social accounts – make sure all of your accounts are under your control, so that when you do send an important message, it gets heard loud and clear. Create content that gets shared: Duh! OK, easier said than done. But the key is not giving up. Many brands get discouraged when they’re... - Published: 2025-05-09 - Modified: 2025-11-05 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/embracing-ai-in-google-ads/ Optimizing Your Google Ads Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) The digital advertising landscape is constantly transforming, and at the forefront of this evolution is the increasing power and prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the Google Ads platform. For businesses aiming for optimal online visibility and growth, understanding and embracing this AI-driven approach is no longer a future concept – it's a present-day imperative. At City Ranked Media, we recognize that adapting to these changes can raise questions, especially if you're accustomed to older and now outdated campaign management methods. This shift towards AI isn't just a fleeting trend; it represents a fundamental change in how Google's sophisticated algorithms operate to connect your business with the right audience to maximize your desired outcomes, primarily conversions. The Paradigm Shift: From Manual Control to AI-Powered Precision Think back to how Google Ads campaigns were often managed. Agencies like ours dedicated significant time to meticulously selecting granular keywords, manually adjusting bids based on historical data and mathematical estimations. While this approach historically yielded results, the sheer volume and velocity of data in today's digital world have rendered it wildly less efficient. AI has ushered in a new era. Google's intelligent systems can now analyze vast streams of real-time data signals, far exceeding human processing capabilities. This allows for incredibly precise decisions regarding when and where to display your ads, all with the ultimate goal of driving conversions that align with your business objectives. Why an AI-Driven Google Ads Strategy is Crucial for Your Business... - Published: 2025-04-30 - Modified: 2025-07-31 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/audience-targeting-google-ads-campaigns/ The difference between an ineffective Google Ads campaign and one that’s leading to conversions often comes down to who’s seeing the ads. At City Ranked, this is controlled through audience targeting.   Our job is not to get you the most clicks – it’s to get you the best clicks. Irrelevant clicks blow your budget and leave you with nothing to show for it. This is a quick rundown of how City Ranked’s team uses audience targeting to ensure you always appear in front of the right leads, simultaneously keeping conversions high and maintaining healthy ROI. We conduct thorough market and keyword research to identify opportunities We consider searcher intent to define your ideal target audience We use exact match keywords to reach out directly to purchase-ready consumers whose search intent matches your offering We strategically deploy broad match keywords at the early stages of a campaign to help us gain actionable insights As your campaigns progress, we refine and scale them to ensure you’re always getting the right amount of leads every month Why Is Audience Targeting Important in SEM? Operating a paid media campaign can be a bit of an abstract notion. Ostensibly, you’re bidding on keywords. But in reality, who cares about winning keywords? What you’re actually vying for is the attention of a person who might be interested in your products or services. Some will argue this is merely a numbers game; the more people who see your ads, the more leads you’ll generate. To an... - Published: 2025-03-19 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/10-proven-marketing-ideas-for-pest-control-businesses/ How to Improve Your Pest Control Marketing by Duane Baumgartner I’ve been marketing pest control companies for over twenty years, and in that time, we here at City Ranked have come up with some tactics that have been repeatedly proven to produce qualified leads in volume for pest control businesses.   10 Pest Control Marketing Tips Guaranteed to Bring You More Customers: Offers, Coupons, & Specials - This seems like an obvious addition to any pest control marketing plan, but you’d be surprised how many pest control businesses don’t have specials, coupons, or offers on their website or added to their digital marketing mix. Benefits of having an Offer, Coupon, or Special Increase conversion rates from people who may not be ready to buy today. It’s happened to all of us. You were on a website not particularly motivated to buy, but an offer pops up that’s irresistible, so you made the purchase. Pest control services are no different. Give something, get something. Having a gated special that requires the end user to enter their name, phone, email, and any other pertinent information gives you an opportunity to engage with those prospects, even if they decide not to call at that point. Marketing automation with well-built-out automations and workflows can reengage these prospects, helping you turn them into your customers. Turn One-Time Services into Recurring Services - Most pest control companies offer some sort of guarantee on services. Many pest control companies will offer 60-day (yours may differ) guarantees on... - Published: 2024-11-04 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ftc-ban-on-fake-reviews/ In response to growing concerns from consumers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been making moves for the past couple of years to combat deceptive advertising. In August of 2024, the FTC officially announced a final rule that prohibits fake reviews and testimonials on products and services.   With the threat of an up to $51,744 fine per violation (in civil penalties) looming, the message is clear: the cost of deception far outweighs the temporary gains from falsified acclaim. The ruling, known as the Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews, outlines exactly what is prohibited, including: Fake endorsements of any kind, including those from insiders or celebrities not genuinely endorsing the product. Suppression, alteration, or fabrication of customer feedback. Creation or fostering of misleading social media engagement. The FTC's chair, Lina M. Khan, emphasizes that genuine customer feedback is the cornerstone of fair business practices.   But don’t be afraid of the legal jargon from this regulation. This is an opportunity for your business to foster trust and build stronger relationships with your customers. Leads and purchasers largely rely on online reviews to convert – and naturally, having negative reviews can prevent this. In fact, approximately 81% of potential buyers check reviews before making a purchase. Let's break down how your current and future reviews are affected by this new ruling, and how you can continue to manage your business reputation while being fully and legally compliant. The Federal Trade Commission Reviews Ban: What’s Prohibited? Any testimonial... - Published: 2024-08-21 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-should-i-handle-negative-reviews-and-customer-feedback/ Once a steady stream of online reviews starts rolling in, it feels easy. Your business’s overall rating rises, which leads to more customers, which leads to more reviews. And most of those reviews will be positive. But inevitably, you will wake up one morning and notice a new negative review. When this happens, what’s a business owner to do?   Should you respond? How should you respond? There’s a lot of good advice and bad advice you can find on the internet. We’ve cut through all of the noise to give you the most important things you need to know. Should You Respond to Negative Customer Reviews? Yes. There’s no question about it – you should. Responding to a negative review sends a message to your customers that they can reach you if there’s ever an issue. Not responding makes it look like there’s nobody there. You’re the restaurant where nobody is there to greet you, so you seat yourself, wait a minute or two, and still, nobody shows up. You’re the Wild West saloon with the cowboys passed out on the card table and a tumbleweed blowing by.   According to the Harvard Business Review, consumers expect you to respond to negative reviews quickly.   How Should You Respond to Negative Customer Reviews?   Here are a few pointers to turn negative reviews into positive impressions of your business: Take the high road. Thank them for taking the time to leave the feedback: Let them know you’re open-minded toward... - Published: 2024-08-14 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-small-businesses-can-use-marketing-automation-and-ai-to-increase-lead-generation/ Small business owners have never had more competition for their time. The days of casually posting on a Facebook or Instagram page and swimming in the organic traffic are long gone. Now, they have to balance prospecting, lead qualification, content creation, digital marketing strategy, and doing their business's actual work. Many business owners find it impossible to keep up on their own. Thankfully, a new wave of marketing automation and artificial intelligence products have given small business owners more time to effectively run their businesses, serve more customers, and ultimately grow their revenue.   These marketing automation and artificial intelligence (AI) tools are advanced technologies designed to streamline your marketing and operations processes allowing you to engage with potential customers more effectively and efficiently.   In this blog post, we'll explore how these tools can transform your lead generation strategy, offering practical insights and actionable tips to help your small business thrive.   Whether you're a plumber, an HVAC technician, or a landscaper, you'll learn how to harness these tools to keep your sales pipeline full and your business growing. Leveraging Marketing Automation as a Business Owner This can sound like an overwhelming concept. But, fear not, this is a comprehensive guide to the subject and by the end you’ll know the ins and outs of marketing automation, and how you might leverage it for your business. But first - The basics of Marketing Automation. What is it, and how do you use it? What is Marketing Automation? Marketing automation... - Published: 2024-07-23 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-can-i-encourage-satisfied-customers-to-leave-positive-reviews/ So you’ve decided to make gathering reviews a bigger part of your online marketing strategy – that’s great! Now, the big looming question: how? For many business owners, asking for reviews can be one of the most frustrating parts of the job. We get it – it can take a little bit of effort, and it doesn’t always seem like you’re making progress. But you are, and the good news is it gets easier, and it’s worth it. By building your online reputation now, you’ll be reaping the rewards for years. Now, back to that question. How do you encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews? Tell Your Customers to Expect It Before you send your review requests, tell your customers you’re going to. . If you don’t tell them to expect it, they may assume it was sent by a robot, and nobody actually cares if do it or not, so why would they spend their precious time on it? When you tell your customers to expect it, they’re more likely to notice it, and by saying you’d appreciate a response, you’re assigning it value, making it more worthy of their time. When Is the Best Time to Send Review Requests?   We recommend sending initial requests immediately after the service is completed. That’s when you’re most likely to be on top of their mind, making it more likely that they respond. But each business is different – and as you establish a baseline and test and tweak the... - Published: 2024-06-04 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-can-online-reviews-impact-my-business/ Reviews have always been extremely important for local businesses. Imagine a friend tells you, “Avoid that restaurant - I saw a mouse run across the floor. ” You probably wouldn’t go there anytime soon, would you? But if they say, “I had the best meal of my life there! ”, you might look into making reservations that weekend. This says a lot about the power of reviews. Of course, we’re comparing recommendations from a friend versus online reviews – there’s a huge difference between those... Or is there? In this blog, we’ll explore how online reviews have become the number one trusted source for local business recommendations for tens of millions of consumers across the United States – and how you can leverage that into success for your business.   How Have Reviews Changed Over the Years? The biggest change in the last thirty years is where people get reviews. In the pre-internet days, you might read reviews in books, magazines, or newspapers. Maybe you’d look into your town’s local Better Business Bureau. Let’s say you were looking for a reliable plumber. If you knocked on your neighbor’s door seeking a recommendation and they had one for you, you were likely to take it. Why? Because you trusted your neighbor. These days, most people get their reviews from the internet. And when we say “most,” we mean pretty much everyone. According to some researchers, up to 97% of consumers read online reviews of local businesses. This is the type of... - Published: 2023-10-19 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/better-ranking-strategy/ Let’s get this straight from the beginning: every small business owner wants their website to rank higher on Google - it’s a given. But what we often forget is the core purpose behind that desire. When it comes down to it, you don’t want rankings; you want leads. You want hot leads: interested customers who are ready to schedule your service. So here’s a reality check: aiming for the top spot on Google shouldn’t be your primary focus or strategy - ranking #1 is the culmination of a well-rounded, customer-centric approach to your digital marketing. How to trick Google into better rankings. Just kidding! You can’t - at least not long-term. It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to outsmart Google’s latest algorithm to move your site up a few spots in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). But let’s be honest - we can’t outsmart Google, and any agency that claims they can shouldn’t be trusted. I recently covered the trend in Google’s latest algorithm updates when we talked about getting better rankings through better business operations. To summarize: every algorithm Google rolls out focuses more and more on weeding out bad SEO tactics - all of the things marketers do to try to trick their way into higher rankings - in an effort to provide the most relevant and valuable content to the searcher. Therefore, your focus shouldn’t be on trying to employ specific SEO tactics to get to the top of the SERPs, it should... - Published: 2023-07-25 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/summit-reviews-our-new-offering/ Introducing our New Text Review App No matter the size, type, or industry, your business will benefit from reviews. In the steady change of Google algorithms and new marketing strategies, a constant for positively affecting Google visibility and generating trust are stellar reviews.   Another constant is how difficult it can be to generate those solid reviews. To help assist with the growth of excellent reviews we developed Go Local Reviews in 2016 with fantastic results. Now, in 2023, we are thrilled to announce its successor, Summit Reviews. SMS Reviews and Much More The next-generation text review request software is designed to not only replace Go Local Reviews but to take the concept of customer review management to new heights. QR Codes!   Now built into the Summit Dashboard, you can have your customer scan the QR code on your device or easily add it to your invoices and other promotional material. Increase the likelihood of your customers leaving reviews by Providing more opportunities. Sophisticated Dashboard Now with a built-in tutorial and FAQ section! Multiple Locations Sign-up for an extra location without leaving your dashboard!   Select different locations to send out review requests on the fly. Ease of Use We’ve built Summit Reviews from the ground up with your feedback in mind! Improved Security  With cutting-edge security measures, Summit Reviews ensures the integrity and privacy of the data it handles. Take Control of Your Reviews By being able to collect, view, and respond to all of your customer feedback... - Published: 2023-07-11 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/ftc-proposes-ban-on-fake-reviews/ Last month, City Ranked spoke about the importance of Online Reviews. ( And the importance of not buying them ) Well, last week the Federal Trade Commission agreed. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a new rule aimed at stopping marketers from using illicit review and endorsement practices. These practices include the use of fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, and paying for positive reviews, which can deceive consumers and undercut honest businesses. The proposed rule would trigger civil penalties for violators. The announcement goes on to outline all the black hat strategies that will be banned:  Selling or Obtaining Fake Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Review Hijacking Buying Positive or Negative Reviews Insider Reviews & Consumer Testimonials Company-Controlled Review Sites Illegal Review Suppression Selling Fake Social Media Indicators The FTC is seeking public comments on these proposed measures. The Commission will review the comments received and decide whether to take the necessary next steps toward issuing a final rule. The proposed rule follows an advance notice of proposed rulemaking the Commission announced last November. What Can You Do If Someone Has Left A Fake Review? If someone has left a review that is not authentic and is not a customer, you do have options. Know that you cannot report any bad reviews. Only report reviews that violate Google's policies. Don't report a review just because you disagree with it or don't like it. Google doesn't intervene when businesses and customers disagree about facts. For third-party hotel reviews, contact the... - Published: 2023-06-29 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/business-operations-rankings/ Short answer? Yes. Your customer's in-person experience directly impacts your rankings on Google. But the way you can affect it as a business leader isn’t quite what you’d expect. It’s impossible to run a business without hearing about SEO, online reviews, call analytics, paid search, or social media marketing on a daily basis. Your email inbox is probably full of digital marketing agencies and marketing analytics tools trying to scoop up your business right now. I’m obviously in full support of every company developing solid digital marketing strategies (it’d be a real problem if I weren’t), but is there more we can do as business leaders, outside of our marketing teams, to improve our online visibility? Note: I’m going to make a lot of bold claims about Google here that are totally my opinion, but they’re based on a decade of experience observing and manipulating the search results. Buckle up! Why does Google even care about how your business runs? Every algorithm update Google rolls out focuses more and more on weeding out the bad SEO tactics and finding increasingly real, grounded ways to get the right search results to users. If we just look at the last four updates: Google deprioritized sites with spammy content with the Helpful Content Update (12/5/22) Google decreased spammy links with the Link Spam Update (12/14/22) Google weeded out thin, unhelpful reviews while prioritizing product reviews based on actual experience and research with the Product Reviews Update (2/21/23) Google rolled out a core update... - Published: 2023-06-20 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/supercharge-your-reviews-to-crush-the-competition/ Undoubtedly, the significance of reviews is important, yet many businesses fail to fully grasp the key role they play in your search page rankings. A consistent influx of keyword-rich reviews, particularly those with high scores, can radically boost your business's landing page visibility.   Beyond their SEO benefits, reviews are often the first point of entry for prospective buyers researching a product or service. Bearing this in mind, it's paramount that your business reviews are a true and comprehensive representation of what you offer. This understanding can set your business up for dominance on the Search Engine Results Page. Google Uses Business Reviews as a Local Ranking Factor Social proof is one thing, but did you know that Google also uses your business reviews to determine relevance to queries? That’s right, your business reviews are part of determining if you show up in Google Search!   Google also uses reviews to help asses trust in your business. In fact, online reviews are consistently listed in the top 7 Ranking Factors in Local Search. It’s that big of a deal. The number of reviews you have, the review scores themselves, review keywords, and the number of reviews you have coming in ( Review Velocity) all matter to your business’s search engine visibility. Google Review Checklist: Create a Google Business Profile Create a Review Link  Hit the “Ask for reviews” in your Google Business Profile to provide you with a short URL that goes directly to your Review Form portal. Ask For... - Published: 2017-09-27 - Modified: 2025-12-01 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/getting-reviews-business-online/ Getting Online Reviews For Your Business Consumers rely on reading reviews these days to form opinions and decisions on everything from where to eat, to what to buy, to what businesses to do business with. In our fast moving digital world, reviews speak volumes about your business and offer potential customers social proof whether they should choose you, or one of your competitors. Consumers have fundamentally changed their buying process from what it was just a few short years ago, now relying heavily on reading reviews to form decisions on everything from what toaster to buy, to where each year, consumers are turning to online reviews more and more to make their buying decisions easier. How Consumers Use Reviews Reviews seem to be everywhere online, and rightfully so as reviews are read 91% of the time before making buying decisions. According to BrightLocals survey, consumers use reviews in the following ways: 95% of people say they search for local businesses online. 91% of people read online reviews about local businesses. 63% of people use search engines to find reviews, 37% use online review sites. 90% of people say they read at least 10 reviews before they can trust a local business. to eat, to which plumber is the best in their local area. Each year BrightLocal compiles a Local Consumer Review Survey, and just as it has shown Average star rating is the most important factor considered by consumers. 73% of consumers consider reviews over 3 months old to be... - Published: 2016-10-07 - Modified: 2025-08-27 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/increase-website-conversions/ Incrementally Increasing Website Conversions With New WordPress Programming As a web design and search engine optimization company, we’ve always maintained that there are really only three ways we can increase the number of conversions a website produces: Drive more qualified traffic Increase the percentage of visitors that convert into prospects, or A combination of both At City Ranked Media, we are always challenging ourselves by coming up with new and innovative ways to achieve increases in one or more of the above to positively affect our clients’ bottom lines. During the first quarter of 2016, City Ranked Media introduced a new way to manage the above goals to help keep ourselves and our clients focused on activities that would ultimately affect one or all of the above goals. The City Ranked Account Management Tool The City Ranked Account Management Tool was developed to focus efforts on building qualified traffic and increasing conversions based upon 4 predetermined quadrants. These quadrants focus on: New and/or Updated Content - for search engine and end user consumption Technical SEO – all the back-end coding to increase website and keyword rankings Conversation Rate Optimization – ways to increase the percentage of visitors that convert into viable prospects Projects & Programming – technical projects and coding for increased user engagement, which would ultimately affect the conversion rate percentage Our First Innovation After Using The City Ranked Account Management Tool The programming staff at City Ranked Media was challenged to incrementally increase website form conversions. We focused... - Published: 2016-10-06 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/get-customer-reviews-text-messaging/ The GoLocalReviews. com Text Review App (Demo video at the bottom of this article) With an ever-increasing number of savvy consumers searching the internet for local products and services, the impact of reviews on a local business’s continued success is becoming more and more apparent. Because of this, City Ranked Media developed the GoLocalReviews. com App (patent pending. ) For local small businesses that need to keep a step ahead of the competition, taking advantage of this consumer review system (especially Google reviews) is now a necessary part of an overall SEO marketing strategy. Why Online Reviews Are So Important It is no longer just the occasional few consumers searching for business reviews online. In fact, nearly 9 out of 10 consumers have read online reviews to determine the quality of a local business. This increasing consumer reliance on reviews is also evidenced by the fact that in 2016, 92% of consumers read online reviews, compared to 88% in 2014. Reviews Impact Your Bottom Line Consider these statistics from BrightLocal. com’s 2015 Local Consumer Review Study: Star rating is the #1 factor used by consumers to judge a business 40% of consumers form an opinion by reading just 1-3 reviews 68% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust a business more 51% will select a local business if it has positive reviews 23% will visit a business in person if it has positive reviews Additionally, studies show that customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business... - Published: 2016-10-06 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/targeting-seo-gps-location/ GPS Targeted SEO We here at City Ranked have been busy testing, retesting, and refining SEO tactics based upon GPS coordinates of web enabled devices. Most internet enabled devices manufactured in the last few years including laptops, tablets, and smartphones have some sort of GPS locating feature built into them. These features are being used by search engines and social media sites alike to serve better and more refined results to end users. The Challenge Get Our Clients Ranked Based Upon GPS Coordinates Our goal has always been to place our customers in the highest position for local search, so naturally we took on the challenge of trying to get our customers to show up higher in results based upon the GPS coordinates of end user devices. The GPS SEO Test During the first quarter of this year, the staff here at City Ranked Media started quietly testing a new and innovative way to send the search engines marked-up code using JavaScript, schema markup, and the Google Map Maker API to indicate our customers’ various service areas within their towns. We initially tested this on City Ranked Media Enterprise Level clients in three major markets--Seattle, Portland, and Las Vegas--for extremely competitive keywords. We tested all three locations using Apple iPhones, as well as Samsung, testing in the same locations within each city. Tests were completed using Safari, as well as Google's Chrome App. All tests were completed in incognito mode, using cellular data, not wifi. The SEO and Design Work... - Published: 2016-10-06 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/json-ld-schema-structure-local-seo/ New SEO Schema Markups Released and Tested First it might be helpful to explain what schema markup is. Back in 2011, the main search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing embarked on a collaborative project to develop code markup to help search engines understand what a specific website (or page on a website) is about. Implementing on-page markup helps search engines understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results. This shared markup vocabulary makes it easier for webmasters to decide on a markup schema and get the maximum benefit for their efforts. Search engines want to make it easier for people to find relevant information on the web. City Ranked Media has been using schema markups on our clients’ websites since they were first released, when only 1,500 websites nationwide were using it. Initially there were less than 20 different markups. Fast-forward to today, and there are hundreds of markups available for use. Why Schema Markup is Important for SEO Schema markup is important because it helps the search engines understand what a particular page, your website, and/or what your business does. This markup was invented to help the search engines provide a more enriching experience to end users, but it’s up to your web developer to correctly deploy schema markup on your website. There are literally hundreds of types of schema markups, so understanding what types of markup to deploy on a website can either help or hurt a website’s ranking. City Ranked Media’s use of Schema... - Published: 2016-10-04 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/local-seo-google-doorway-page-update/ Targeting Local SEO After Google’s Doorway Page Update Way back in March of 2015, Google released its Doorway Page Update specifically targeted at websites trying to gain rankings using pages that Google deemed added no real value to search experience. In local SEO, this was a search tactic used years ago to rank for specific terms of “”. Here at City Ranked Media we tested and used this strategy on a few websites with some success, but quickly moved away from it understanding these were nothing more than “Doorway Pages”, something that Google frowned upon. In the second quarter of 2015, City Ranked Media began testing how we could send signals to the search engines that a client served a specific geographic area, even when the client didn’t have a brick and mortar location in that area. The specific challenge was for service-based industries, such as pest control or plumbing companies, that would or could service customers in person in their area. Introducing the City Ranked Media Geo-Block After much testing, revisions, and refinement, City Ranked Media launched beta testing on the City Ranked Media Geo-Block. This block was designed to send city-specific data to search engines for important services a client provided, reinforcing with the search engine that the client served specific cities. The code, structure of the code, schema markup, and position of the code relative to other website elements was continually tested and refined to ultimately achieve desired results in first page rankings for pages the City... - Published: 2015-12-14 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/3-questions-to-ask-before-hiring-web-advertising-company/ Know the right questions to ask a web advertising company Hiring a reputable Internet Advertising company for your small business may seem like an easy task. There are many choices out there when it comes to website marketing, search optimization and search marketing companies. Unfortunately the decision to hire a reputable company to handle your online advertising is not as easy as it may seem. In many cases, small business owners choose internet advertising based upon convenience, rather than diligent research, which can have unintended consequences down the road. Don't become a victim of a company that doesn't have your best interests at heart. One thing to remember is that many of the large internet advertising companies want you for the long term. So their mission, and how they build their advertising campaigns are designed to make you fear and feel "non-advertising" pain if you ever decide to leave them. Below are 3 questions you should ask any internet advertising company before considering doing business with them. 1. ) Are you going to work on my actual website url (address)? This is a very important question to ask because many internet marketing companies do not promote your "real" website address across the internet. Instead they will advertise a website they create, with content they create, and will spread this "not real" website address across the internet... and it will spread like a virus. They often will do this because they will place tracking code and phone numbers on the website... - Published: 2015-11-30 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/expert-seo-quiz/ Consider yourself an Expert at SEO in 2015? Take our quiz and find out how you rank. (more... ) - Published: 2015-11-25 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-seo-strategy/ I want to cover a topic I think many small business owners rarely think about, the viability, and scale-ability of their current advertising efforts for the future. In times past, for many small business owners, thinking about the future of their advertising was as simple as knowing what ad size they wanted to purchase in the next edition of the local yellow pages, or perhaps the next ad they ran in the newspaper. Unfortunately, this type of thinking does not, and will not translate into a successful and long term internet marketing strategy. Why internet marketing is different than older forms of advertising When it came to older forms of advertising such as yellow pages, direct mail, and newspapers, shelf life was limited, and research options for consumers were even more limited. Ad positions were determined by factors such as who was willing to pay more for their ads, how long they had advertised in that particular medium, and the frequency they advertised. Fast forward from those times years back, and you get to 2015, the age where consumers rely on online mediums to make buying decisions. Unlike times past, search engine rankings are not determined by who pays the most, but instead businesses are graded and ranked by who does the best. If you think about all the different options out there when it comes to online properties to use when making buying decisions, search engines like Google have become experts in delivering the results their users want. Search... - Published: 2015-11-13 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/8-sure-signs-your-seo-company-sucks/ Last year I wrote an article titled "10 Signs You're Buying SEO Snake Oil". Since I'm into SEO, I thought I'd do a follow up article piggy backing on that article on 8 Sure Signs Your Current SEO Company Sucks. I get told all the time about how small business owners have been taken advantage of by unethical SEO companies, and frankly it makes me sad that there's people out there that would risk the livelihood of a hardworking business owner just to make a buck. These same SEO Snake Oil salesmen also make ethical, hardworking SEO companies job that much harder, as they have eroded any trust these business owners may have had in the prospect of real and quality SEO 1) Your SEO Company Talks About How Many Hundreds or Thousands of Links They're Building For You The question of whether "link building" is dead in SEO is a hotly debated topic. Many SEO companies still actively pursue link building as a must obtain goal for great rankings. I myself do not believe that link building in the old sense of the term is a viable SEO tactic with changes in Google's updates and algorithm changes. Instead I like to use the term "link earning". A quality SEO company can help a business earn links by putting good quality content out on the web, promoting it, and being creative. 2) They Talk About Directory Submissions, Forum Comments, and Article Submissions If anyone starts talking about directory submissions, forum... - Published: 2015-10-20 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-3-of-3/ Promoting and Updating Your Small Business Website I get it as a small business owner, you're busy. There's a million things to worry about, and if you're like me, most of the things that suck up your time have nothing to do with why you started your business in the first place. Small business owners are pulled in several directions everyday, and rarely do they get what they planned done during the normal work day. I, myself am writing this on a Friday evening between dinner and kids showers because I myself didn't get this done during my normal workday. Remember you started your business because you are passionate - and - YOU ARE DIFFERENT I've been helping small business owners advertise themselves for almost 15 years, and with only a few exceptions of the thousands of business owners I've met, all of them have something that makes them different from who they perceive as their competitors. Typically when I would ask these business owners what made them different, I'd get the same canned answers: we provide the best service, we provide quality work, we provide the best guarantee... and on and on from there. It wasn't until we were able to really dig in deep with these clients did they actually really think about what made them different, and sometimes it takes someone from the outside to point it out. I'll give you an example. I met with a plumbing contractor that had been in business for many, many... - Published: 2015-05-11 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-2-of-3/ Website SEO on a Budget Self guide to getting your business website on the search engines Awhile back I wrote the first part of this series, Building a website and doing your own SEO on a budget, sorry it's been so long for the second article in this series. In this article I'm going to assume that you've already launched your website and are now ready to get it out on the net and make it start working for your business. If you're having trouble with setting up the structure of your website, I encourage you to read my three part series, Website Ranking Factors for Small Business. It was written 2 years ago, but the practices are still essentially the same. (more... ) - Published: 2015-04-04 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/is-your-seo-company-a-copycat/ Why you shouldn't work with an SEO company that copies your competitions' strategies. As a business owner nothing can more frustrating than seeing one of your competitors copying the same website and SEO strategies that you've been using. It happens all the time, even within the SEO agency world, right here in Vancouver Washington. Here at City Ranked Media we've been testing different SEO strategies for years, only to have some of our strategies copied, which was the inspiration behind this article. So if you think your SEO company is copying from your competition, below are the reasons you may want to rethink your strategy (or your SEO's strategy) for long term business success. (more... ) - Published: 2014-11-08 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-company-might-hurt-rankings/ Is your SEO company hurting your websites rankings? I get it, as a business owner it's really easy to let things like SEO and your website slide. Your phone is ringing, people are mentioning that they found you on the web, so life is good right? But if you have an SEO company, web advertising company, or anyone else that does any kind of promotion of your website with the goal of attaining better rankings online for you, it might be time to start paying attention. (more... ) - Published: 2014-10-05 - Modified: 2026-07-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/5-things-need-know-hiring-someone-build-website-wordpress/ Here at City Ranked Media we primarily work in WordPress and all of our new client websites are built using WordPress, so you might say we're big fans of the website platform. However in the years we've been using WordPress, we've seen some pretty big messes with some websites that people have brought us to fix. Pretty big messes that took a lot of time and money to fix, so that being said we thought that we'd write an article on questions to ask, and things to know before deciding to hire someone to build you a website in WordPress. (more... ) - Published: 2014-07-31 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/cheap-website-seo-really-exist/ Just about any business small or large will at some point be faced with the decision on how to properly SEO their website. It's this need from small business owners, combined with the real complexities of how to get properly ranked on the web that has sprung up a whole industry of poor quality SEO agencies across the U. S. and the world. After doing some quick searches on the web, I came across an interesting story of a Pest Control business in Arizona that took the time to share his experiences with some these low cost SEO companies, and the results they provided. (more... ) - Published: 2014-07-26 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/google-pigeon-listings-rankings/ Did you loose rankings with the Google Pigeon update? Late Thursday, Google quietly released its newest update to its local ranking algorithm, quickly dubbed Google Pigeon by the folks at Search Engine Land. Google's newest update aims to achieve more useful and accurate search results according to a recent article posted by there. When asked by Search Engine Land's contributing author Barry Schwartz, Google said the update targets (more... ) - Published: 2014-07-15 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-advertising-on-a-budget-part-1-of-3/ Many small business owners build their own website, perform simple SEO when they start out to save, here's a simple guide to get you started. Part 1 of 3 Building a website and doing your own SEO on a budget Starting a business is a tough task for anyone. Starting a business on a shoe string budget is even tougher. Many new business owners save money by doing a lot of start-up tasks themselves, including building their first website, designing their own business cards, doing their own bookkeeping, and so on. If you're starting a new business, and don't have the capital to invest in a professionally designed website and SEO services, the below points will help guide you to developing the best website and strategy possible, without a huge investment in time and learning. 1) Choose your website building program Notice we didn't start with registering your domain? We often see small business owners get excited about starting their business and rush off to register their domain with the first recommended registrar. (more... ) - Published: 2014-06-24 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/much-seo-cost/ How much should SEO cost your business? The answers to this question are as plentiful as websites returned on any given search on Google. As a business owner , you should be looking at SEO as a long term investment into your business. So my answer is: "It costs you nothing. " SEO - done correctly - should yield measurable return on investment, therefore, the costs of quality SEO are far less than the return you should see in positive sales and growth for your business. However, I understand that most business owners still want to know the bottom line when it comes to the cost of SEO and what they should be budgeting for this service. (more... ) - Published: 2014-05-30 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/really-dealing-seo-expert/ The 10 warning signs that the person you're talking to is not an SEO expert. In this day and age it's pretty easy to come across someone who claims they are an SEO Expert. As a small business owner you are no doubt contacted by several people every week via phone or email claiming they can rocket your business to the front of the pack for mere dollars per month. So the question here is: with all these people claiming they can do the same thing, who is telling the truth, and who is selling SEO snake oil? (more... ) - Published: 2014-05-27 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-needs-continually-worked/ SEO and Your Old & Tired Website SEO and first page rankings One of the questions we get a lot is why search engine optimization needs to be continually worked on once rankings have been achieved. Most business owners understand that SEO is a process that takes some time, but once desired rankings for a keyword are achieved, (more... ) - Published: 2014-04-11 - Modified: 2025-03-25 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/measuring-effectiveness-of-seo-ppc-campaigns/ The Basics of measuring your marketing efforts How to measure the effectiveness of your SEO and PPC efforts When it comes to measuring your own SEO and PPC efforts, or perhaps you're trying to measure your outsourced efforts, understanding what metrics to measure can be a difficult task. The sheer amount of data that can be presented through programs such as Google AdWords or Google Analytics can make just about anyone's eyes glaze over. For business owners, reports like these often take a back seat to more important business functions. So a question that we often get is how to effectively benchmark an SEO and/or PPC campaign for effectiveness, and when do you know its time to make a change? (more... ) - Published: 2014-03-13 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/cheap-or-expensive-web-design/ Drag & Drop Websites - WYSIWYG website programs are they worth it? Finding someone to build your business a website these days is as easy as looking online, or waiting for one of the probably many calls your business gets from people claiming they can build your presence online for cheap. Pricing for websites varies widely and so as a savvy business owner, you should question why so cheap or why so expensive, right? Know the right questions to ask when buying a website (more... ) - Published: 2014-02-26 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/5-myths-seo-debunked/ So you're in the market for an SEO Company? For many small businesses, looking for a qualified local SEO Company can be a daunting task. There are many factors to look at when choosing an ethical internet marketing and web design company for your small business, and unfortunately all too often small business owners make decisions on web design and internet advertising based upon convenience rather than diligent research. (more... ) - Published: 2014-02-22 - Modified: 2025-02-28 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/seo-test/ Want to test your SEO knowledge? Try the 10 questions below to see how you score. View Survey - Published: 2014-01-03 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/three-questions-to-ask-seo/ Hiring a reputable Internet Advertising company for your small business may seem like an easy task. There are many choices out there when it comes to website marketing, search optimization and search marketing companies. Unfortunately the decision to hire a reputable company to handle your online advertising is not as easy as it may seem. In many cases, small business owners choose internet advertising based upon convenience, rather than diligent research, which can have unintended consequences down the road. Don't become a victim of a company that doesn't have your best interests at heart. Three Questions To Ask Before Buying SEO Services Hiring a reputable Internet Advertising company for your small business may seem like an easy task. There are many choices out there when it comes to website marketing, search optimization and search marketing companies. (more... ) - Published: 2012-05-09 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/how-googles-penguin-update-could-affect-your-small-business-website/ The Penguin Update and your small business website Google recently announced an update to their search ranking algorithms that in most part only affects what Google terms "spammy websites" but with that being said, there is in my opinion, some unintended affects to small business websites... (more... ) - Published: 2012-02-21 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-3-of-3/ In this final article of Website Ranking Factors For Small Business, I will cover factors that can get your website penalized by the search engines, hurting your chances of appearing for the keywords you want. The below information is by no means all inclusive, but covers some of the more common black hat SEO activities that will eventually hurt your rankings. (more... ) - Published: 2012-02-20 - Modified: 2026-04-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-2-of-3/ In my prior article in this series, I discussed website On-Page Ranking Factors for small business websites. This article will cover factors that are considered Off-Page Ranking Factors and how they apply to a small business trying to achieve first page rankings for desired keywords. (more... ) - Published: 2012-02-19 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/website-ranking-factors-for-small-business-part-1-of-3/ In this article series I will cover top-level factors that search engines use in determining where a website will rank for given keyword(s), and how a small business can use these factors to propel their website ahead of the competition, driving quality traffic through organic placement. On Page Search Engine Ranking Factors for Small Business Websites This first article will cover what is known as On Page factors, meaning what can be done on the website itself. We will cover the following: Content Keyword Research Keyword Use Engaging Visitors Updated Content Page Titles Meta Descriptions Heading Tags Indexing Page/Site Speed URL's Website Content As I've written about before, website content is king when it comes to attaining rankings on the search engine results page (SERP). I can not stress enough how important it is to have a good amount of Quality Content on each page of your website. The old days of having a website with the same old, stale set-up of: Home, About Us, Services, Gallery and Contact Us are dead and gone. The web and how people use it has changed dramatically, and to keep up with this change, the search engines have changed their game too. Having quality content, with a purpose, will help any small business get to the first page of the search engine results. Keyword Research for Small Business What keywords do you want to show up for? How competitive is it to get to the first page for those keywords? Do you know... - Published: 2012-02-07 - Modified: 2025-07-15 - URL: https://cityranked.com/blog/wordpress-ratings-setup/ WordPress comes equipped with a built in system for readers to interact with your blog / website by allowing them to "Rate" your blog, or comments on your blog with a 5 star rating system. With this Ratings enabled users can hover over the stars and choose a rating for your content. All ratings are then added up to give a general score for that content. Accessing the Ratings function in WordPress One you access the Ratings screen, you will see there are two options to choose from: All Ratings and Reports. In the above example I have chosen All Ratings, which takes you to setup of your WordPress Ratings options. In the top red box area, you are able to control where people are allowed to rate content on your site, as well as where the rating option will appear - above or below the post or comment. For pages you can select above or below the post, with an option to enable or disable ratings. Posts and Comments Ratings Settings Under the comments link, as shown above in the red box, there are advanced options to control how the ratings system is shown on comments. Advanced Settings for Comments Rating In the above screen, Advanced Setting has been selected which expands the below blue area with options to customize your comments rating system. Rating Type Rating type allows you to choose from the "5 Star" or "Nero" rating system. 5 Star allows users to rate comments based upon... > To schedule a free no obligation digital marketing and advertising assessment, please contact City Ranked at https://cityranked.com/ or 360-433-9870. Located in Vancouver, Washington and serving our customers across the United States.