What to Do When Your Competitor Ranks Above You

You've searched "electrician near me", and there's the bloke from two suburbs over sitting above you. Again. It's a genuinely annoying feeling, especially when you know your work is as good as his.

The good news is there's a sensible way to look at this that doesn't involve copying him or trying to outsmart Google. Here it is.

First: don't panic

Google results aren't one fixed list. What you see isn't what your customers see.

The same search can return different results depending on:

• Where the person is standing
• Exactly what they typed — "emergency electrician" and "electrician" are different searches
• What device they're on
• How competitive that particular search is

So a competitor sitting above you for one search, from where you happen to be standing, doesn't mean they're above you everywhere. Before you conclude anything, try searching from the middle of the area you actually work in, and try the words a customer would use rather than the ones you'd use.

It also doesn't mean they're better at the job. It means Google currently has more, or clearer, information about them.

Have a proper look at what they've got

Everything you need is public. Open their Business Profile and their website, and go through it honestly — not to copy it, but to find the gaps in your own.

• Their profile — is it fully filled in? Right category? Services listed out? Service areas set?
• Their reviews — how many, how recent, and do they reply to them?
• Their photos — real work, or three stock images from 2019?
• Their website — does it say plainly what they do and where? Separate pages per service?
• Their work — are there actual finished jobs on there?

Nine times out of ten you'll find two or three obvious things they've done and you haven't. That's your list. It's usually shorter and more boring than people expect.

Tidy up your own profile first

This is where the quickest wins are, because most profiles are half-finished. Right primary category, every service listed individually, accurate service areas, real hours, your own photos, and a steady trickle of genuine reviews.

If you want the detail, 5 simple ways to show up better on Google is the short version, and how Google Maps works for tradies explains what the map is actually weighing up.

Make your website more useful than theirs

Not flashier. More useful.

Someone comparing two tradies is trying to answer a handful of questions fast: do they do the thing I need, do they come to my suburb, have they done it before, and how do I get hold of them?

A homepage that opens with "Quality workmanship you can trust" answers none of those. "Residential electrician servicing Adelaide's southern suburbs" answers two of them in eight words, and the rest of the page can handle the others.

To be clear, wording alone doesn't move you up the results, and anyone who tells you it does is overselling. It's about being understood — by the customer first, and by Google as a by-product.

Give people reasons to trust you

This is the bit tradies routinely undersell, and it's usually the actual gap between you and whoever's above you.

• Genuine reviews — the single most persuasive thing on the page
• Photos of your own finished jobs — not stock, not someone else's
• A real "about" — who you are, how long you've been at it, your licence number
• Contact details that are easy to find — phone visible without scrolling

People are letting you into their house or spending real money. Anything that makes you look like a settled, accountable business does more work than you'd think.

Cover the work you actually do

One page listing everything is one page. A page per main service can each turn up for a different search — switchboard upgrades, emergency electrical, hot water repairs, blocked drains, renovations, extensions, whatever's genuinely on your list.

Mention the areas you really service, and only those. There's a trade-by-trade breakdown of what's worth spelling out if you want a starting point.

Don't try to cheat it

When you're frustrated, the shortcuts look tempting. They're not worth it.

• Don't buy reviews, and don't write your own
• Don't stuff keywords into your pages or your business name
• Don't list addresses or suburbs you don't actually work from
• Don't copy a competitor's pages
• Don't buy backlinks off someone in your DMs
• Don't build a hundred thin suburb pages

All of it gets found out eventually, and the downside is losing a profile you've spent years building. The businesses above you almost certainly aren't doing any of this — they've just filled everything in properly and been at it longer.

Then stop watching them

Checking your rankings every morning is a good way to ruin your week and change nothing. Once you've got your list of gaps, close them and get back to work.

The questions worth asking are all about your own business:

Don't copy them. Find your own gaps and close them one at a time.

And remember ranking isn't the whole job

It's easy to fixate on position, but turning up is only the first half.

Someone finds you. Now they've got to work out whether you do their job, whether you come to their suburb, whether you've done it before and how to reach you. If the answer to any of those is unclear, you can be sitting first and still lose the job to whoever's third with a decent website.

Plenty of businesses have visibility and no enquiries. It's worth making sure you're fixing the right half of the problem — and if you can't find yourself at all, work through the usual causes first.

If you've got no time for any of this

The profile side is genuinely yours to do — it's free and it's an afternoon. Start with how to get your business on Google if you haven't already, and don't pay anyone a monthly fee for it.

The website half is where most tradies stall, and it's usually the difference you're looking at when a competitor's above you. Not because they're better at Google — because they've got somewhere for people to land. If you're weighing that up, profile vs website lays out what each one does.

That's the part ONYA handles. We build the site, you pay monthly instead of a big bill upfront, and the domain, hosting and ongoing care come with it — $0 upfront, from $49/month, usually live in 7 days or less. We can't promise you a position above anyone, and nobody honestly can. We can make sure that when someone does find you, there's something decent there.

Have a look at some of the sites we've built or how it works, and if it stacks up, tell us what you do and we'll sort the rest.