TRADELOCKAI
FAQ
Every question contractors ask us.
Including the awkward ones. If something is missing, call or text and we will answer it directly.
Pricing and terms
How much does it cost?
Management starts at $500/month and steps to $1,500 and then $2,500 as results come in. The website build is $2,500 once, waived entirely with a 3-month commitment. Full detail on the pricing page.
Is there a contract?
A 90-day initial period so the foundation work has time to land, then month-to-month. If you take the build-fee waiver, that is a 3-month commitment in exchange.
Are there hidden fees?
No. Hosting, schema, profile management, reviews, content and reporting are all in the retainer. Third-party costs like a paid directory listing would be approved by you before we spend anything.
What if I want to leave?
After 90 days, any month. You keep the Google profile, the reviews and the rankings — those were always yours. If we built your site under the fee waiver and you leave early, buy it out for $1,000 or we restore your original site free.
Results and expectations
How long until I see results?
Google Business Profile and review wins in 30–60 days. Durable map-pack position and steady lead flow in months four to six. Competitive metros take longer than quiet ones, and we will tell you which yours is before you sign.
Do you guarantee #1 rankings?
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who does. Nobody controls Google's algorithm, and the tricks used to fake a guarantee are the ones that get Business Profiles suspended. We guarantee the work and the reporting.
Can you get me ranked in towns I do not have an address in?
Not reliably, and we will not pretend otherwise. Proximity to the searcher is one of the strongest factors in local search, and service-area settings do not override it. We can win you organic and AI visibility in surrounding towns; the map pack in a town 40 minutes away is a much harder claim and usually a dishonest one.
What if a month is bad?
The report says so. We would rather hand you a flat month with an explanation than a page of impressions designed to look like progress.
The work itself
Do I have to rebuild my website?
Not necessarily. If the audit shows your site is fast and structurally sound, we optimize it in place and you skip the build fee. We only recommend a rebuild when the site itself is the bottleneck.
Do you need my passwords?
Never. You add us as a manager on your Google Business Profile and analytics — revocable in two clicks. We do not ask for a password to anything.
How much of my time does this take?
Around two hours in week one, then roughly fifteen minutes a month. The one thing we genuinely need on an ongoing basis is job photos and occasional details about completed jobs.
Will you write fake reviews?
No. Never, under any circumstances. It violates Google's policies, it is grounds for profile suspension, and it is fraud. We build a system that asks every real customer on every real job.
Do you use AI to write my content?
We use AI as a tool the way any modern shop does, but everything is edited, fact-checked and specific to your business before it goes near your domain. What we will not do is mass-generate hundreds of city pages — that trips Google's scaled-content policy and produces a spike followed by a hard crash.
AI search
Does AI search actually matter for a contractor yet?
It is starting to. A large share of searches now end without a click because the answer appears on the results page, and homeowners increasingly ask ChatGPT for a recommendation the way they used to ask a neighbour. It is not yet the main channel for most trades, and we would not tell you it is — but the work that wins it is largely the same work that wins the map pack, so there is no reason not to capture it.
How do I show up in ChatGPT?
Differently than you show up in Google. ChatGPT and Perplexity do not read your Google Business Profile — they pull from third-party directories, "best in {city}" roundups and forum threads. Getting named in those is a separate workflow from local SEO. Full explanation here.
Is schema markup what gets me into AI answers?
It helps machines parse your pages, and we deploy it on every page because it is cheap and correct. But it is not the lever — being genuinely well-reviewed and accurately listed on the sources these systems read is. Any agency selling schema as the AI answer is overselling it.
Ready to Start?
Still deciding? Start with the free audit.
We run the full audit on your site and Google Business Profile, then send you the PDF within 24 hours. No call required to get it.
- Technical SEO score with the exact failures listed
- Google Business Profile completeness + category check
- Who currently holds the three map-pack spots in your city
- Whether AI assistants can read your business at all