Where homeowners search right now

A homeowner walks into her garage at 6:40 on a weeknight and her sock gets wet. The water heater is leaking from the bottom. I'll call her Maria. She has work in the morning, two kids to get to bed and no plumber she knows by name.

Most owners picture what happens next as one Google search and one phone call. It used to be close to that. Now Maria will look in at least six places before she books anyone, and your shop can win or lose her at every one of them.

Let's walk her night with her.

She starts on the Google results page

Maria types "water heater leaking from bottom" into Google. One screen gives her four kinds of results. Paid ads sit at the top. Under them is the Map Pack, the small map with three local companies listed below it. Then come the regular results.

On a lot of searches there's a fourth piece above all of it, an AI Overview. That's a short answer Google writes with AI. Maria reads it first. It tells her a leak from the bottom often means the tank is failing, and that she should shut off the water.

Now she's worried, and she scrolls to find a company. If your shop isn't in the ads, the map or the first results, she never sees your name.

Then she checks the map

She taps a company in the Map Pack, which opens its Google Business Profile. She sees the stars, the review count and a call button. Then she looks at the photos. One shop shows its own trucks and techs. Another shows stock photos of models in spotless uniforms.

She also types a question right into Maps: "Does this company replace water heaters the same day?" Google's AI writes the answer from what it can find, like the company's website, profile and reviews. Owners used to be able to answer those questions themselves on the profile. Google removed that feature.

So if your website never says you do same-day water heater replacement, the AI may not say it either. Maria moves on to a shop whose answer is clear.

She asks ChatGPT who to call

Maria still isn't sure if this can wait until morning. She opens ChatGPT and asks if a leak like hers is dangerous, and who's a good plumber near her. It answers the safety question. Then it names a few local companies and says why it picked them. One has strong reviews for water heater work. Another has a page that explains its water heater prices.

Think about that for a second. A piece of software just recommended a shop to a homeowner with a wet floor and a credit card in her hand. If it named your competitor, you never got a chance to make your case.

She watches a video

Before she calls anyone, Maria wants to know if this is a repair or a new tank. She finds a three-minute YouTube video from a local plumber. He stands next to a tank like hers, points at the leak and explains when a repair makes sense.

He doesn't sell anything. By the end, she feels like she knows him, and she remembers his company name.

A neighbor names a shop, and the reviews have to back it up

Around 9:00, Maria asks her neighborhood group for a plumber they trust. Two neighbors name the same company. Maria doesn't call right away, though. She looks the company up and reads its reviews, checking how many there are, whether any came in this year and how the owner answered the bad ones.

That's the part owners tend to miss. A referral still runs through search now. A great tip can lose to a thin profile and a stack of old reviews.

She books at 11:15

The kids are asleep and the water is off. Maria calls the first shop on her list and gets voicemail. The second shop's site only shows a phone number. The third shop, the one with the video, has a "Book Online" button. She picks a 9:00 a.m. slot, and within a minute a text confirms the time and names the tech.

She booked a job worth hundreds of dollars without talking to a person.

What her night costs the shops that lost

Each shop that lost Maria lost her at a different stop. The first never made the first screen of Google. Another had stock photos where its trucks should have been, so she couldn't tell who would show up at her door. A third never mentioned same-day service on its site, and the AI left it out of its answer. The last one sent her to voicemail at night with no other way to book.

Here's the math I use in my book. Say your average job is $600 and you keep 40% as gross profit, which is what's left after parts and labor. That's $240 on one job. Every stop where you lose a homeowner like Maria costs you that $240, plus the tune-ups and referrals that would have come after. Your own numbers will differ, but the leak works the same way.

One name for all of it

You'll hear three sets of letters a lot right now. SEO means ranking in Google's regular results and the Map Pack. AEO, answer engine optimization, means getting picked when a tool gives one direct answer, like an AI Overview. GEO, generative engine optimization, means getting named when AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini write a recommendation.

I roll them into one idea and call it Search Everywhere Optimization. It covers all three, plus Maps, YouTube and reviews, run as one effort. Google says the same basic SEO work still applies to its AI features, which is good news for any shop with a solid site.

The shops that grow year after year don't chase every new app. They show up where homeowners look, and they make it easy to book at 11:15 at night. They also know their numbers well enough to see what paid.

So when you plan, follow Maria's path. At each stop she made, ask whether your shop shows up and how easy it is to book you from there.

Try this today

Search like Maria. It takes about 10 minutes. Open a private window on your phone (Chrome calls it Incognito) so your own past searches don't shape the results. Pick one problem your customers call about, like "water heater leaking" or "AC blowing warm air." Search it on Google, then ask ChatGPT the same thing with your town name added. On a sheet of paper, mark where your shop shows up: the ads, the Map Pack, the regular results, the AI answer and ChatGPT's answer.

Then give yourself a score from 1 to 5 for how many stops showed your name. That's your Free search line on the Booked Solid Scorecard.