Referrals and word of mouth
Word of mouth still works. What happens next changed.
Your neighbor still tells people to call you. The difference is what they do before they dial. They look you up. If nothing comes up, or the only thing that does is a competitor with forty reviews, they call the competitor. You never hear about that job, which is why it feels like referrals dried up when they did not.
What this actually looks like.
- Somewhere for a referral to land that looks like a real business
- Your reviews gathered in one place instead of scattered
- Nothing for you to run, update, or log into
I have gone twenty years without a website.
You have, and those referrals are real. This is not about replacing them. It is about not losing the ones you already earned at the very last step, when somebody checks and finds nothing.
What it costs, before you have to ask.
If it brings you one extra job a year, it has paid for itself. For most of the businesses we work with, one job covers several years of it.
It works at that price because there is no agency attached. Your site is hand-coded, weighs almost nothing, and runs on infrastructure that costs us close to nothing to operate.
Try another door.
Want to see what shows up for your business?
It takes about a minute and costs nothing. You will see what comes up for your name today, what your competitors have that you do not, and whether the assistants know you exist.