Your customer does not have a pest problem. They have a scratching noise in the loft at one in the morning, and no idea whether it is rats, squirrels or the boiler. The company that answers that question is usually the company that gets the job, and it is almost never the one with a page called Our Services.
01The species They search the animal, not the trade.
People arrive at your trade through the problem. Wasp nest in the roof. Mouse droppings under the sink. Bites that might be bed bugs. Something large moving above the ceiling.
Each of those is a different search, a different level of panic and a different price. A single page covering all of them competes properly for none of them.
The fix is a page per species, written in the words the customer uses rather than the words you use. They do not know what a rodenticide is. They know there is something in the loft.
02The season Your year is set by biology.
Wasps build through the summer and become a problem in August, then die off. Rats and mice move indoors as the temperature drops, which is why autumn and winter are your rodent months. Bed bugs travel with people, so they follow the holiday season.
None of that is influenced by anything you do, which is unusual. Most trades can push demand around with an offer. You cannot make it colder.
What it means practically is that the rodent pages have to be ranking by September, not written in November when the phone is already going. Search positions take months to build, and your season lasts weeks.
03The levers What actually moves the needle for a pest controller.
- A page for each species, not a services list Wasp nest removal, rats in the loft, mice, bed bugs, squirrels, moles, cluster flies. Nobody searches for pest control until they have failed to identify what they have. They search the animal, and the page that names it is the page that gets the call.
- Answer it before you sell it How to tell rats from mice by the droppings. Whether that nest is wasps or bees, because you will not touch bees and should say so. Identification content brings people in at the exact moment they are deciding whether this needs a professional.
- A commercial page written for an inspection Restaurants, pubs, food manufacturers and shops do not buy pest control because they saw a mouse. They buy it because the EHO is coming and a hygiene rating is at stake. That page needs contracts, documentation and reporting, not a photograph of a rat.
- Say plainly that you are discreet Unmarked vehicle, no logos on the door, evening appointments. Yours is the only trade here where the customer is quietly hoping the neighbours do not notice, and being the one company that says so out loud converts remarkably well.
The map pack is strong for domestic emergency work, where somebody wants the nearest person who can come today. Commercial contracts are won on the website and the paperwork.
04The feeling The part of the job nobody writes about.
Your customer feels ashamed. Not slightly, genuinely. They think an infestation says something about how they keep their house, and they are hoping nobody sees your van.
No other trade on this site has that. Nobody is embarrassed about a broken boiler.
It is worth addressing directly, because it costs you calls. Two or three plain sentences do it: that this happens to clean, well-kept homes constantly, that it is usually about the weather or a neighbour rather than anything they did, and that your vehicle is unmarked.
That last detail alone converts. If your van is signwritten, say instead that you can park away from the property, which is the same reassurance honestly told.
05The price What it costs, and what you get.
£297 a month. The website, on-page SEO, missed-call text-back, a review funnel, follow-up on every enquiry, one inbox and a business number. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
No build fee and no minimum term. After three months you can buy the code outright for £1,000.
One caution about reviews in your trade. Plenty of customers will not leave a public one, because leaving it means saying in public that they had rats. Ask anyway, expect a lower rate than other trades get, and lean harder on the commercial clients who have no such worry.
06The awkward ones Common questions from pest control companies.
01 Why a page per animal? Surely one pest control page covers it.
Because that is not how anyone searches. Someone with scratching in the loft at midnight types "scratching noise in loft at night", not "pest control near me". They arrive at the problem long before they arrive at the trade, and a page per species is how you meet them at the start rather than at the end.
02 My year is wasps then rats then nothing. Is that normal?
It is the shape of the whole trade. Wasps are a summer emergency, rodents move indoors as it gets cold, and the search data backs it up exactly: enquiries in this trade ran at 110 in November and 140 in January against about 10 in midsummer. Knowing that tells you when to have the pages already ranking, which is months before you need them.
03 Is commercial work worth chasing?
It is the stable half of the business. Domestic is a one-off emergency and commercial is a contract that renews, driven by inspections rather than by an infestation. One restaurant on a monthly visit is worth many wasp nests, and the buying decision is completely different, so it needs its own pages.
04 Does BPCA membership actually matter to customers?
To commercial customers, a great deal, because their auditor asks. To domestic customers, less than you would hope, until you explain it. One sentence saying what it means and what the alternative is, is worth more than the logo on its own.
05 Should I write about the products I use?
Carefully, and mostly in terms of what a member of the public cannot buy or legally use. Professional rodenticide use is restricted and stewarded for good reasons, and explaining that honestly is the strongest argument against the shop-bought box that has already failed. Do not print product names and doses.
06 How much does one of my enquiries get valued at?
Bidding on "pest control leads" runs to around £20 a click at medium competition. That is lower than some trades on this site and still means somebody is paying twenty pounds for the chance at a job you might do for two hundred. Owning the ranking removes that cost permanently.
Tell me which species make you the most money and I'll tell you whether those searches are winnable where you are. If your rodent pages aren't ranking by September you've already missed the season, so this is worth doing in the spring. Book a call. Tell me what's going on.