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RANKTHREAD FIELD GUIDES
Field guides
Free playbooks, checklists and scripts for non-tech service businesses. Every number in every guide has been traced to its primary source, and anything we could not verify has been cut and said so out loud.
HOW TO USE THESE
Each guide answers one comment keyword from our Instagram and LinkedIn posts. Comment the keyword and we will send the link, or just take it from here. There is no email gate and nothing to sign up for.
- COMMENT ANSWER
The missed-call playbook
Most service businesses do not have a lead problem. They have an answering problem. This is the system that catches the calls you are already paying for.
Read the guide → - COMMENT ASK
The review request scripts
83 out of every 100 customers who get asked for a review write one. The reason your competitor has more reviews than you is almost never that they have more customers.
Read the guide → - COMMENT REVIEWS
The review engine playbook
Your reviews expire. Not literally, but in the only way that matters: the customer deciding right now is not reading the ones from two years ago.
Read the guide → - COMMENT REPLY
The review response templates
Your review replies are not customer service. They are a sales page that the next customer reads before they call you.
Read the guide → - COMMENT LEGAL
The compliant review playbook
Most small businesses breaking the FTC review rule have no idea they are doing it. The two most common violations are things marketers have recommended for years.
Read the guide → - COMMENT MAPS
The Google Business Profile checklist
The map pack is the most valuable piece of free real estate a local business can own, and most owners fill in about a third of it.
Read the guide → - COMMENT BLINK
The homepage checklist
People decide how they feel about your website faster than they can read a single word of it. Then they spend the rest of the visit confirming that first judgement.
Read the guide → - COMMENT FORM
The three-field form template
Every field on your contact form is a small question the visitor has to agree to answer. Most forms ask for things nobody needs, and pay for them in leads.
Read the guide → - COMMENT AI
The local AI visibility checklist
A year ago almost nobody asked ChatGPT for a plumber. Now nearly half do, and the businesses being recommended are not the ones paying the most for ads.
Read the guide → - COMMENT SUMMARY
The AI-proof review guide
Customers used to read your reviews. Now a machine reads them and writes a paragraph, and that paragraph is what your customer actually sees.
Read the guide → - COMMENT GEO
The GEO checklist
Search engine optimisation was about being found. Generative engine optimisation is about being quoted, and the two are not the same job.
Read the guide → - COMMENT ZERO
The zero-click playbook
A growing share of searches end without anyone clicking anything. The answer appears, the need is met, and your analytics never knows it happened.
Read the guide → - COMMENT ENTITY
The entity checklist
Search stopped being about matching strings a long time ago. If a system does not recognise your business as a distinct thing in the world, it cannot confidently recommend you.
Read the guide → - COMMENT PROOF
The citation checklist
You cannot tell search engines you are credible. Credibility is what other sources say about you when you are not in the room.
Read the guide → - COMMENT SPEED
The lead response playbook
The first business to reply usually wins, and the research on this is older and stronger than most marketing advice you will be given this year.
Read the guide → - COMMENT CADENCE
The five-touch follow-up sequence
Most leads are not lost to competitors. They are lost to a single unanswered voicemail and a quiet decision to move on.
Read the guide → - COMMENT FAST
The site speed checklist
Site speed is a tax you pay on every visitor, and it is charged before they have read a single word about you.
Read the guide → - COMMENT SITE
The website lead checklist
Your website is not costing you leads because it looks bad. It is costing you leads because it does not do one job well.
Read the guide → - COMMENT PAGES
The service page blueprint
A single page listing eleven services ranks for none of them and convinces nobody. One page per service is the least glamorous high-leverage change available.
Read the guide → - COMMENT NEARME
The local search playbook
A near-me search is not research. It is someone with their wallet already open, deciding which of you to call.
Read the guide → - COMMENT HOURS
The after-hours playbook
Your customers do not think about their broken boiler at 11am. They think about it at 8pm, when they are home and looking at it.
Read the guide → - COMMENT DATABASE
The reactivation playbook
The cheapest customers you will ever get are the ones who already paid you once and have not heard from you since.
Read the guide → - COMMENT REFER
The referral scripts
The gap between customers who would refer you and customers who actually do is enormous, and it is almost entirely a mechanics problem.
Read the guide → - COMMENT THREE
The three-number dashboard
A dashboard nobody reads is worse than no dashboard, because it creates the feeling of being measured without any of the benefit.
Read the guide → - COMMENT HOUR
The one-hour content system
You do not have a content problem. You have an hour, once a week, and no system for what to do with it.
Read the guide → - COMMENT COMPOUND
The content compounding system
Most service businesses post generic tips nobody remembers. One documented result, properly used, outperforms a hundred of them.
Read the guide →
RANKTHREAD
Compound infrastructure, not campaigns
RankThread builds lead-generation websites and marketing systems for non-tech service businesses. These guides are the thinking, given away. If you would rather have it built and running, that is what we do.
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