The contractor who answered before he was asked

The contractor who answered before he was asked

Meet a general contractor in Seattle. Strong reviews, good photos, and a profile sitting at position 5 he couldn't explain.

We scrolled to the part of the listing almost everyone forgets: the Q&A section. His had four questions, all from strangers, all unanswered. One asked "do you do permits?" — answered by a random user with a flat "No." It was wrong, and it had sat there for a year.

That dead Q&A was both a trust leak and a missed keyword field.

We seeded the section properly — owner-posted questions and honest answers covering permits, financing, service area, project minimums — each one naturally including the services and neighborhoods searchers use. Then we corrected the false answer.

For three weeks nothing in the ranking budged.

Week five, it inched up, and the calls changed character — better-qualified, fewer tire-kickers.

Position 5 to position 3, calls up only 12% but close rate noticeably higher.

The lesson: the Q&A section is a keyword-rich, trust-bearing slice of your profile that anyone can edit — so own it before a stranger does it wrong.