Any question whose answer depends on a specific site, a specific date, or a specific person cannot be answered by anything that has not seen it. That is most of what a trade sells.

The questions that need you

How much would it cost to do this at my property.

Can you come on Thursday.

Is this repairable or does it need replacing.

Will this work with what is already there.

None of those has an answer that exists anywhere, because the answer does not exist until somebody looks.

What makes a query unanswerable in general

The last is underrated. A customer wants an answer from somebody who will be responsible for it being right, which is a different thing from an answer that happens to be correct.

Most trade searches are in this category

Which is the reassuring part and is worth being specific about.

Somebody searching for a plumber in their town is not looking for information, they are looking for a person.

Somebody searching what a job costs is looking for a range they can trust, followed by somebody who will quote it.

Somebody searching whether something is possible wants the opinion of somebody who has done it.

All three end with a business rather than with an answer, and no summarising system changes that.

The exposure discussed elsewhere applies to general explanation, which is a minority of what most trades should be publishing anyway.

Make the transition easy

Since being unanswerable only helps if the next step is obvious.

The page should say what the range is, what moves it, and exactly how to get the specific answer.

A telephone number, a form asking three things, and a statement of how quickly you reply.

Somebody who has understood that their question needs a person needs that person reachable in one action.

Which is the same advice as always and matters more where the visitor has arrived already knowing they need to ask.

A worked example

A business worried about automated answers went through their pages sorting them into questions anybody could answer and questions requiring them.

Of eleven pages, three were general explanation and eight required a site visit, a quote, or a judgement.

The eight produced almost all of their enquiries and the three produced almost all of their traffic.

They stopped worrying about the three, added prices and a clearer contact route to the eight, and wrote two more in the same shape.

Enquiries rose and traffic fell slightly.

The exercise mostly relieved an anxiety that had been aimed at the wrong pages.

Publish the range anyway

Which sounds contradictory and is not.

Somebody who cannot get an exact price still wants to know whether they are in the right place, and a range does that.

Publishing it does not remove the need to call, since the exact figure still requires a visit.

It removes the enquiries from people for whom the answer was never going to work, which is a saving rather than a loss.

And it makes you the business that answered, which is worth a great deal when the alternative is four sites that would not.

Every argument in this area comes back to that.

Write down what only you can say

Since the protection is not automatic.

A trade site that publishes only general descriptions of its services has put itself in the exposed category by choice.

The protected material is the price range, the local requirement, the thing that goes wrong here specifically, and the judgement about when something is worth repairing.

All of that comes out of the invoices and the calls rather than from any research.

A business that has done that work is in a position nothing can summarise, and one that has not is competing on general explanation.

The listing carries more of this than the site

Worth remembering for a local trade.

A large share of these queries produce a set of local businesses rather than a set of pages.

What decides who appears there is proximity, reviews, and the completeness of the listing, none of which is about content at all.

So a trade worrying about answers being summarised should check its listing first, since that is where most of its unanswerable queries actually land.

Reviews in particular do more for this than any amount of writing, and they are the one asset nobody can assemble on your behalf.

Answer the question behind the question

A point about what somebody is actually asking when they type a general query.

How long does this take is rarely a request for a duration, it is somebody working out whether they need to take a day off, arrange access, or move out.

What does it cost is frequently somebody deciding whether to get it done at all this year.

Answering the surface question gives them a number; answering the underlying one gives them a decision, and only one of those requires knowing the customer.

Write the paragraph that addresses the decision, which is the part nothing summarising a set of pages can assemble.

The counter-case

Not every trade is safe.

Anything sold at a fixed price with no variation is closer to a product, and product questions are more answerable.

Advice-based businesses whose value is explanation are more exposed than ones whose value is doing the work.

And a tool that can book an appointment as well as answer a question changes this, which is a plausible direction.

Sort your pages by whether they need you, put the effort into those, publish ranges, and get the listing right.

The sort

  1. List your pages.
  2. Mark which need you to answer.
  3. Check which produce enquiries.
  4. Put the effort into those.
  5. Publish a range and what moves it.
  6. Make the next step obvious.
  7. Check the listing and the reviews.

Step three usually confirms that the pages producing your work are already the unanswerable ones, which is the finding that settles most of the anxiety in this subject.

What decides the local result is covered in what a local ranking depends on.

Frequently asked questions

Which questions need a business?

Anything depending on a specific site, current availability, seeing the thing, a judgement call, or a local requirement. And anything where somebody has to stand behind the answer.

Are most trade searches in that category?

Yes. Somebody searching for a plumber wants a person, not information. Somebody asking what a job costs wants a trustworthy range followed by somebody who will quote it.

What is underrated about this?

That a customer wants an answer from somebody who will be responsible for it being right, which is different from an answer that happens to be correct.

Should I publish a price range?

Yes. It does not remove the need to call, since the exact figure needs a visit. It removes enquiries that were never going to work and makes you the business that answered.

Is the protection automatic?

No. A site publishing only general descriptions has put itself in the exposed category by choice. The protected material comes out of your invoices and your calls.

Where do these queries actually land?

Frequently in a set of local businesses rather than pages, decided by proximity, reviews, and listing completeness. So check the listing before worrying about content.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Worried about answers being summarised?

Sort your pages by which need you to answer them. The ones producing your enquiries are usually already safe.

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