Episode Guest: Wyatt Bonicelli, Founder of Evolve Agency
In this episode, I sit down with Wyatt Bonicelli, founder of Evolve Agency in Edmond, Oklahoma on the Unscripted SEO Podcast by Be Sharp Digital Marketing. Wyatt is an engineer turned marketer who has built a niche helping home service contractors—window cleaners, roofers, renovation professionals—transition from relying solely on word-of-mouth to generating consistent leads through organic search.
What I appreciated about this conversation was how grounded everything was. No abstract theories about “brand building” or vague content strategy talk. Just practical tactics that service business owners can implement this week.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify →
Read Wyatt’s complete recap with all the details →
Why Home Service Contractors?
Wyatt’s path into this niche started organically—helping people he knew from church who were already working in the trades. He was exploring the rank and rent model when he realized he could simply help these guys directly.
The insight that drives his work: when someone gets recommended a contractor and that contractor has zero web presence—no reviews, no website explaining what they do and where—it’s harder to trust them with a big check. In an era where the vast majority of homeowners research local businesses online before making a decision, that invisible presence costs real money.
His approach meets contractors where they are. Most can’t invest $3,000+ in a website upfront. So Wyatt offers a lower-ticket website as an entry point, with SEO services and Meta ads as natural upsells once the foundation is in place.
The Google Business Profile Challenge
We spent a good chunk of time discussing Google Business Profile optimization for service-area businesses—the ones without a traditional storefront.
The reality is stark: if you don’t have a physical address to verify, you’re structurally disadvantaged in the local map pack. Wyatt shared that one of his clients had an average Google Maps ranking of 99—essentially invisible.
His advice? Play the long game. Push clients toward getting a service area Google Business Profile even without address verification, because it gives them somewhere to gather reviews. Those reviews build credibility even if map pack placement isn’t optimal yet. And once the business grows enough to justify a small rental space, that verified address unlocks significant visibility gains.
The key is getting all the Google properties talking to each other—embedding the profile on the website, maintaining consistent NAP information, building that ecosystem of signals that establishes the business as legitimate and local.
Location Pages: How Many Is Too Many?
This came up because my friend Michael McDougald of Right Thing Agency had recently asked me this question. The context was a client doing precast concrete walls across multiple states who wanted to target specific cities with location pages.
For anyone who wasn’t doing SEO in 2012, Google used to call these “doorway pages” and would penalize sites that had too many. But somewhere around 2020, location pages became accepted practice again.
Wyatt’s approach: start slow. It’s like building topical authority—you don’t publish 3,000 blog posts at once because that looks like spam. Start with one page per state or major city, watch how Google Search Console responds, and if impressions trend up, drip in more pages.
The tactical gem here: prioritize high-value neighborhoods first. In Oklahoma, Wyatt would target Nichols Hills (an affluent area) before going broad with greater Oklahoma City. You’re not just chasing search volume—you’re targeting the searches that lead to profitable work.
My recommendation was similar: make state-level pages, target three major metros per state, then two or three top cities under each metro. Build hub-and-spoke internal linking where regions link to their subordinate cities and regions link to each other—but don’t try to link unrelated geographic areas just for the sake of passing authority.
The Internal Linking Problem
One of Wyatt’s most quotable moments: “Any page on your website that doesn’t have a link internally or externally—it’s probably not going to get indexed.”
His rule of thumb: you should be able to navigate to every page on your site within two clicks from the homepage. If you DIY’d your own website, go back and check. Your homepage passes the most PageRank—if a page requires four or five clicks to reach, you’re signaling to Google that it’s not important.
This is fundamental stuff, but I constantly see contractor websites with orphan pages—service descriptions, location content, blog posts—that have zero internal links pointing to them. If Googlebot can’t find it, it essentially doesn’t exist.
Link Building: Sponsorships and ChatGPT Queries
When I asked about link building tactics, Wyatt shared a method he’s used with clients ranging from indoor golf simulator facilities to window cleaning operations.
The approach: use ChatGPT to develop advanced Google queries for finding local sponsorships and business partnerships. Search for terms like “sponsor,” “business partnership,” “corporate sponsors” combined with your city or state. Reach out to what you find, ask about pricing. Even smaller sponsorships often include a link from their homepage or event page—just make sure those pages are actually indexable.
I mentioned the Zip Sprout Local Sponsor Finder tool, which automates exactly this process through their maintained database and Google crawls.
We also discussed community cleanup events as a link building strategy—setting up local trash cleanups, submitting to event aggregator sites like Eventbrite, and using those events as fodder for press releases. You can release “Top Three Green Companies Cleaning Up X Community,” list your client at the top alongside two other companies who’ve done similar cleanups, and get third-party coverage that cites your client without looking self-promotional.
The AI visibility angle here is interesting too. Wyatt noted that Copilot, Gemini, and ChatGPT are remarkably fast at indexing events. He’s posted Eventbrite listings and been able to query AI tools about upcoming events within 15 minutes—and they find and reference those listings. It’s a nice bonus for building the kind of entity signals that matter in AI search.
The Noindex Horror Story
Every SEO has one of these. One of Wyatt’s window cleaning clients came to him with what looked like a solid website—nice hero section, video of the owner squeegeeing windows, professional appearance.
First thing Wyatt checked: the site had the noindex tag on. For years. People were already searching the brand name—branded searches were happening—but Google couldn’t see the site at all.
Easy mistake for someone who’s a window cleaner, not an SEO. But it’s a reminder: before you spend any money on marketing, verify that Google can actually see your site.
I shared my own version: a massive website cited by NASA, mentioned in the New York Times and LA Times, hundreds of links—and the director of programming had no-followed everything except the homepage. Why? “I thought it was a good idea.” No further explanation available.
The Gift Card Referral System
This was one of the most creative offline tactics from our conversation—Wyatt credits Steve Hunziker on YouTube for the framework.
The system: give every completed customer three gift cards (say, $50 off each). On the back, it says “gifted by” with a space for them to write their name. They hand those cards out to friends, family, whoever. When a card gets redeemed, the original customer gets a thank-you gift card—Chick-fil-A, Amazon, whatever makes sense.
Think about what this creates: the customer looks generous (giving away something valuable), the new lead has built-in friction reduction (a real discount), and the original customer has incentive to actively distribute the cards (they get rewarded for redemptions).
Set the gift card amount to whatever your normal cost per acquisition is. If a lead normally costs $100, make it $100 off. They’ll move those cards fast.
It’s essentially a built-in affiliate program where all parties benefit.
LLMs and Local SEO: Are We in a Bubble?
I asked Wyatt about the impact of ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other AI tools on local SEO. His answer was refreshingly grounded.
For local home services, LLMs haven’t taken over yet. Google owns all the Business Profile data—they have a structural advantage. When you can get a physical address verified, that still goes a long way.
But here’s the insight that stuck with me: we’re in a bubble. We assume everyone uses AI tools the way we do. But the average homeowner—especially a generation or two older—isn’t logging into Perplexity to find a window cleaner. They’re Googling “window cleaning near me” and clicking the map.
This aligns with what Kyle Bailey shared in our conversation about local SEO for home services—the fundamentals still matter most for local businesses targeting local customers. As Chuck McHenry recently noted, old-school SEO tactics are actually dominating local search again.
That said, Wyatt is watching the space. LLMs will matter more over time. But right now, for home services, the priority is still getting that GMB verified and building out local and organic SEO.
Meta Ads: Building Trust Before the Knock
Wyatt packages Meta ads with his SEO services to help clients get immediate results while organic builds momentum. But the way he uses those ads is particularly smart.
The owner intro format—a talking-head video with the business owner in branded gear, ideally in front of a recognizable local landmark—does double duty. It generates leads directly, but more importantly, it builds familiarity for other channels.
One of his clients ran owner intro ads at $10/day, targeting affluent neighborhoods. A few days later, he went door knocking in those same areas. People answered like, “Hey, I saw your ad already!” They signed up on the spot because they already trusted him.
The ad doesn’t need to convert directly. It just needs to create recognition so that when the contractor shows up in person—or when someone searches for their business—they’re not a stranger.
The Lead Follow-Up Problem
Here’s a stat that should terrify every service business owner: a study of about 200 home service businesses found that 90% of service calls were never returned at all. Only 4% made it to a live agent.
Meanwhile, a Harvard study found you’re 400% more likely to convert if you call back within five minutes.
Wyatt has made this central to his client onboarding: don’t even consider running Meta ads if you’re not willing to double text, triple text, double call people. The ads interrupt people while they’re scrolling—they fill out a form and immediately forget about you. If you don’t call back within minutes, you’ve wasted the ad spend.
His coaching: don’t feel like you’re bothering them. They raised their hand. They contacted you. They said yes, please reach out. Some people don’t convert until the fourth or fifth touch point. Keep at it.
For small operations where the owner can’t always answer, Wyatt builds automations—missed calls trigger emails or texts to the owner’s spouse or a backup line. The worst outcome is paying for leads that go straight down the toilet because nobody picked up the phone.
Quick Wins: Low-Hanging Fruit for This Week
I asked Wyatt for the easiest things a service business owner could do right now to improve their marketing.
Car magnets: You’re driving your work vehicle around all day. If it doesn’t have at least a magnet with your name, what you do, and a phone number or QR code, you’re missing out on a free billboard. $50-60 on Amazon for a 2×3 magnet.
A-frame sandwich boards: Get your branding on one, put it out on the street while you’re servicing a job. Wyatt gets texts weekly from clients: “Just got a lead from the A-frame.” That’s a $250-300 one-time investment that pays for itself on the first call.
Door hangers with the neighbor’s name: Leave hangers on the nearest 10-15 homes. Write the person’s name: “Hey, just serviced your neighbor John, use his name for a $75 discount.”
The philosophy: let’s turn one lead into more. Let’s try to get three or four out of every one. That pyramid keeps growing.
Chamber of Commerce: You get a solid SEO bump from joining. But Wyatt adds nuance—the closest city chamber isn’t always the best option. They might be smaller or newer. Evaluate chambers across nearby cities to find the one with the strongest domain authority and member directory.
The Google Maps Driving Directions Hack
Wyatt closed with a tactic I hadn’t heard before—a way to send daily trust signals to Google if you have a physical business location.
Before driving to work: hit airplane mode on your phone, wait 15 seconds, turn airplane mode off, turn off Wi-Fi. Go to Google Maps, search your primary keyword, click on your business (scroll if needed), take the driving directions, and drive to work. Turn it off when you arrive.
The airplane mode toggle resets your IP address, so you appear as a fresh user each time. If you and three employees do this daily, you’re sending consistent signals that real people are traveling to your business location.
Is this the most important SEO tactic? No. But it’s the kind of consistent small action that compounds over time.
Listen to the Full Episode
Connect with Wyatt Bonicelli
- Website: EvolveAgencyOK.com
- LinkedIn: Wyatt Bonicelli
- Location: Edmond, Oklahoma
Wyatt specializes in SEO for home service contractors, including roofers and local service businesses. His agency focuses on getting businesses from word-of-mouth only to generating leads through organic search.
About the Unscripted SEO Podcast
The Unscripted SEO Podcast features conversations with SEO practitioners, agency owners, and digital marketers about what’s actually working right now. No scripts, no fluff—just real tactics from people doing the work.
Hosted by Jeremy Rivera, founder of SEO Arcade, with 19+ years of experience in SEO and digital marketing.
