There's no trick here. A local business website gets visitors because the address is printed in the places people look, and it converts because the page is clear. Everything else is a distant second.

Where the visitors actually come from

For a one-person trade, roughly in this order:

1. Your Google Business Profile. The biggest single source. Someone sees you on the map, taps the website link to check you out.
2. Your truck, your cards, your invoices. People look you up later. Later is a search.
3. Word of mouth. "Look him up, he's got a website" — and then they do.
4. A link from a supplier, a partner trade or a local directory.
5. Google search, eventually. Slow, and smaller than people expect for a one-page site.

Notice what's not on the list: social media campaigns, content marketing, paid ads. They can work. They're not where a plumber's first hundred visitors come from.

The five things to do this week

1. Put the link in your Google listing

The website field on your Business Profile. It's free, it's the highest-traffic link you'll ever have, and half the businesses who have websites forget to fill it in.

2. Print it on everything that already exists

Cards, invoices, estimates, the truck, the yard sign, the magnet. If you're reordering cards, add it. If you're not, write it on the back with a Sharpie — genuinely, that's what people do, and it works better than a card with no address.

3. Say it out loud

On the phone: "You can also find me at davesplowing.com, hours are on there." It's one sentence and it puts the address in someone's head. If your address is fastpages.online/daves-plowing, that's harder to say — which is a real argument for a domain, covered in what a domain is.

4. Link it from your Facebook page

The Website field, not a post that scrolls away. And from any other profile you keep — Nextdoor, a local directory, your email signature.

5. Get the page right for the arrival

Traffic is wasted if the page doesn't answer the question. Someone arrives from Google wanting to know: what do you do, do you come here, how much, how do I reach you. If the first screen doesn't answer at least two of those, they leave.

See what makes a good website — the five-second test is the whole thing.

What about search engines?

You'll rank for your own business name quickly — someone who heard about you and typed it in will find you. You may rank for "plumber plus your town," especially if there's not much competition.

You will not rank for "plumber plus the nearest big city" against companies with 40 pages and a marketing budget. That's not a failure; it's an unwinnable fight that isn't worth having.

What helps, honestly: naming the towns you serve in the text, a Google Business Profile with the same details, a few links from local sites, and a page that's fast on a phone. What doesn't: keyword-stuffed paragraphs, 30 thin pages, or "SEO packages."

Should you pay for ads?

Maybe, later. Google Ads on local searches can work when a job is worth $400 and a click costs $8 — that's a real business, if you answer the phone.

But do the free things first. Run for three months with a Google listing, a card and a page. Count where your calls come from — ask every caller "how'd you find me?" If the free channels are already filling your week, ads are unnecessary. If they aren't, ads won't fix a page that doesn't convert.

The honest measure

Ask every new customer how they found you. Keep a tally on a clipboard in the truck. After two months you'll know which channel matters, and it's usually not the one you expected.

That tally is worth more than any analytics dashboard, and it costs nothing.