What's in the quarterly snapshot?
The snapshot covers five things, on a few pages, for your field in the towns you serve.
Who ranks on Google Maps
For your main searches, such as "AC repair Phoenix" or "plumber Columbus," we record which companies show up in the map results and roughly where you sit among them. Maps results change with the searcher's location, so we check from several points in your service area instead of trusting one search from one spot.
Who AI tools name
We ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google's AI Overviews the questions your customers ask, the same set your AI search optimization tracking uses. The snapshot shows which competitors get named most often, and which pages, listings, or review sites the answers seem to lean on.
Reviews: how many, and how fast
The competitor to watch is often the one with 90 reviews that added 40 of them this quarter, more than the one sitting on 400. We log each competitor's review count, average rating, and how many new reviews they picked up since the last snapshot, plus whether they reply. Recent reviews carry a lot of weight with customers, so pace matters more than the lifetime total. That's what the review service is built to win.
What they sell and how they sell it
We note the services each competitor puts front and center, the specials and financing they advertise, their guarantees, and whether they promise 24/7 service. If three of your competitors are all pushing a maintenance plan and you're not, you'll know.
Where they're weak
We look for thin websites, profiles that haven't been touched in a year, unanswered bad reviews, missing service areas, and towns where they have no presence at all. Gaps like these are usually the cheapest places for you to gain ground.
What do you do with it?
Each snapshot ends with a short list of moves, ranked by what's likely to matter most for the least effort. Usually that's things like a service page you're missing, a town to add to your service area and your site, a category fix on your Google profile, or a push on reviews in the slow season. We fold those into the local SEO and blog content work for the next quarter, so the research turns into actual changes instead of a PDF nobody opens.
What it won't tell you
It won't tell you a competitor's revenue, call volume, or ad budget. That information isn't public, and any report claiming to know it is guessing. It also won't promise you'll pass anyone by a certain date. It tells you where you stand, who's moving, and what to work on.
Pricing
Competitor research is usually included with local SEO and AI search work in one flat monthly price, quoted on a 15-minute call, month to month. See pricing. And when the research says you're winning more calls, the AI receptionist makes sure they get answered.