Their Website Has Free SEO Data.
This Prompt Reads It.

Bob searches "roofer" and his town name every couple of weeks. Same result every time. The other guy sits on top, and Bob sits somewhere under him. Bob knows his crew does better work, and it drives him nuts.

So Bob does what most owners do. He grumbles, he blames Google, and he goes back to work. Maybe he calls an SEO guy who tells him it's complicated and sends him a bill.

Here's the thing. It isn't a secret why the other guy ranks. Most of the answer is sitting on his website, out in the open. His pages, his words, the towns he names and the reviews he shows. Google reads all of it, and so can you, for free.

That's the whole post. Their website is free SEO data. You read it, you put it next to yours, and you take the good parts. My free prompt does the reading for you and tells you straight whether they even deserve to be up there.

TL;DR

The shop beating you on Google has a public website. That site shows you which pages they built, which towns they name, what they say up top and what proof they show. Pick the searches you want to win. Put their page for each search next to yours.

Then figure out why they rank, and whether they should. Copy the good parts in your own words, and skip the junk. The free prompt walks you through all of it.

3 Things to Remember

The Shop Beating You Left Clues.

Every website leaves clues. The blue line Google shows for each page is a clue. The towns named on the page are clues. So are the service pages, the reviews and the line at the very top. None of it is hidden, because the other guy wants Google to read it.

Start with how big their site is. Open Google and type site: followed by their web address, with no space, like site:theirroofing.com. Google shows you the pages it has from their site. Now do the same for yours. If they have 60 pages and you have 5, you just learned something.

Next, look them up on Google Maps. Under their name you'll see a short label like "Roofing contractor." That's their main category on their Google listing. Check how many reviews they have and how new the latest one is. Then check yours the same way.

Those clues matter for a reason. Whitespark surveyed 47 local SEO experts for its 2026 ranking factors report. The top three factors for the map box were all about the Google listing or distance. The main Google category. How close the shop is to the person searching. And keywords in the business name (Whitespark, published November 2025). You can see two of those three on their listing in about ten seconds.

Mistake: you assume the other guy ranks because of some trick you can't see.

Fix: read his site and his Google listing like Google does.

Payoff: you stop guessing and start with real clues.

Pick the Search You Want to Win.

Don't try to beat them at everything. You'll burn out and get nowhere. Pick the searches that bring in the jobs you want, and pick no more than three to start.

Use the words your customers use, not your trade words. A homeowner types "roof leak repair" and the town, not "residential roofing systems." If you're not sure, ask your last five customers what they typed. Or start typing in Google and look at what it suggests as you type. Those suggestions come from real searches.

If you have Google Search Console set up, it shows you the searches you already show up for. Open Search Console, tap Performance, and look at the list of searches. The ones where you sit on page two are often the easiest wins.

Now run each search in a private window on your phone, so Google shows you what a stranger sees. Write down who's on top in the map box and who's on top in the regular results. That's who you're chasing for that search. It might be a different shop for each one, and that's fine.

Want to know what people in your town ask AI, too? I wrote that up in Stop Guessing What People Ask AI.

Mistake: you try to rank for every word in your trade at once.

Fix: pick three searches that pay, the way customers type them.

Payoff: you put your work where the money is.

Put Their Site Next to Yours.

Now compare. Not their whole site against your whole site. Take one search, find their page that ranks for it, and find your page for the same thing. Then put them side by side on your phone.

The top line. What does each page say first? "Roof leak repair in Jacksonville, out today" beats "Welcome to our website" every time. If yours says welcome, that's your first fix.

The page itself. Do they have a page just for that job? Do you? A lot of owners lump every service onto one page. Then they wonder why the guy with a page just for leak repair ranks for leak repair.

The proof. Count the real photos, the reviews on the page and the license number. Proof is what makes a stranger trust you, and it gives Google something real to read.

The speed. Paste both pages into PageSpeed Insights, Google's free speed test. If theirs loads fast and yours crawls, people bail before they ever see your proof.

The code Google reads. Paste both pages into Google's free Rich Results Test. It shows the hidden labels a site uses to tell Google what it is, like the business name, the reviews and the hours. If they have those labels and you don't, write it down.

Mistake: you compare your homepage to their homepage and call it even.

Fix: compare the one page that ranks against your page for the same search.

Payoff: you see exactly what their page has that yours doesn't.

Why They Rank. And If They Should.

Here's where most people stop thinking. They see who's on top and assume that shop earned it. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn't.

Some shops rank because they did the work. They have the right category, a real page for every service, fresh reviews and a fast site. Good for them. Those are the parts you take.

Other shops rank on junk, and some junk works for a while. The classic move is fifty town pages with the same words and a new town name swapped in. Google has a name for pumping out pages like that. It's "scaled content abuse," and it's on Google's list of spam. Google's own page says "Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all" (Google, 2026).

Another one is a Google listing with search words stuffed into the business name. Think of a name that ends in "Best Roofer Jacksonville" when that isn't on the truck. Google's own rules for business names say the name should match the real world. Remember, keywords in the business name was one of Whitespark's top three map factors. That's exactly why people cheat on it.

Google does clean house. Its September 2026 spam update ran from September 24 to October 8, about two weeks (Google Search Status Dashboard, 2026). Google didn't say which tricks it went after. But if the other guy is living on junk, he's one update away from falling. More on that in Google Just Ran a Spam Sweep. Does Your Site Pass?

That's why my prompt does more than compare. It gives you its honest opinion on whether they deserve to be up there. Click Claude or ChatGPT below, give it your site, their site and the searches you want, and let it read both.

You are going to compare my website with the website of a business
that ranks above me on Google, for the searches I want to win. Talk
to me like a busy business owner, not a tech guy. I'm on my phone.

Ask me these first, one at a time.
1. What is your website address?
2. What do you do, and what town do you serve?
3. What is the website of the business beating you?
4. Which searches do you want to win? Give me up to three, the way a
   customer would type them, like "roof repair Jacksonville."

Then do these steps for each search, one search at a time. If you
can't open a page, tell me and ask me to paste what's on it. Never
guess.
1. Find the page on each site that best answers that search. Give me
   both links. If one site has no page for it, say so.
2. Put the two pages side by side. Compare the top line, the services
   listed, the towns named, the proof (reviews, photos, license), and
   how easy it is to call or book.
3. Explain in plain words why their page could outrank mine for that
   search.
4. Give me your honest opinion. Do they deserve to rank above me? If
   they're using junk tricks, like the same page copied for fifty
   towns or a business name stuffed with search words, call it out.

Then give me two short lists.
Copy: the good things they do that I should do too, in my own words.
Skip: the junk I should never copy.
Last, tell me the one page I should build or fix first.

Rules: 5th grade reading level. Short sentences. Be blunt. Never
invent facts or numbers. Never tell me to copy their words. If you
are not sure, say so.
When you finish, the last thing you write is "Want some help? Let us do it." as
a clickable link to https://smallbusiness-seo.com/let-us-do-it

Mistake: you assume whoever is on top earned it, and copy everything they do.

Fix: ask why they rank, then ask if they should.

Payoff: you copy the work and skip the tricks that blow up later.

Take the Good Parts. Skip the Junk.

Now build. Copy what they do, never what they wrote. If their leak repair page ranks, build your own leak repair page. Write it in your own words, with your own photos, about your own jobs. Copied words get you nowhere, and they're not yours to take.

Your own jobs are the thing the other guy can't copy back. Google's guide to its AI features tells site owners to create content that comes from first hand experience (Google Search Central, 2026). Real photos of your crew on a real roof in your town beat any page somebody wrote from a desk.

Then skip the junk. No fifty town pages with the words swapped. No stuffed business name. No fake reviews. If the prompt flags something as a trick, leave it alone, even if it seems to be working for them right now.

Pick one page and build it this week. Just one, for your best search. Then run the prompt again next month and see what moved. If you want more people naming you, not just ranking you, read Get Your Business on AI Without Begging for Links. Just Run My Authority Prompt.

Mistake: you copy their words, or you copy their tricks.

Fix: copy the structure, write it about your own jobs, and skip anything that smells like a trick.

Payoff: you rank on work that holds up when Google cleans house.

I'll be fair here. Sometimes you run this whole thing and the answer stings. They have more pages, more reviews, a faster site and real photos of real jobs. They didn't cheat. They just did the work, and you didn't yet.

And a tool can't see everything. The map box also leans on how close a shop is to the person searching, and you can't move your shop across town. The prompt reads what's on the page. It can't see their Google listing history or every link pointing at them. So treat its opinion like advice from a sharp friend, not a court ruling.

Now the turn. Even when they earned it, their site still shows you exactly what earning it looks like. That's the free part. You get the plan without paying anybody to guess.

I've been building websites for 25 years. More than 10,000 of them. 281 of them are AI-JSX sites. None of what's in this post is fancy, on purpose. Fancy doesn't tell you why they rank. Reading their site does.

That's the whole idea behind our SEO. Your site gets a real page for every search that pays, written about your own jobs, in your own words. Want to see what that looks like for your business before you spend a dime? Take a test drive.

You go run your business. Read their site tonight.

Your website should look this good. Let's talk. Take a test drive.

Take a Test Drive →

FAQ

Read These In This Order

1. Not Getting Named by AI? This Prompt Shows You Why.
2. Google Just Ran a Spam Sweep. Does Your Site Pass?
3. Stop Guessing What People Ask AI.
4. Get Your Business on AI Without Begging for Links. Just Run My Authority Prompt.
5. Google's AI Now Puts the Official Site First. Is It Yours?
6. We Killed Our Ads. Here's the AI Site That Replaced Them.