Every Zome growth guide in one place

This page is the map. Every guide on the site is listed below, grouped by the goal it helps with, with one line on what you'll get from it. Skim to the goal that matches the problem on your desk this week, read one or two pieces and put something into practice before you come back for more.

Where to start

If you're not sure which section fits, find the sentence that sounds most like your business right now.

If this sounds like you	Start with
"The phone isn't ringing enough."	How to get more jobs: 21 ideas for home service businesses
"People find us, but they don't call."	How to build a contractor website that books jobs
"We get calls but lose the job to someone else."	How homeowners choose a contractor today
"We're busy, but the money isn't there."	How to work out your real profit margin, and raise it
"The slow season hurts every year."	How to build a maintenance membership program
"Our software is a mess of logins."	The home service tech stack
"I'm just getting started."	What it takes to start a home service business

Get found on Google

Most home service jobs start with a local search. These guides cover how to show up when someone nearby needs you.

The home service SEO bible: Everything about getting found on Google in plain English, with a 90-day plan you can start this week.
Google Maps ranking guide: What actually moves you up the map results, and the shortcuts that get profiles suspended.
Google Business Profile tips: A list of things to set up, fix and keep doing on the profile many customers see before your website.
Google Business Profile checklist: A printable list to check your profile against, field by field.
How to write your Google Business Profile description: A simple formula, the rules to stay inside and examples you can adapt for your trade.
SEO for home service businesses: How to show up when people nearby search for your services, with a 90-day plan and the mistakes to avoid.
Local SEO for plumbers: A plumber-specific, step-by-step plan for showing up in the map results and the first few links.
Plumber SEO guide: The in-depth version for plumbing companies, from drain cleaning and water heater pages to the middle-of-the-night burst-pipe call.

Build a website that books jobs

Your website's job is to turn a visitor into a call, a booking or a quote request. These guides show how.

How to build a contractor website that books jobs: Page by page, how to turn a stressed homeowner on a phone into a call or a booking.
Contractor website design: 15 details that win jobs: Fifteen details that make it easy to call, plus a quick self-test for your own site.
High-converting contractor websites: The long-form guide to turning website visitors into calls and booked work.
Home service website ideas worth stealing: Ideas from service business websites that you can copy one at a time.
What the best plumbing websites have in common: The traits plumbing sites that book jobs share, from a tappable number to straight answers about price.
Website builders for contractors compared: The common ways to get a contractor website built, who each suits and what to check before you commit.
How to add online booking to your website: How to choose the right jobs for online booking and keep your schedule under your control.
A service page that earns the next click: How to name the job, show real work, spell out where you go and make the next step obvious.
Get the context before the callback: How to ask what the job is, where it is and how urgent it feels, without scaring customers away.

Get more calls and leads

How to plan your marketing, where paid leads come from and which channels fit which kind of work.

Home service marketing: the complete guide: The whole system on one page, from getting found to winning the job to keeping the customer.
How to write a marketing plan for your home service business: A one-page plan you can fill in over a weekend, with a worked example and a seasonal calendar by trade.
50 marketing ideas for home service businesses: Fifty practical ideas, grouped so you can pick three and start this week.
How to get more jobs: 21 ideas for home service businesses: Twenty-one ideas grouped by where your jobs leak, with steps and scripts for each.
Digital marketing for contractors: where to start: The short list of what to do first online, in order, and how to tell whether it's working.
A plumbing marketing strategy for a small crew: Pick the jobs you want, stop losing the calls you already get and spend a few focused hours a week.
HVAC advertising ideas that still work: Ways to advertise a heating and cooling company, from search ads to equipment stickers, and how to tell which pay.
Seasonal promotion ideas for home services: Ideas for every season and trade, a quick check on any discount and a month-by-month calendar.
Seasonal promotions checklist: A printable plan for running promotions through the year.
Marketing checklist: A printable checklist of the marketing basics every service business needs.
Mobile marketing for home service businesses: How to make every step of your marketing work for a customer on a small screen.
Local Services Ads vs Google Ads: How pay-per-lead and pay-per-click compare, who each suits and how to run them well.
Angi, Thumbtack, Yelp and Google: where paid leads come from: How paid lead sources charge and share leads, and what to ask before you sign.
Lead marketplaces vs your own website: Renting leads this week versus building a channel that fills your schedule for years, and how to choose your mix.

How homeowners recognize and remember you, on the road and online.

Branding for home service businesses: trucks, uniforms and trust: How to answer "can I trust these people?" everywhere a homeowner sees you.
150 slogans for home service businesses: Original slogan ideas for ten trades, grouped by message, with simple tests for choosing one.
Social media for contractors: A simple social media plan that fits into about half an hour a week.
Instagram for contractors: a practical guide: How to use Instagram well in about an hour a week, so people remember you.
97 Instagram captions for home service businesses: Captions for introductions, before-and-afters, tips, thank-yous, seasons and open spots.
97 Instagram captions for plumbers: Captions for before-and-afters, emergency calls, water heaters, drains, seasonal tips and team posts.
97 Instagram captions for HVAC companies: Captions for no-cool calls, no-heat nights, tune-up season, new installs and maintenance plans.
97 Instagram captions for landscapers: Captions for cleanups, mowing, leaves, snow, patios, planting, irrigation and your crew.

Win the job

Getting the lead is half of it. These guides are about turning the call or the estimate into booked work.

How homeowners choose a contractor today: How homeowners weigh speed, trust and clarity at each step, and how to show up well at every one.
How to raise your average ticket without being pushy: Find more of what the customer already needs and make it easy to say yes or no.
Good, better, best: how option pricing works for service businesses: How to build three honest options, with example tables for several trades.
How to win commercial contracts and property managers: How commercial clients buy, how to get vendor-ready and why the first work order is your real pitch.

Price every job to make money

Prices that cover your costs, win work and leave a profit. Start with your hourly rate, then build up.

How to price your services: How to build prices from your own costs, step by step, instead of copying a competitor.
Service pricing guide: The long-form guide to a service menu with prices you can defend, clear options and useful add-ons.
How to calculate your billable hourly rate: The step-by-step math for a rate that comes from your own costs, with a worked example.
Job costing: how to price every job profitably: How to find out what a job really cost, with a worked example you can copy.
Job costing calculator: Enter your costs and target margin to see your break-even cost and the price you need.
How to build a price book your team will actually use: Build a price book from your real jobs that techs trust and customers understand.
Service price list examples by trade: Example price list layouts for ten trades, and a method for setting your own numbers.

Keep customers coming back

A customer who already trusts you is the easiest job you'll ever win. These guides cover the follow-up.

Customer retention for home service businesses: A simple system, trade by trade, for keeping customers, with word-for-word scripts for every stage.
How to build a maintenance membership program: Design, price, sell and run a membership that fills slow seasons.
Ask for reviews without filtering the truth: Timing, wording, replies and the rules that keep your profile safe when you ask every customer.
Email marketing for home service businesses: How to stay in touch by email without being annoying, with templates for your trade.
Text message marketing for home services, done right: Getting permission, handling opt-outs and sending seasonal texts customers are glad to get.
Customer portals for home service businesses: When a customer portal is worth it, what to put in it first and how to get people using it.
Does your service business need its own app?: When a branded customer app helps a service business, and what to set up instead when it doesn't.

Choose the right software

What each kind of software does, how it's priced and how to pick and switch without chaos.

The home service tech stack: A map of the tools that run a service business, what you need at each size and a one-afternoon audit.
What is field service management software?: What the software that runs the path from phone call to paid invoice covers, and when a small shop needs it.
How to choose field service software: Start with how your jobs actually run, then make every vendor prove they fit.
Business management software for contractors: The types of software a contracting business uses, and what you need at your size.
Do you need a CRM? A plain-English guide: How to tell whether you need a CRM, which kind fits and how to get your team using it.
The apps a busy contractor actually needs: The handful of apps that cover calls, scheduling, quotes, payments, books and reviews.
Field apps for plumbers: what matters on the job: How to judge a field app where it counts: in a crawl space, with wet gloves and a customer waiting.
Scheduling and dispatch for HVAC companies: Set up call types, capacity and triage rules, then pick software that handles your worst day.
Online booking software for home services: what to look for: What to check, how to test it and which jobs to keep off the booking page.
Marketing tools for contractors: The marketing tools that matter, when to add each one and which to skip for now.
All-in-one platform or best-of-breed tools?: How both approaches work, who each suits and a simple test for your business.
How field service software is priced: The common pricing models and how to compare two quotes fairly.
What to budget for field service software: Every cost line to plan for and a formula for your first-year total.
How to switch software without losing a week: A week-by-week plan, the data you can't forget and the mistakes that cost owners days.

Get paid and keep the books

Faster payment, lower fees and books your accountant can work with.

How to choose a payment app for your service business: How to compare payment apps for on-the-spot payments, deposits and big tickets.
Payment processing options for contractors: Card readers, invoice links, bank transfers, financing and built-in payments, and how to choose your mix.
Credit card processing fees, explained: Where card fees come from, how to read your statement and how to handle the cost.
Invoicing for cleaning businesses: get paid faster: Set up billing properly once so most of the payment chasing goes away.
Bookkeeping basics for contractors: A plain-English bookkeeping system for a trade business, to set up with your accountant.

Know your numbers

What to measure, how to work it out and what the numbers are telling you.

How to work out your real profit margin, and raise it: How to calculate what you actually keep, find the leaks and fix them.
The numbers every home service business should track: The core numbers, each with a formula and a worked example, plus a weekly scorecard.
Marketing analytics: which calls came from where: A simple way to trace every call back to the marketing that produced it.
Sample AI report walkthrough: What the free AI report checks and how to read it, using an example report for a made-up plumbing company.

Start, plan and grow

For owners launching a business, writing a plan or building a team.

What it takes to start a home service business: What to have in place, plan for and learn before your first paid call.
How to write a business plan for a home service company: The outline for a short, useful plan and how to fill it in.
Business plan template: Ten sections, each with what to write, a checklist and example wording you can adapt.
How to grow a home service business: Growth can mean more profit, more trucks or more time off. Here's the order to work in for each.
Why home service businesses fail, and how to avoid it: The money, time and systems problems that close trade businesses, and the warning signs months ahead.
Hiring technicians guide: A repeatable hiring system, from the job post and screening questions to the first 30 days.

Keep an eye on what's changing

Where the industry is heading, and how to use new tools without buying the hype.

Home service trends to watch: What's changing in how homeowners find, book and pay for home services, with a first move for each trend.
AI for home service businesses: what's real and what's hype: What AI does well and badly for the trades today, with a test plan and prompts to try.
100 AI prompts for home service businesses: Copy-and-fill prompts grouped by the jobs owners do every week.

See it applied to a real type of business

The example playbooks take the ideas above and lay them out as a plan for a typical business in each trade, from a two-truck plumber who wants the midnight calls to a new service business launching from zero. They're clearly labeled examples, not customer stories.

Not sure which goal matters most for your business right now? The free AI report from Zome checks your Google profile, website and reviews and points to the gaps worth fixing first.