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A homeowner who wants to repaint their living room or their façade is spoilt for choice. Quote platforms send them several names, national networks buy ads, and a neighbour offers to do it cash in hand. In all this noise, the painter based ten minutes away often goes unnoticed. I set up your Google Business Profile and your website so that people find you, and understand why they should call you.
15 years in SEO
4 books on SEO and GEO
200+ sites tracked every day
1M / month visits to my e-commerce site
They trusted me with their visibility
Darty
Eurofins
Cegid
EBP
CNP Assurances
Ingram MicroThree profiles without a single job
A homeowner in Cognac wants their shutters and façade repainted. They open the map. The three profiles shown have reviews, but no photos of work. Yours is fourth, with a vague description. Get it onto the map.
Fig. 1. A façade to repaint in Cognac, three profiles, no photo of a façade. (You had repainted the house opposite. Nothing on the profile said so.)
What this means for you. I complete your profile with your real jobs, your towns and dated photos, then set up a review request at each handover.
SEO for a painter and decorator is the work that makes a painting business visible on Google to the people and businesses in its area, at the moment they're looking for someone for an interior, a façade, shutters or premises. It combines a well-kept Google Business Profile, separate pages by type of work and jobs shown with their preparation. It is measured by the quote requests received directly, with no middleman.
The problem
Painting is a very crowded market, let's admit it. Matchmaking platforms, franchise networks, general contractors and recently registered sole traders compete for the same searches. The client sees twenty names and doesn't know which one employs real painters.
The client compares two totals first. Washing down, filling, skimming and undercoat don't show up in the total. If your website doesn't explain this preparation, you'll be judged on the amount, against someone who does less.
You have hundreds of photos of finished rooms. They're neither sorted nor published. The façade you redid last year, visible from the whole street, appears nowhere online. Your proof exists, but Google doesn't know about it.
An audit, for real
The site below doesn't exist, but its flaws do: they're the five I spot most often. Hover over a number.
Colours for your interior
Painting, decorating, wall coverings: careful work at a competitive price.
Free quote within 24 hoursFig. 2. Fictional site, reconstructed. Any resemblance to yours would be a good reason to call me.
What your customers type
The six searches below are realistic examples for a painting business. The audit of your area will give the real ones, ranked by number of searches.
What works
For a painter, the map brings in a large share of calls. I check the category, services and service area. I then show you how to add a dated photo at the end of each job. A regularly updated profile quickly stands out from those that haven't changed since they were created.
Interior painting, façades, woodwork and shutters, wallpaper, floors, business premises: these jobs have neither the same clients nor the same words. One page per family of work makes you visible for each, and lets you showcase the right jobs as examples.
It's what sets you apart from a cut-price quote, and almost no website talks about it. I get you to describe your steps in a few simple lines, with a photo of a wall before skimming. The reader understands what they're paying for, and why the result lasts.
“Very good work” tells nobody anything. A review that mentions the stairwell, deadlines being met and a clean site reassures the next reader. I prepare a message for you to send on handover day, suggesting what the client might talk about.
Managing agents, estate agencies, shopkeepers and local authorities order repeat jobs. They don't read the page aimed at private clients. A separate page presents your resources, your references of the same type and the person to contact.
What costs dearly
Interior, exterior, decorating and floors fit into one paragraph. Google doesn't know which search to show you for. The visitor who came for a façade doesn't find what concerns them and leaves.
A smooth white wall looks like every other white wall. The same wall, cracked three days earlier, tells the story of your trade. Publish the two images side by side as soon as you have them.
Offering a hundred shades to click fills the screen without saying anything about your business. The client will choose their colour with you. First they need to know whether you're reliable and available.
This phrase makes you look like every profile on a platform. Say what you do often, what you do well and what you turn down. A clear refusal inspires confidence.
The method
Four steps. The profile comes first, because its effects arrive before the website's.
One-minute test
Five frank questions to find out whether support makes sense in your situation. Sometimes the answer is no, and I'll tell you.
What it brings in
A ranking doesn't pay a salary. What counts is what it brings: enquiries, customers, revenue. Move your page up and see what it could bring in.
Example assumptions, open to challenge: 700 searches a month for a painter and decorator in your town, 4% of visitors make a request, one request in three signs (this varies a lot from one trade to another), €3,500 per client. Click-through rates by position are rough orders of magnitude, and they have been shifting since Google started showing AI answers above the results. Rerun the calculation with your own figures
Possible revenue€0
Close to home
In Charente, buildings are made of limestone, old renders and wooden shutters. In Angoulême and Cognac, people search for a painter with the name of the town or neighbourhood. In a small town like Barbezieux or Confolens, they type the name of the town and check how far you travel. Newp, the agency I co-founded, is based near Cognac.
High ceilings, cornicing, communal stairwells: Angoulême's historic centre has its apartment buildings and town houses. A page that shows this type of job and also addresses managing agents puts you in front of steady demand.
Cognac has its limestone façades and merchant houses, in town as well as along the river. Depending on the town and the street, rules may govern colours and materials. Say that you check the permission required by the town before starting.
Outside the towns, people look for a painter for exterior woodwork and outbuildings. Say how far you travel and from what size of job. You'll avoid pointless round trips.
Beyond Google
Questions put to AI are longer than those typed into Google. An example: “I need to repaint a living room with cracks in the ceiling in an old house in Angoulême, what kind of painter should I contact and what should the quote include?”. The AI explains the preparation needed, then sometimes suggests two or three businesses.
To cite one, it needs to read somewhere what that business actually does. A platform profile says “painting, all jobs”. Your website can say “crack repair, skimming, painting old ceilings in Angoulême”, with jobs to back it up. This precision lets it describe you, and that's what I work on with you.
Question asked to an AII'm looking for a painter to redo a living room with a cracked ceiling in an old house in Angoulême. Who should I contact?
Here are three leads, ranked by how precise the available information is:
Fig. 3. Reconstruction, names hidden. This is the spot we aim for: on the list, with the most precise description.
Three typical cases
Three imaginary examples, to give an idea of the first actions. None of them describes a real client.
His order book runs on word of mouth, but his clients are getting older and young homeowners don't know him.
It buys quotes from a platform and signs one in ten.
His website presents him as a general painter, and he mostly gets requests for quick refreshes.
In practice
Pricing
The fee depends on four things. I give you a precise amount after a free first thirty-minute conversation.
Fancy a game?
A brochure website that hasn't changed in ten years is a set of undead pages. Grab the piece, slide it into the slot, and watch them fall.
INSERT COINSLIDE THE COIN INTO THE SLOT
Fig. 4. Sixteen seconds. Five of the undead, including an article from 2014.
Together, let's devour your competitors.
One by one, and in order. Every spot gained makes the next one easier to take: that's why it keeps growing. See the method
Who you're talking to
My name is Kévin Papot. More than fifteen years in the job, four co-written books, and the Newp agency, co-founded in Charente. I also run my own online shops, in France and internationally: one of them went from zero to a million visits a month.
Before we talk tags, we talk margin, average basket and profitability. When you book a call, I'm the one who picks up.
FAQ
It's saturated with profiles that all look alike. Few painting businesses have a well-kept profile and a website that shows their jobs. I'm not promising you a ranking. I'm observing that the work to be done is known, limited and within reach of a small business.
Keep them while you build up your own enquiries. Some businesses keep them to fill quiet weeks. What matters is no longer depending on them and knowing what a signed job costs you through that channel.
By showing what the price includes. Describe your preparation, the number of coats, how you protect floors and the final clean. The client who only looks at the total was never yours. The one who has already had a bad experience will read you carefully.
I prefer an explanation to a figure. A cracked ceiling and a new wall have nothing in common. You can describe two or three typical jobs with how long they take, and invite people to book a visit for a quote.
Yes, if they are sharp, taken in daylight and framed the same way before and after. I give you a few simple guidelines. A real, decent picture beats a perfect one bought from a stock photo library.
Yes, with their exact title and expiry date. Business clients ask for them and homeowners use them to rule out shaky firms. You send me the documents; I don't add any on my side.
Depending on the town and the area, façade renovation may need permission. I suggest mentioning it in general terms and saying that you check this point with the client. The precise rules are for the town hall, not your website.
Yes, on the page for business clients. Subcontracting shows that other people in the trade trust you. Just keep it separate from the pages for homeowners, who have different questions.
They show your jobs well, but your posts drop out of the feed within days and don't answer a Google search. Post there if you enjoy it. The same photos, organised on your website, keep working for years.
Changes to the Google Business Profile often show within the first few months. Website pages climb more slowly. I don't commit to any timeframe. You get the figures every month and decide whether to carry on.
See also
30 minutes · video call · with me
Together we look at where you stand on Google and in AI, and what should change first.
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