Clarification for Direct Leads

Jason_Mayes

@DustiO or ANYONE...

I would like to know what are the requirements to show up for direct leads.

I mean... if I set my calendar for absolute zero availability for the next 2 months I will not show up for any searches... but if I adjust I start to show up again.

So I would like to know what are the requirements to show up for the direct leads

DustiO

@Jason_Mayes if you want to ensure that you do NOT show up, you'll want to use the "hide my business" feature (vs just blocking your calendar, as customers may choose the option to allow you to suggest other dates, which would override the availability, I believe).

To show up higher in search results you'll want to focus on the things that impact your ranking. If you check out your newly launched Performance page you'll be able to see how often you're ranking in the top 3 search results and then if you scroll down you'll see the various factors that impact that and how you compare to other pros. In a nutshell, I'd look at:

• Your response time — consider using quick replies (saved replies) if you aren't already doing that, as this is a great way to respond quickly even if you're on a job site. The data tells us that replying in less than an hour, or less than 10 minutes if possible, greatly increases that chances of being hired.
• Your review rating — you are able to have up to 10 reviews from outside Thumbtack on your profile, so that is a great tool to bump up your review rating, if you want to reach out to past clients or import reviews from Google. You can also go back and request reviews from Thumbtack clients who have not yet reviewed you.
  • Also great to respond to existing reviews
• Your max lead prices — another tool you can use to test out what works and doesn't work for you and your business. You can play around with your competitiveness level and see how it impacts your ranking and your leads.
• Always a great idea to add new photos, especially before and after photos if that is applicable in your category.
• Another pro recently suggested another interesting idea and that was to refresh your profile intro once a month using something like chatgpt, to mix it up and test what resonates more with customers (from @1_gold_hands, a handyman who has grown to 7 locations using Thumbtack)
• We also had a great pro panel at the recent Pro Summit where they had just a lot of great advice from their experience on Thumbtack - you can see the recap post here.

Hopefully some of this will help! If you have a chance, you should join our bi-weekly networking hour, CommuniTEA, where you could ask other pros for their insight/advice live over Zoom! There are also some on-demand webinars with some great information here.