Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on your package. Presence ($199/mo) includes your website, Google Business Profile setup, and directory listings — your business exists and is findable. Growth ($499/mo) adds 2 blog posts per month and 8 social media posts published to your profiles. Authority ($900/mo) expands to 4 blog posts per month, a formal keyword strategy for your trade and service area, and a quarterly SEO review. Every package delivers finished, published content — not drafts sitting in a shared folder waiting for you to do something with them.

Both — and we think that's the right answer. We use AI-assisted tools to research, draft, and structure content efficiently. Every piece is then reviewed and revised by a human with knowledge of the Metro East Illinois market, your trade type, and the kind of language that resonates with local homeowners. We don't publish raw AI output. We publish content that sounds local, reads naturally, and is accurate to your service. The tools handle volume; the judgment handles quality.

Yes — we serve HVAC and heating companies, plumbers, roofers, auto detailers, electricians, landscapers, pressure washers, general contractors, pest control operators, and painters. The content we write varies significantly between trades: an HVAC post about furnace efficiency reads very differently from a roofing post about storm damage. We adjust tone, terminology, and topic to fit your trade, so the content sounds like it came from your business.

Your website goes live within the first week. The harder question is search rankings: content SEO takes time. Blog posts typically begin gaining traction in Google's index within 3–6 months, and compounding visibility builds over 6–12 months of consistent publishing. We don't promise specific timelines or ranking positions — anyone who does is guessing. What we can promise is consistent, quality content published every month, which is the prerequisite for any organic growth.

It depends on the package. On Presence, we can rebuild your existing site on a faster, cleaner platform or work with what you have if it's in reasonable shape. On Growth and Authority, we evaluate your current site during onboarding — if it's on a platform that makes regular content publishing difficult, we'll recommend rebuilding. If it's functional and modern, we can publish new blog content directly to it. We'll give you a clear recommendation after the discovery call with no obligation.

Minimally. We need one onboarding call — typically 30–45 minutes — to gather your business details, service offerings, tone preferences, and any topics you want us to focus on or avoid. After that, we handle everything: research, writing, design, scheduling, and publishing. You don't approve posts before they go out, you don't manage a content calendar, you don't send us monthly updates. If something changes — new services, new service area, address change — just let us know and we update accordingly.

We serve trades businesses across Metro East Illinois: Collinsville, Belleville, O'Fallon, Edwardsville, Fairview Heights, Shiloh, Glen Carbon, Troy, Highland, Hamel, Bethalto, and Maryville. If your business is in Madison or St. Clair County and your city isn't listed, reach out anyway — we may be able to serve you.

There's an initial 3-month commitment when you start. This is the minimum time needed to build your site, establish your content baseline, and begin seeing any meaningful output from the work. After the initial 3 months, billing is month-to-month with 30 days notice to cancel. We don't lock you in long-term — but we do ask for enough runway to actually do the work right.

A freelancer is one person — a writer, or a designer, or an SEO specialist. When you hire a freelancer, you're managing a person: giving direction, reviewing drafts, handling revisions, making sure they post it. Cornerstone is a system: keyword strategy, writing, design, publishing, and ongoing SEO rolled into one monthly subscription. You don't manage us. We deliver the output. If your freelance writer goes dark for a month, nothing gets published. With Cornerstone, the machine keeps running.

Emergency search intent is different from any other type of local search. When a homeowner's AC fails on a July night, they search, they call the first result that looks credible, and they book. There's no long consideration phase. That means the businesses that show up first get a disproportionate share of jobs — and consistently publishing content is the single most effective way to show up first. Trades owners also have the least time to do any marketing themselves. The business that has a great content presence is almost never the one that the owner built — it's the one that outsourced it.