Online marketing for Vancouver small businesses and trades, one neighbourhood at a time

Vancouver is 22 small markets, not one big one

The City of Vancouver officially divides itself into 22 local planning areas, and a person searching from a Marpole basement suite does not see the same map results as someone searching from a Kitsilano character house. Google says local results weigh relevance, distance and prominence, so distance from the searcher matters a great deal.

For a small business that is good news. You don't have to beat every competitor in a city of 662,248 people (2021 Census). You have to be the obvious, credible choice in the handful of areas where your customers already are, and then widen the circle as your reviews and pages earn it.

A city of renters changes who you are marketing to

Here is a fact that surprises many owners who moved here from elsewhere: in the 2021 Census, renters made up 54.5% of Vancouver households, against roughly 38% across Metro Vancouver. For a lot of service work, the person searching is not the person who approves the bill.

That means your marketing often has to speak to three people at once:

• The tenant who notices the problem and searches first.
• The landlord or owner who pays and wants a clear quote.
• The strata council or property manager who controls access and may hire one vendor for a whole building.

We cover this in depth in our guide to marketing in a renter-majority city. In short: pages and listings that answer "who pays, who books, how do you get into the building" win more work than pages that only list services.

What we do for you

Five services, each with its own page on the services overview:

1. Google Business Profile and map listings, the single biggest lever for most local businesses.
2. Neighbourhood SEO, so your website appears for searches by area and by problem.
3. Small-business websites that load quickly and make it easy to call, text or email.
4. Google Ads on a capped budget, with a ceiling we agree in writing.
5. Review requests and reputation care that follow Google's rules.

Most owners don't need all five. Many need one or two done properly, and we will tell you which.

A two-minute sum worth doing first

Before you spend a dollar on marketing, work out what a new customer is worth. Suppose your average job or sale brings in $650 and your gross margin on it is 40%. Each new customer earns you $260 before overhead. If one in three people who contact you becomes a customer, a single enquiry is worth about $87 to you.

Now you have a test for every marketing idea. If a channel delivers enquiries for $40 each, it is clearly worth scaling. If it costs $150 per enquiry, it loses money unless those customers come back again and again. Our first-year budget guide walks through this in detail, with a worksheet you can fill in yourself.

Proof, honestly labelled

Our published case studies are results from our HVAC work, because that is where the group's portfolio was built. They show the method, not your industry:

• BCWide.ca tripled its leads in 90 days.
• GasBoilers.ca, a division built for CANRO Heat, serves 26+ BC communities and holds 5.0★ from 76+ Google reviews.
• Roma Heating & Cooling grew organic traffic 400% in 12 months.

The results page explains what each one shows and which lessons carry over to a Vancouver bakery, painter or electrician.

Who we are

Vancouver Online Marketing is part of the Sedighi.ca and SAZ.ca group of companies, a Canadian group headquartered right here in Vancouver, BC. It is led by Ali Sedighi, MBA, who has been building and marketing businesses online since 2007. You can read more about how we work, see our plans and pricing, or look through the common questions first.

When you are ready, call, text or email. You will reach a senior person, and we usually reply within one business day.