The 29-year-old business the new guys were beating on Google

O'Brien's Faster Blaster has washed Nova Scotia since 1997, but newer outfits beat them on Google. Here is what we built to fix that, and what it costs.

Who is O'Brien's Faster Blaster?

O'Brien's Faster Blaster is a family owned mobile pressure washing company out of Cole Harbour, on the Dartmouth side of the harbour. They've been at it since 1997. That's 29 years of washing things most people would rather not touch.

The commercial side goes anywhere in Nova Scotia. Quarries, fleet yards, heavy equipment, haul trucks. The residential side stays in HRM, mostly house and siding washing and decks. They're insured and WCB covered. Their new site sums it up in one line: "If it needs to be cleaned, we clean it."

There are two things they don't do, and the site says so plainly. No gutters. No parking lots. Putting that in writing means fewer calls about work they won't take.

Why did a good reputation stop being enough?

The owner is around sixty. He built this business the old way. Do good work, show up when you said you would, and let the customer tell the next guy. For close to thirty years that was enough.

Then the way people find a contractor changed. Word of mouth still happens. It just ends on Google now. A neighbour says "look up O'Brien's" and the person types it into their phone. Whatever comes up decides who gets the call. If you don't show up, or you show up with nothing, that neighbour's good word goes to waste.

Before 2026, O'Brien's had no real web presence. Meanwhile companies with a few years under their belt were showing up ahead of him. Their work wasn't better. They had told Google who they were and what they did, and he hadn't.

If you run an older shop and this sounds familiar, I wrote a longer piece on why contractor businesses go invisible on Google.

Why is a company with three years of experience outranking one with thirty?

Google doesn't know how long you've been in business unless your profile and your site tell it. It can't see the truck you bought in 1997. It can't hear what your customers say about you at the hardware store. It only knows what's written down online.

For the map pack, the few businesses that show up beside the map when you search, Google mostly looks at how close you are to the person searching, whether your primary category matches what they typed, and your reviews. Years in business isn't on that list.

Reviews are where old businesses get hurt the most. A shop with two reviews can outrank one with hundreds of happy customers who never left one. Those customers are real. To Google, they don't exist.

Here's the part that should make an older business owner feel better. You have something the new guys can't buy, and that's real history. Decades of jobs, repeat customers, people who'd vouch for you. It only counts once it's visible. That's what local SEO for contractors comes down to. Putting what's already true where Google can read it.

What did we actually build for O'Brien's?

Nothing fancy. Just the pieces that matter, done properly.

A fast website built for phones first, since that's where most people look up a contractor. It says plainly what they clean and where they work, so nobody has to guess.

A Google Business Profile with the right primary category. That one setting matters more than most owners think. When you set up a Google Business Profile for contractors, a wrong category can sink you on the map even if everything else is right.

Separate service pages for commercial and residential work. A quarry manager and a homeowner in Dartmouth want different things, and they search differently.

A page structure that matches how people actually search. Someone types "house washing Halifax" or "fleet washing Nova Scotia", so there's a page that answers exactly that.

Citations, which are listings on directories around the web, all with the same name, address and phone number. When those don't match, Google gets less sure you are who you say you are.

And a review ask after every job. More on that below.

I'll be straight with you. The site launched recently. There are no ranking numbers to show yet and I'm not going to make any up. This kind of work builds over months, and the results are still coming.

Why is the first review ask the hardest one?

Most established owners have never asked for a review. When you've run on reputation for decades, asking a customer to go online and say something nice about you feels strange. Some guys feel like they're begging.

The customer usually doesn't see it that way. They're happy to help. They just never thought of it, and nobody asked. The first ask is the awkward one. After a few, it's just part of finishing the job, like rolling up the hose.

For O'Brien's, the ask goes out after every job. The easiest way to do it is a short text with a direct link, so the customer doesn't have to hunt for your business on Google. Write it the way you'd say it in the driveway.

If you want the full how-to, here's my guide on how to get more Google reviews without being pushy about it.

What does this cost?

Our prices are posted. Get Found is $1,500 a month. Dominate is $2,500 a month. No setup fee. No contracts. Each page lays out what's included.

Think about what most pressure washing companies spend on flyers, a newspaper ad or a radio spot that runs once and is gone. Good pressure washing advertising keeps working after you pay for it, because a page that ranks keeps bringing in calls month after month.

No contracts also means if it isn't working for you, you can walk. I'd rather earn the next month than lock you into it.

What should you do next if this sounds like your business?

Pull out your phone and search your main service and your town. Not your business name, the service. Something like "deck washing Dartmouth" or whatever it is you do. See who comes up.

If it's a company younger than your oldest truck, that's worth fixing. Then search your own name and look at your profile. Is the category right? Does it say how long you've been around? How many reviews do you have compared to the guys ahead of you?

If you'd like a second set of eyes, get a free audit. I'll look at where you show up and where you don't, and tell you what I'd fix first.

You've spent years earning a good name. It should be the first thing people see when they look you up.