In Episode 18 of The Marketing Mechanic, Dennis Yu breaks down a real Houston HVAC case where a contractor spent roughly $20,000 on SEO over several months, only to see their rankings collapse and their keyword visibility nearly vanish. The agency claimed strong results, but when Dennis reviewed the real data, the truth was clear: the website was driving almost no traffic, and the rankings that mattered were never coming from SEO in the first place.Dennis explains how misleading reports, low-value keywords, and duplicated city pages create the illusion of progress while producing no real business impact. He shows how agencies inflate success by highlighting rankings that no one searches for, ignore Google Maps performance, and avoid using tools that expose what’s actually broken. The episode walks through why ranking outside the top three in Maps doesn’t matter, how grid scans reveal the truth, and why most contractors are never shown where their calls are really coming from.The episode then lays out what actually drives results for local service businesses: real reviews, real proximity, real engagement, and real human behavior. Dennis explains why Google Business Profiles and websites are separate systems, how maps and directions act as powerful signals, and how contractors can tie rankings directly to calls, directions, and revenue. This is a clear, practical breakdown of how to tell whether your marketing is working.If you want someone on your team who can audit this correctly, track real signals, and hold agencies accountable using actual Google data, enroll a young adult in our AI Apprentice Program at High Rise Influence, where we train them hands-on to do this work the right way: https://highriseinfluence.net/Dennis Yu, Founder of Local Service Spotlight:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dennisyu/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisyuTwitter: https://x.com/dennisyuLocal Service Spotlight: https://localservicespotlight.com/