Choosing your seeds

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that.Ecclesiastes 11:6

The previous chapter left you with a long list: every search in your trade that brings up a map and that you can serve well. This chapter turns it into a short list you can act on.

We call the items on that list seeds, and the method that follows the seed method. The name is deliberate. A garden is a better model for this work than a campaign. You do not launch something and walk away. You plant a few things, watch what comes up, feed what grows and pull what does not. Then you do it again. The old verse above says the rest: you cannot know in advance which seed will prosper, so you sow more than one.

What a seed is

A seed is one service in one place: ring resizing in Sheepshead Bay, HydraFacial in Bay Ridge, brake repair in Astoria.

Both halves matter. The service half is what the customer asks for, in the words they use. The place half is there because the map answers differently in different places. Google says it ranks local results on three things: how relevant a business is to the search, how far it is from the person searching, and how well known it is. Distance alone means the answer in Bay Ridge is not the answer in Sunset Park. That is why the map splits into micro-markets a few blocks wide (chapter 2).

Be clear about what the place half means. Most people do not type a neighborhood at all. They type ring resizing or ring resizing near me on a phone, and Google takes the place from where the phone is. So for most searches the place in your seed is not something you write into a phrase. It is the area around your door where Google is willing to show you, and that area is usually smaller than owners hope. A neighborhood name in the search matters mainly when someone is looking for somewhere other than where they stand, for example planning a visit near work.

So a keyword on its own is not a seed. Laser hair removal is a whole market. Laser hair removal in Bay Ridge, searched by people in and around Bay Ridge, is a contest you can look at, take part in and check on next month.

Why five

Five is not magic, but it is about what a small team can tend properly. Each seed needs a little work every month: a photo, a few lines on a page, a word to the right customers about a review. Multiply that by twenty and it stops happening. Five well-tended seeds tend to beat twenty neglected ones.

Five also makes the monthly check short enough to actually do. You will add and drop seeds as you go. The list stays short.

Step one: two lists

Start with two lists on one sheet of paper.

What you do. The groups on the long-tail sheet from the previous chapter: every service, problem and occasion you actually handle, written the way customers say it. Not lobe perforation but ear piercing. Not injectable neuromodulator but Botox. If you are unsure of the customer's words, listen to how people ask on the phone, or read your reviews: customers describe your services in their own language.

Where your customers come from. The neighborhoods, not the city. Your booking system may already know the ZIP codes. If not, ask at the front desk for two weeks: which neighborhood are you coming from today? Most local businesses find that a handful of neighborhoods supply most of their customers, and that they are closer to the door than expected.

Then pair them. Ten services and four neighborhoods make forty possible seeds. You need five.

Step two: five questions for every candidate

Run each pair through five questions. A good seed passes all of them.

1. Do you already do it, often and well? Pick a service your team performs every week, not one you are thinking of adding. A seed is something you can serve well on a normal Tuesday. It will be judged by the customers it brings, and they will write reviews.

2. Do customers already ask for it? The best seeds are services people book without much convincing. If customers already find you for it by word of mouth, the map is likely to follow once you make it visible.

3. Who is first today, and how strong are they? Search for the pair from the neighborhood itself, on a phone, and look at the first three results. Write down who they are, how many reviews they have and whether their profiles look cared for. Then ask what kind of business they are. As chapter 4 showed, each service has its own rivals: ring resizing is a contest among jewelers, watch repair among watch shops. A soft leader is a good sign, and chapter 4 found many of them.

The first three results also tell you what kind of contest the search is. There are three patterns, and a minute with a phone is enough to see which one you face:

• No map at all. Google shows articles, videos or online shops. People typing this want to read or buy online, and it is not a seed (chapter 5).
• A map, but no specialist. There are three local businesses, but none of their names, categories or descriptions mention the service. Google is filling the slot with whatever is nearby and roughly related. This is the most open kind of contest: nobody has claimed the service yet, and a business that says plainly that it does the work has a real chance.
• A market of specialists. The top three keep turning out to be businesses built around that exact service, with the service in their name or category, like watch shops on watch repair. Entering means joining their league. It can still be worth it, but expect a long climb.

Check the same search from two or three spots before you decide, because one result page can mislead.

4. Does it fit the season ahead? Most services have a season, and a seed needs time to take root before the peak. Microneedling, for example, peaks in March and wedding bands in January; chapter 12 has the full calendar. If you are choosing in spring, a March service is already late: pick one that peaks in summer, or plan it for next year and plant it in the fall.

5. Is it different from your other four? Five versions of the same search are one seed with extra steps. Spread the list across services, seasons and, where it makes sense, neighborhoods. When one seed has a slow month, another can hold.

A seed is something you can serve well on a normal Tuesday.

A note on distance

It is tempting to pick a wealthy neighborhood across town. Be careful. Distance is one of the three things Google weighs, and it is also what customers weigh: most people will not cross a borough for a ring resizing. Your own neighborhood is where a seed has its best chance, because that is where Google already sees you as near. The next neighborhood is a second step, and there the odds drop with every block, however good your page. Start at your door, and move outward only when a seed there is established, without expecting the same result further out.

Two examples

These are illustrations, built from the kind of data in this book. They are not recommendations for any real business.

A med spa in Bay Ridge. It does laser hair removal, HydraFacial, chemical peels and a few injectable treatments, and half its clients come from Bay Ridge and Sunset Park. It is choosing in October. Its first five seeds might be:

• HydraFacial in Bay Ridge: done every day, and the March peak is far enough away to prepare.
• Chemical peel in Bay Ridge: also peaks in March, and a quieter search than the injectables.
• Laser hair removal in Sunset Park: only if the first places there are not all held by dedicated laser studios. The July peak gives it the whole winter.
• Lip filler in Bay Ridge: peaks in January, so it needs work now.
• One service the team genuinely likes doing and customers keep asking about.

A jeweler in Sheepshead Bay. It does repairs, sizing, custom pieces and wedding bands, and most customers live within a short drive. Choosing in October, it might pick:

• Ring resizing in Sheepshead Bay: a jewelers' contest, steady all year.
• Jewelry repair in Brighton Beach: the neighborhood next door, worth it if the current leader there has a small profile.
• Wedding bands in Sheepshead Bay: peaks in January, so the page and photos need to be ready by December.
• Custom name necklace in Sheepshead Bay: peaks in December, a good fit for the gift season.
• Ring engraving in Sheepshead Bay: small, but it pairs naturally with wedding bands and custom pieces.

Notice what neither list contains: the head term. Med spa and jewelry store are still on the sign and in the profile's main category. They just are not where the effort goes.

Common mistakes

Choosing by volume. The biggest searches are usually the most contested. Watch repair gets many times the searches of ring resizing in Brooklyn, and watch shops hold most of its first places.

Choosing what you would like to sell. A seed is not a new service launch. If you want to add a service, add it first, get good at it, then make it a seed.

Choosing five of the same. Botox in Bay Ridge, Botox in Dyker Heights, Botox near me, Botox deals and Botox for men make one seed, not five. If it fails, they all fail together.

Choosing in the wrong season. A seed planted a month before its peak rarely has time to grow. Look at the calendar first.

Not writing it down. A list in someone's head changes every week. Write the five on a card, put it on the wall, and date it.

Write a seed card

For each seed, write one line with five things: the service as customers say it, the place, who is first today and their review count, the month the service peaks, and why you picked it. That card is the baseline. In a month you will check against it, and in a season you will be glad you did.

The next chapter is about planting: what to change on your profile, your site and your reviews so that each seed has a fair chance to take root.