Author: Phil Fisk

Phil Fisk is the founder of Core6 Marketing, a veteran-owned digital marketing agency built exclusively for home service contractors on California's Central Coast. With 20+ years of local marketing experience and 200+ home service contractor clients actively ranking on Google, Phil specializes in AI Search Sync — a methodology designed to get contractors found not just on traditional search, but across AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Every client gets his direct attention, every campaign is built for one goal: more calls from the right jobs.

Price Ranges on Your Website: What Changes in Calls and AI Answers

Clipboard, calculator, tape measure and brass fitting on a work truck tailgate, standing in for contractor pricing decisions

Direct Answer: Listing price ranges on a contractor website screens out shoppers who were never going to book and gives AI tools something real to quote. You do not need fixed prices, just an honest range tied to scope. Ask a contractor in Monterey County why there is no pricing anywhere on his website and […]

Video Building Inspections Become a Right for Reroofs and Heat Pumps in California

Roofer aiming a phone on a tripod at a stripped roof deck for a remote building inspection in California

Direct Answer: AB 1738, signed September 18, 2026, requires most California cities and counties to offer remote video inspections on covered home projects. Larger jurisdictions must comply by January 1, 2028, smaller ones by July 1, 2028. Your crew strips a roof in Salinas by 11 a.m. The deck is clean, the nails are in, […]

Which Homeowner Searches AI Answers, and Which Ones Still Ring Your Phone

Water dripping from a stained kitchen ceiling into a bowl, the kind of problem homeowners search before calling

Direct Answer: AI Overviews now answer most informational searches like symptoms, costs, and repair-versus-replace. Direct searches like “plumber near me” still surface the local pack and still ring your phone. The report looks fine and the phone is quieter. That is how most contractors in Salinas and Seaside describe this problem to me before we […]

How to Read Your Contact Form Submissions Like a Keyword Report

Contractor's desk with printed form submissions marked in red pen and hand-drawn tally columns in a notebook

Direct Answer: Sort 60 days of anonymized form submissions into four buckets: problem, urgency, money question, and proof request. Anything repeating three or more times becomes a page or a missing page section. Most contractors I talk to in Monterey County have the same problem with content. They sit down to write something for the […]

The Job Photos on Your Phone Are the Content No Competitor Has

Contractor's phone on a truck tailgate showing a grid of jobsite photos beside work gloves and a tape measure

Direct Answer: Job photos are first party data: proof you own that no competitor can copy and no AI tool can generate. Paired with a written caption naming the city, problem, and fix, they rank. Most crews I work with in Monterey County finish a week with dozens of job photos and publish exactly none […]

Shared Leads From Angi and HomeAdvisor: What the Money Buys

Contractor truck dashboard with job notes and phone parked outside a home at dusk in a farming neighborhood

Direct Answer: A shared lead buys a contact record, not a booked job, and the same homeowner is usually sold to several contractors. Owned visibility keeps producing calls without a per-contact charge. Read enough public complaints against the big lead aggregators and the same sentences keep showing up. Owners say they were receiving absolutely nothing […]

Does Your License Number Show Up Everywhere Your Business Does Online?

Side panel of a contractor work van parked on a residential street with farm fields in the fog behind it

Direct Answer: California requires licensed contractors to include their license number in all advertising, and CSLB has said that includes websites and online postings, not just print and radio ads. Most contractors I talk to in Monterey County know the license number belongs in their advertising. What almost nobody has done is actually walk every […]

How to Test Whether ChatGPT Names Your Company in Salinas or Monterey

Pushpin map of a coastal county on a contractor workshop wall showing nine service towns marked with string

Direct Answer: Run the same homeowner question in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode, once per town you serve, in a logged-out session. Log whether you were named, described correctly, and which sources were cited. Your monthly report says you rank third for your main service in Salinas. Meanwhile a homeowner in Marina types a […]

Same Search, Different Answer: Why AI Names a Different Contractor Per Person

Two neighbors on the same street checking phones, getting different contractor answers in AI search

Direct Answer: AI search results are now personalized, so two homeowners in the same city can get different contractor names for the same question. Consistent business info and specific reviews are what keep you in the mix. A roofer I work with in Marina asked me a fair question last spring. A homeowner told him […]

Do Yelp and Facebook Reviews Still Matter If Google Is Working?

Overhead view of a contractor's desk with an old business card, outdated invoice and tablet showing a map

Direct Answer: Yes. Google still drives most calls, but AI tools cross-check Yelp, Facebook and your website before naming a contractor. Stale or conflicting profiles can quietly remove you from consideration. I get some version of this question almost every week from owners in Salinas, Monterey and Watsonville. The Google Business Profile is humming along […]