Can a search engine tell what your gate business actually does?
Your website says it plainly enough for a person. The question is whether Google, Apple Maps and Siri can read the same thing — your services, your hours, your service area — in the format they expect. On most gate company websites I audit, they can't.
No charge, no obligation and no sales call — I'll run it and send you the report.
What I usually find on gate company websites
None of these are things you'd spot by looking at your own site. It loads fine on your desk, so it seems fine.
Missing from Apple Maps
Apple keeps its own listings, separate from Google. It's what answers Siri and Apple Maps, it's free to claim, and most businesses have simply never been told it exists. If you're not there, you're not in front of iPhone users at all.
Google has you, but not correctly
Nearly every business is on Google Maps — that isn't the problem. The problem is what it says: an unclaimed profile, the wrong category, services missing, hours that don't match your website. Google publishes what it has, whether or not it's right.
No stars, no hours, no address
Your rating, your opening hours and the gate services you offer are on the page for a human to read, but not in the format that puts a star rating under your name or answers “are they open now?”. That's the difference between a listing someone taps and one they scroll past.
Slow on a phone
A site that opens instantly on your computer can take eight seconds on a phone on mobile data. Most people don't wait — they go back and tap the next company. It's usually one oversized photo doing the damage.
What schema markup is, in plain English
Your website is written for people. A line like “installing and servicing automatic gates across the valley since 2004” is perfectly clear to a reader and close to useless to a machine, which has to guess whether “the valley” is a place it knows, whether 2004 is a founding date, and whether you repair gates or only install them.
Schema markup is that same information written a second time, as labelled facts instead of sentences. One line per fact, each with a name on it, in a shared vocabulary — schema.org — that Google, Microsoft, Apple and the AI assistants all read. Nothing is inferred, because nothing is implied.
It goes into your site's header as a block of JSON-LD. Visitors never see it, it changes nothing about how the site looks, and it goes in as plain code rather than a plugin — so there's nothing to keep updated and nothing that breaks when a plugin changes.
One honest note about the type, because it's the part most people get wrong.
Schema.org has no gate-specific business type — I checked;
GateContractor does not exist. So the type is
GeneralContractor, the closest one that does, and the gate work
itself is spelled out in a service catalogue and knowsAbout rather
than faked with a tag search engines silently ignore.
- Written for gate automation specifically, not a generic template
- Only real schema.org types and properties — nothing invented
- Tested in Google's Rich Results tool before it's handed over
- Yours to keep — it doesn't expire and it isn't rented
Why this matters more than it did two years ago
People used to type “automatic gate installer near me” and get ten blue links to choose between. More and more they ask a question instead — of ChatGPT, of Google's AI answers, of Siri — and get back one answer naming two or three companies. There is no page two of an answer.
An answer has to name somebody
A page of links can afford to be vague. An answer can't — it has to commit to a name, a number and a claim about what that company does. These systems commit to the facts they can read without guessing, and markup is the one part of your site written to be read that way.
Gate work is the easiest trade to misfile
Read as prose, an automatic gate company looks like a fencing company, a garage door company, a locksmith or an electrician — the work touches all four. If you don't state the category outright, something else decides it for you, and “fencing” is the usual guess. Markup is where you settle it.
It's one set of facts, not a second project
This isn't AI work bolted onto ordinary SEO. Google's normal results, Google's AI answers, Apple Maps, Siri and the chat assistants read the same labelled facts: name, phone, hours, service area, services. Stated once, correctly, they all get the same thing.
What I'm not going to claim
Nobody outside those companies sees the ranking rules, and I won't promise that markup gets you named in an AI answer. What it does is end the guessing: every fact about your business stated plainly, in the format all of these systems already parse. You can't control the answer. You can control whether you're legible to the thing writing it.
How this differs from a monthly SEO retainer
| SchemaHouse | A typical SEO retainer | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | One-time setup ($697), Managed optional ($199/mo) | Every month, ongoing |
| What you own | The markup and the listings, permanently | Usually stops when you stop paying |
| How it's built | Plain JSON-LD in your header | Often a third-party plugin |
| Apple Maps | Set up and verified | Frequently left out entirely |
| Gate services | Named one by one in the markup | Generic business tags |
Why there's no required retainer
The setup is a one-time job — $697 — and the result is yours to keep. The markup does not expire and your Apple and Google listings stay verified whether or not you ever pay me again. If you want me working the map for you every month, Managed is $199 and you can stop any time. Nothing stops working when you do.
It doesn't expire
The JSON-LD goes directly into your site's header and becomes part of the site itself. There's no maintenance fee for code that doesn't run out.
The listings are yours
Your Apple Business profile and your Google listing are your own business registrations. Once they're verified you don't need a middleman to stay on the map.
Managed, if you want it
Setup fixes what search engines can read. Managed keeps you winning the map: review replies within one business day, two posts a month on Google and Apple, your listings checked every month, and anything a redesign or a plugin update breaks put back. $199 a month, cancel any time — and what I build works without it.
Your audit
Same checks as every report I run, on your site rather than someone else's. The scores come from Google's own tools; the Apple Maps line is a search of Apple's listings; nothing here is an estimate.
Website Audit
{{BUSINESS_NAME}}
{{WEBSITE}} · {{CITY_STATE}}
steve@schemahouse.com
Overall website health
{{PROBLEM_COUNT}} significant problems found that are likely costing you enquiries. {{COVERED_COUNT}} of the {{FINDING_COUNT}} findings below are covered by the one-time setup.
Google PageSpeed scores (mobile)
Google runs this on a simulated mid-range Android phone on a slow 4G connection, with nothing cached — deliberately the worst case, not a new phone on wi-fi. Your own phone will feel faster than these numbers. The point is what a stranger on a weak signal gets.
Core Web Vitals
Google's measurements of how the site feels to a visitor, rather than what is on it. They affect both position in search results and whether people stay long enough to call.
How long until the page looks loaded?
Google wants this under 2.5 seconds. On a phone away from wi-fi, people who wait longer than that have usually gone back to the results and tapped the next company.
Does the page jump around while loading?
Buttons that move while someone is reaching for them cost taps.
Is the page frozen while it loads?
Whether taps and scrolls respond straight away or stall.
What I found
{{FINDINGS}}
Technical detail
| Business name found | {{BUSINESS_NAME}} |
| Phone on homepage | {{PHONE}} |
| Email on homepage | {{EMAIL}} |
| Address in markup | {{ADDRESS}} |
| Website platform | {{PLATFORM}} |
| Page title | {{TITLE_TAG}} |
| Main heading (H1) | {{H1}} |
| Words on homepage | {{WORDS}} |
| LocalBusiness markup | {{SCHEMA_LOCAL}} |
| Review / rating markup | {{SCHEMA_REVIEW}} |
| Opening hours markup | {{SCHEMA_HOURS}} |
| Mobile viewport | {{VIEWPORT}} |
| Analytics installed | {{ANALYTICS}} |
| Contact form | {{FORM}} |
| Sitemap / robots.txt | {{SITEMAP}} |
| Apple Maps listing | {{APPLE_MAPS}} |
What it takes to fix this
Everything marked “Included in setup” above is one job.
$697, one-time.
- Gate-specific markup, written by hand and tested in Google's Rich Results tool.
- Apple Business listing claimed and verified.
- Google Business Profile — your Google Maps listing — cleaned up: categories, services, hours, description, duplicates.
- Mobile speed fixed, with before and after PageSpeed scores.
Yours to keep. It doesn't expire and nothing is rented.
$199/month, optional, after setup.
Reviews answered within a day, two posts a month, listings kept consistent, and a one-page report each month. Cancel any time.
Next step. Text or call 509.995.1357, or reply to the email this came with. I can usually start within a week.
No obligation. The report is yours either way.
What happens next
Send me your website address. I'll run the audit and send you the report — what's missing, what's slow, and whether Apple Maps has you at all. If what it finds is worth fixing, I'll tell you what that takes.
Melissa handles the calls, the quote and your account. I'm Steve Brock, in Post Falls — nearly thirty years building websites and doing SEO, and I do the technical work. Two people, and you'll know both by name.