Local SEO for electricians: what changes

The instinct on a profile is to list everything the crew can physically do, because a longer services list reads as a larger business. For a licensed electrical contractor that instinct is a compliance problem before it is a marketing one. California's board states the limit plainly: a contractor "cannot advertise for construction work outside of areas for which you are licensed", and gives the shape of the failure with a worked example: "a C-29 Masonry contractor cannot advertise for electrical work, unless he or she also holds a C-10 Electrical contractor license."¹ The same board defines advertising to reach "any website or post that solicits business on the Internet", so the services list, the description and the category are all inside the rule.¹ That inverts the ordinary advice. The question is not which service terms attract the most demand, it is which of them the licence covers, and a profile listing panel upgrades, generator installation and low-voltage work has made three separate claims about what is on the licence, each of which is checkable by anyone in a public register. The licence number itself is required across the board: it must appear "in all construction contracts, subcontracts, and calls for bid, and all forms of advertising", with a stated civil penalty "between $100 and $1,000 for a first offense"¹. The vehicle rule is the general one rather than the stricter plumbing variant: business name and licence number "in a clearly visible location in print type of at least 72-point font or letters at least ¾ of an inch high and wide"¹. One prohibition catches profiles more often than any of the above, because it looks like a trust signal. A contractor may not say in advertising or in any presentation to the public that the business is bonded; the board's stated reason is that it "could lead a consumer to believe that bonding offers a higher level of protection than might be the case."¹ Licensed, insured and bonded is a phrase that arrives on a profile by habit, and the third word does not belong there.