About Rankwise

Rankwise (rankwise.ca) is a local-marketing agency based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It works with local service businesses across the Lower Mainland — plumbers, electricians, HVAC contractors, roofers, landscapers, auto repair shops, dentists, chiropractors, med spas, lawyers, and veterinarians — on the local-search side of their business: Google Business Profile, reviews, citations, and Map Pack visibility. Founded by Zack Shefrin in 2026. Contact: zshef@rankwise.ca.

Founder-led audits

Zack reviews the market before the call.

Rankwise is intentionally narrow on function, broad on vertical: local search only, one business per city, per category. Every audit starts with live Map Pack checks, competitor profiles, review signals, and the first city terms most likely to move.

What Rankwise does

Rankwise provides local-search marketing for local service businesses competing for Map Pack positions across the Lower Mainland. The work covers:

• Google Business Profile optimization — primary category setup, service area configuration, photo strategy, weekly posting cadence
• Review velocity management — building consistent review flow, response cadence, and recency signals
• Citation consistency — auditing and correcting NAP (name, address, phone) data across Google, Yelp, HomeStars, Yellow Pages Canada, BBB, Apple Maps, and Bing Places
• Local content strategy — city-specific service pages, blog content targeting the local-search queries each category's customers actually use across the Lower Mainland
• Map Pack tracking — monthly ranking reports across target cities and keywords

The model

Rankwise works with one business per city, per category. No exceptions. If Rankwise is already working with a plumber in Burnaby, it won't take on a second Burnaby plumbing client — the conflict of interest doesn't work.

All engagements are month-to-month, no long-term contracts. Before month one, Rankwise documents the starting Map Pack position and sets a 90-day target position in writing for the cities and keywords the client cares about. If we miss the agreed milestone, billing pauses until we hit it. The model keeps the agency accountable and removes the common agency dynamic where a retainer gets collected while nothing moves.

Why we specialize in local search

Every local-service category shows up in the Google Map Pack the same way — a business profile, a cluster of reviews, and a handful of city-level searches that decide who gets the call. What changes category to category is the intent pattern: a plumber's customer is often searching for an emergency, a dentist's customer is comparing profiles over weeks. Staying narrow on the local-search function — instead of also running ads, building websites, or managing social — lets Rankwise reuse the same market research, ranking checks, page structure, and Google Business Profile playbooks across every category, rather than being a generalist that's mediocre at all of them.

The research base

Rankwise runs an ongoing research lab — the Rankwise Lab — tracking Map Pack competition across Metro Vancouver. Our published research is currently concentrated in HVAC — it's our worked example, and the vertical the Lab's studies are built around. The lab's May 2026 market study tracked 36 Map Pack positions across 12 local HVAC searches, held by 19 unique contractors. The same Map Pack mechanics — profile completeness, review velocity, citation consistency — decide rank in every local category; HVAC is simply where the receipts are published first. That data informs both client work and the blog content Rankwise publishes.

Who this is for

Rankwise works with Lower Mainland local service businesses who rely on Google for inbound calls or bookings — plumbers, electricians, HVAC contractors, roofers, landscapers, auto repair shops, dentists, chiropractors, med spas, lawyers, and veterinarians. The right fit: an owner-operated or small-team business that's getting most work through word of mouth or referrals, knows Google is leaving calls on the table, and wants someone who handles the local-search side without requiring them to manage it.

Rankwise is not the right fit for businesses that primarily use paid ads, have in-house marketing staff, or operate outside the Lower Mainland.

Service area

Rankwise serves local service businesses across the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley, BC. Our published city guides so far are HVAC-focused — our first vertical in each market, with guides for the other categories in progress:

• Vancouver
• West Vancouver
• North Vancouver
• Burnaby
• Richmond
• New Westminster
• Coquitlam
• Port Moody
• Port Coquitlam
• Pitt Meadows
• Maple Ridge
• Surrey
• Delta
• White Rock
• Langley
• Abbotsford
• Mission

Rankwise also serves Chilliwack, with neighborhood-level coverage in Tsawwassen, North Delta, Metrotown, and South Surrey through their parent-city markets.