Your Dovetails Are Perfect. Your Google Rankings Aren't.I help master carpenters escape the handyman trap and land the six-figure custom projects their craftsmanship deserves.

Let me guess your current marketing strategy: word-of-mouth referrals (unpredictable) and maybe some lead aggregator sites like Angi or Thumbtack (soul-crushing). I've seen this pattern with dozens of carpenters before you.

Word-of-mouth is beautiful when it works, but you can't scale a business on hope. And the aggregators? They're designed to commoditize you. You're paying for leads that three other contractors also receive, which turns every job into a bidding war where the lowest price wins.

Here's what I discovered building my own authority approach: when someone searches for 'custom mahogany library shelves' or 'period-correct wainscoting restoration,' they're not hunting for the cheapest option. They're hunting for an expert who understands their vision.

If your website is a digital business card — phone number, a few grainy photos, maybe a contact form — you lose that client before you ever knew they existed. But when your site serves as proof of your mastery? You stop chasing. They come to you, pre-sold on your value.

I've built over 800 pages on AuthoritySpecialist.com, and I treat this site as my primary laboratory. But for carpenters, the opportunity is even more dramatic. You have a visual product that photographs beautifully — but search engines are fundamentally blind.

Pull up most carpenter websites and you'll find a 'Gallery' page with 50 photos and maybe a caption that says 'Kitchen Project.' To Google, this page might as well be blank. Here's my contrarian approach:

We take your best 10-15 projects and transform each into a dedicated page. I write 500-1,000 words describing the client's original problem ('Lack of storage in a 1920s Victorian with zero closet space'), the materials selected ('Quarter-sawn white oak with a hand-rubbed oil finish'), the technical challenges navigated ('Matching existing 100-year-old crown molding profiles without factory tooling'), and the final transformation.

This accomplishes two things simultaneously. First, Google finally has rich content to rank for long-tail searches your competitors aren't even targeting. Second, human visitors see undeniable proof that you're a master who obsesses over details. When a homeowner reads about how you solved a complex installation problem, their price sensitivity evaporates. They're not comparing you to handymen anymore.

Conventional marketing advice screams 'niche down!' I respectfully disagree — especially for custom carpenters.

Hyper-specialization creates dangerous vulnerability. If you're the 'outdoor deck guy' and we get a brutal winter, your pipeline dies for four months. If you're the 'historic restoration specialist' and the economy tightens, your project flow evaporates as homeowners delay discretionary improvements.

Instead, I advocate for what I call the 'Anti-Niche Strategy' — building authority across three distinct service pillars that complement each other seasonally and economically.

For example, we might structure your site around: 1. Custom Interiors: Built-ins, libraries, entertainment centers, mantels 2. Kitchen & Bath: Cabinetry, islands, vanities, bathroom built-ins 3. Outdoor Living: Decks, pergolas, exterior trim, outdoor kitchens

This structure captures traffic from different stages of the home improvement cycle. When outdoor projects slow in winter, interior custom work accelerates. When new construction dips, renovation budgets often increase. You create stable, year-round lead flow instead of the feast-or-famine cycle that makes most contractors age prematurely.

Here's a truth most marketing agencies won't tell you: not all local traffic has equal value. Ranking #1 for 'carpenter in [Major City]' looks impressive in a report, but it's vanity metrics if 80% of that city can't afford your custom rates.

My approach is surgical. We identify the specific suburbs and neighborhoods where high-net-worth homeowners live — the areas with older housing stock that needs custom millwork, the new developments where buyers are investing in upgrades, the historic districts where restoration work commands premium pricing.

Then we create location-specific landing pages that speak directly to those communities. 'Historic Home Restoration in Oak Park' or 'Modern Built-ins for Lincoln Park Brownstones.' This is precision targeting, not spray-and-pray marketing.

We reinforce geographic authority through 'Press Stacking' — securing mentions in local lifestyle magazines, community blogs, neighborhood newsletters, and design publications. Five mentions in local press often do more for your closing rate than 5,000 generic website visitors. When a homeowner Googles you and sees local coverage, you've already won the trust battle.