Junk Removal Startup Having A Hard Time With Google, Facebook And Now Reddit.

Struggling with Facebook and Google and everything else with my very basic junk removal startup.

Sanford and Son level junk removal startup, so much trouble With Google, Facebook, etc. I would quit but I can't.

Google local business SEO is a whole new thing for me, so I learned a whole bunch of things from Caleb Ulku on YouTube and thought that it would be simple.

Everything went wrong from the very start. I put out my signs with just a website name because I figured my phone number might change if someone else runs this local office. So I just did a website on the signs, no phone number.

Well, the AI recommended other people over me when people go to look on their phone for my site. Seriously, if you Googled it, AI would tell you to use someone else. Even if you put the entire site name in there, if you didn't use the prefix for hypertext transfer protocol, (which you cannot actually type on Reddit by the way) It would send you to the AI and things went downhill from there.

I had no idea this was happening. On my phone, obviously it goes right to the website, so I had no idea it was happening until about a month in with zero calls.

After tremendous amounts of research, lots of time on YouTube, I figured I would have to bite the bullet and get back into some SEO stuff. And that's where things went south.

Google has made me verify my location three times and now I have to verify it again. it's pretty ridiculous, but because we live in a home in a rural location instead of a storefront, I guess they don't like it. They verified, then when I try to make a change, I have to verify again. I am now unverified and cannot make changes to the GBP.

I haven't done anything wrong, I haven't violated any policies, they're just giving me a hard time. This is just one piece of the puzzle.

Meanwhile, Facebook is showing its ass. I ran ads, it cost me $37 for 54 impressions on my page, that means my Facebook page, not my website. Holy crap, that is ridiculous. then I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to turn the ads off. Facebook is a nightmare, it is very difficult to deal with and they will ban you for all kinds of weird stuff. Still fighting with this problem, Reddit told me don't dare dispute the charges because Facebook might ban you and you'll never be able to run ads again. So I'm at the mercy of Zuckerberg whether or not I can have a business?

I am also at the mercy of Google as to whether I can have a business?

This has been a complete nightmare. Way back in the day when I was a vinyl siding contractor, I just put out signs with my phone number and I wish I had just done that. Putting out the website really put me in a bad spot, all this new bullshit in the digital age is just destroying any chance I might have of starting up a business on the cheap.

I joined the chamber of commerce, I signed up for the Yellow pages, I got on Yelp, I'm trying to get on Apple maps, they're giving me a hard time too, they suck, I got incorporated, I'm on sunbiz, I even got on thumbtack, what a rip off.

Anyway, it has been a real uphill struggle And I have to say I might just give up and hitchhike back to California and be done with it.

So, here's what's crazy. I only did all this in order to provide for my much younger wife. I am 53, she is 36. So I knew that I would be gone from this world before her, and I wanted to leave something behind. I have been working my guts out to build this from scratch.

And she left me about 2 weeks ago, poof while I was at the flea market over the weekend, she packed up and split town. I guess she had been planning it for a while and was selling things and moving things out behind my back.

Extremely deceitful person that I thought would never do something like that. Just an absolute betrayal at the worst possible time, I overdrafted $45 the day she split, that's how broke I was.

I would not have done any of this had I known she was going to do that, but now I have invested so much time and effort and energy and money into this that I just can't see any way out, other than to abandon everything and go be a beach bum in California.

That's a real option, by the way. I'm not making that up, that is a real option for me and I will do it in a heartbeat.

But I hate the idea of admitting defeat, and I certainly hate the idea of just losing all the time and effort and money that I put into this.

But, is it worth it? I started junk removal because I thought it would be easy, this is like the easiest business you can do. But the competition and the advertising difficulties are just completely borked And I don't know if I'll ever get straight with Google again. They are really showing their ass. I feel like somebody there has a personal problem with my site or something, because they are picking on every little thing and I don't know what to do about that.

That's all I got for now, I'm sure I'll edit this later and add a whole bunch more injustices and indignities.

I'm up for any advice that anybody has to give, but you could just look at this as a rant. I'm sure I'll add more to it, and maybe make a list of pros and cons or something, I really feel like I could just leave all this behind and not ever look back.

It wouldn't bother me that much, but it really was a lot of work to get to this point and I don't want to just give up. I hate giving up, most people hate giving up, and I don't want to really do that, but I got to find some way to make this work.