I’m Amanda Leon, a founder and author, educated in Cognitive Neuroscience. I founded Unrth, a strategic design agency, in 2017, and we have worked with PJS of Houston, a commercial janitorial company, since 2020.
The short answer: in September 2020, PJS of Houston ranked 64th on Google in Houston for “commercial cleaning houston”. In November 2026, a PJS article is the third organic result for that search, and PJS ranks fifth for “industrial cleaning houston”, up from 32nd. Behind it is work Unrth has done with PJS since 2020 on its website, search, content, and Google Business Profile.
Commercial cleaning is a crowded search. In Houston, PJS competes for the same few results with national franchises, directories such as Yelp and Thumbtack, and other local cleaning companies, and Google puts its map listings above all of them.
Where PJS Started
In September 2020, PJS ranked first in Houston for searches of its own name, such as “pjs janitorial services”. The searches a new customer makes were another story: PJS ranked 64th for “commercial cleaning houston” and 32nd for “industrial cleaning houston”. People who already knew PJS could find it. People looking for a cleaning company had to scroll to page seven.
What We Changed
The basics, page by page. In 2020 we wrote new title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text for PJS’s pages, and planned its sitemap.
Pages for the searches facility managers make. We tuned PJS’s service pages to searches like “medical cleaning houston” and “school cleaning houston”. In September 2020 alone, PJS rose 22 places for “medical cleaning houston”, to seventh.
Articles that answer buyers’ questions. PJS’s blog covers what buyers ask before they call, such as what commercial cleaning costs per square foot in Houston. One article, a list of the best commercial cleaning services in Houston, is now the third organic result for “commercial cleaning houston”.
A cleanup in 2026. We replaced a stale site-wide search description, added descriptions to 28 pages that had none, and linked 14 articles back to PJS’s main commercial cleaning page.
One Google profile, kept busy. Each new article also goes out as an update on PJS’s Google Business Profile, and we merged a duplicate Google listing into the verified one.
The Results
Rankings on Google in Houston, September 2020 compared with November 2026:
“commercial cleaning houston”: 64th, now third among organic results, below Google’s map listings
“industrial cleaning houston”: 32nd, now fifth
The 2020 rankings come from PJS’s monthly SEO report. The 2026 rankings come from a Mangools rank check of Google in Houston on November 9, 2026.
The site is healthy, too. In March 2025, an Ahrefs crawl of 85 pages on pjsofhouston.com gave it a health score of 100, with zero errors.
What Cleaning Companies Can Take From This
Buyers search by building. Medical offices, schools, and industrial sites are separate searches, so give each one its own page.
Answer the questions that come before the call. What does it cost? How do I compare companies? Pages that answer plainly earn the click.
Treat your Google Business Profile like a second website. Keep one verified listing, post to it every week, and link each post to a real page.
Show up often. People tend to trust what they have seen many times, a pattern psychologists call the mere exposure effect. Steady articles and profile updates keep PJS in front of buyers.
Think in years. PJS’s climb from 64th to third was not one campaign. It was steady work, year after year.
FAQ
Does SEO work for cleaning companies?
It did for PJS of Houston. In November 2026, PJS ranks third for “commercial cleaning houston” and fifth for “industrial cleaning houston” on Google in Houston, up from 64th and 32nd in September 2020.
How long does SEO take for a cleaning company?
The first moves can come within a month. In September 2020, PJS rose 22 places for “medical cleaning houston” in one month. Reaching the top three for a crowded search like “commercial cleaning houston” took years of steady work.
What did Unrth do for PJS of Houston?
On-page SEO, service pages built around the searches facility managers make, articles that answer buyers’ questions, and an active Google Business Profile, kept up since 2020.
Who did PJS of Houston’s SEO?
Unrth, the strategic design agency Amanda Leon founded in 2017, based in Houston, Texas.
This is the Unrth Method™ applied to search: research what buyers ask, form a hypothesis about why they can’t find you, run the experiment long enough to measure, and keep going. For a B2B company that saw results within two weeks, see the BlackLine Recovery Group case study. For energy companies, see the oil and gas marketing results, and for everything Unrth does in B2B, the B2B marketing agency page.
Cleaning or facilities company that buyers can’t find? That’s an Unrth project. Book a call with Unrth.
