Every page on Polish Perfect has a free list, and the rankings page explains how its order works. Above and beside that list are a few spots marked Sponsored. A Boost puts your school in them. This guide covers what you get, every place it shows, how the price per tap is set, what it does and doesn't do for your spot on the free list, and when to use it. The short version: a Boost is the fastest way to the top of a page. And when it brings people who call, it's also the fastest way to earn the free spot underneath.
What a Boost is
A Boost is a budget you put behind your school, or behind one of its posts. You pick where it shows, how far it reaches, the most you'll pay per tap, and a monthly limit. After that, your school shows in a Sponsored spot on those pages whenever it wins the spot. You're charged only when someone taps it. Views are free.
- Where: the spots below. Each one is a box you check when you set up your Boost. Pick one or all of them.
- How far: your city plus 5, 10, or 20 miles around it. Or every city in your state, or the whole country. For a post, you can also add cities outside that distance by name.
- How much: you set the most you'll pay per tap. We show a suggested bid based on what other schools in that city are paying. You also set a monthly limit, from $5. Your Boost pauses itself when it hits the limit and starts again the next billing month.
- When: it starts the moment you launch it, or on a date you set. It runs until you pause it, or until an end date you choose.
- Free to start: every claimed school gets credit toward its first Boost, so the first taps cost you nothing.
You'll find Boost in the dashboard of a claimed school. You never have to use it. Claiming, your listing, posting, and your spot on the free list are all free, and they stay free. When you do want one, see how to start a Boost, step by step.
Every place it shows
When you set up a Boost, you choose from Sponsored Listings and Sponsored Posts. Here's each spot they get you, with a real page where you can see it.
Sponsored Listings
Your city page
Two Sponsored spots sit at the very top of the city page, above the free list. A third sits between the fourth and fifth listing on that list. Each one is marked Featured. Your regular listing stays where the free list puts it, so you're on the page twice. Every city page within your distance has the same spots, and you can go statewide or nationwide if you choose.
See a city pageA competitor's page
Pick the school pages you want. On each one, your school takes the Sponsored spot at the top of the Near You cards. It's the first of three, ahead of the regular neighbors. Someone comparing the two of you sees you before they scroll.
Open the school directory
Sponsored Posts
The feed, for a post
Boost a post and it becomes Featured. It gets the badge and a higher place in the Nearest sort for every owner and tech scrolling near you. Your regular post stays where it is. The Featured one is extra.
How the feed worksThe public deal, job, and referral pages
A boosted post also takes the Sponsored section on the public city page for that kind of post. That's the page people without an account land on from Google. Deals, jobs, and referral offers each have one per city, and you can choose cities outside your distance.
See the deals pages
Two rules hold on every page. First, one business gets one Sponsored spot per page. So two Boosts on the same school can never crowd a competitor out. Second, a Sponsored spot is added to your regular listing. It never replaces it. People see you at the top, and again wherever the free list puts you.
How the price per tap is set
The Sponsored spots go by bidding, and you never pay more than your max. Each school that wants a spot on a page is ranked by its bid together with how strong its listing is. The winner pays just enough to stay ahead of the next school, plus one cent. If nobody else is bidding on a page, you pay the lowest price for that page, and we tell you so when you set up your Boost.
- Here's what makes a listing strong. Half of it is how often people tap your spot when they see it. A quarter is how complete your listing is. The rest is your rating with your review count, and how long your Boost has been running. A complete, well-rated school that people tap wins the same spot for less.
- The lowest price goes up as more schools bid in a city. A statewide or national Boost starts higher than a city one.
- A tap is billed once. A repeat tap from the same place in the same window isn't billed again.
What wins the Sponsored spot also wins the free list
A complete listing lowers your price per tap here, and it also moves you up the free list. Boost never works better on a bare listing.
How a Boost can move you up the free list
Think of how a product that sells well on Amazon climbs the search results. The sales come first and the ranking follows, no matter where those first sales came from. Polish Perfect works the same way, on purpose.
A Boost gets you a Sponsored spot and nothing else. By itself, it doesn't change your spot on the free list. But the free list counts what visitors do on your listing, and it doesn't care how they found you.
The loop
- 1Boost puts you in the Sponsored spot
- 2More people open your listing
- 3More of them call or open your website
- 4Your response goes up against the city average
- 5Your spot on the free list goes up with it
- 6More people open your listing without the Boost
- 1
- 01Every claimed school sits above every unclaimed one. Nothing you pay for changes that, and claiming is free.
- 02Among claimed schools, your spot comes from how complete your listing is and how recently you updated it. New claims get a lift for their first weeks. Then there's response.
- 03Response is two things together. One is the share of your weekly visitors who turn into calls, direction taps, and website clicks. The other is how many of those you get compared with the average claimed school in your city, up to three times the average. Both need to be strong. Lots of views with few taps counts for little.
- 04A Boost brings more visitors. If they turn into calls, direction taps, and website clicks, both parts of response go up, and your spot on the free list goes up with them. When you pause the Boost, you keep that spot for as long as people keep responding.
That's the whole idea, and it cuts both ways. Put a Boost in front of the right people and send them to a listing with photos, hours, a phone number, and the details they came for, and it pays twice. Once in the taps you paid for, and again in the spot on the free list those taps earn.
Send them to a bare listing and they leave. That lowers your response and your spot on the free list. So fix your listing first, then bring in the visitors. The rankings page has the full list of what counts.
A Boost that works gets cheaper
The more often people tap your spot when they see it, the less you pay for that same spot. So a Boost that's working costs less the longer it runs.
Start with the free credit
Claim your school, open Boost in your dashboard, pick your pages, and set a monthly limit. The first taps come out of the credit, not your card.
What you see while it runs
Each Boost has its own page in your dashboard. It shows how many times your spot was seen, how many taps it got, your tap rate, and what you've spent in total and this month. It also shows what those taps led to: calls, direction taps, and website clicks on your listing within a day of the tap.
Below that is a table of every city, page, or competitor your Boost covers. Each row has its own views, taps, spend, and results, a suggested bid for that area, and a switch to pause it. You can change your monthly limit, pause, resume, or end the Boost from the same page.
Read it this way: taps are what you pay for, and calls are what you're after. If a row has taps but nobody calls, pause it or fix your listing.
When a school should use it
A Boost is for the weeks that fill a class. Here are four that come up for schools.
- The two weeks before an enrollment deadline. Pick your city page and the cities within your distance, and set the end date to the deadline. Every call it brings counts toward your spot on the free list for the next intake. The student inquiries page covers what a future student sees when they land on your listing.
- An open house. Post it to the feed for free and Boost it for its week. It's Featured for every tech near you, and it's in the Sponsored section on the city deals page.
- The school across town. Boost on its page and you're the first Near You card there, in front of every student comparing the two of you.
- An instructor opening. Jobs are free to post. Boost the post for its first week and it goes in the Sponsored section on the city jobs page and in the feed of every working tech nearby.
A newly claimed school gets a lift on the free list for its first weeks. That's the cheapest time to run a Boost. The lift and the Sponsored spot work together, and the calls you earn hold your spot after both fade.
What a Boost doesn't do
- It doesn't change the free list directly. Your spot there comes only from claiming, your listing, how fresh it is, and how people respond. The visitors a Boost brings count. The Boost itself doesn't.
- It doesn't move an unclaimed school above a claimed one. Claim first.
- It doesn't push anyone's regular listing or post off the page. The Sponsored spots are extra rows.
- It doesn't charge for views, and it doesn't run past your monthly limit or your end date.
- It doesn't get you reviews. Your rating with its review count is part of what sets your price.
The checklist
Here's everything above as one list, starting with what helps most.
- 01Claim your schoolBoost and the free credit come with a claimed listing
- 02Make your listing worth the tap first: photos, hours, phone, the details people call aboutA Boost on a bare listing lowers your response
- 03Start with your own city page and the free creditSet a monthly limit you won't have to think about
- 04Boost for the two weeks before an enrollment deadlineSet the end date to the deadline
- 05Boost your open house post for its weekFeatured in the feed, and in the Sponsored section on the city deals page
- 06Check your Boost page after a week: calls, directions, website tapsIf taps aren't turning into calls, fix your listing before you raise your bid
- 07Add the pages of the competitors you lose toYou're the first Near You card on each
- 08Use the suggested bid, then pause whatever isn't bringing callsOne spot per business per page, so spread your budget