VICTORIA – WebMax Canada is celebrating its 10th year in business, and the Canadian owned independent company remains proud of the answer the phone personal touch its team provides and the trust it has earned with customers.
Susan Jones and Mike Rothe started the company in 2016, and although it is not a construction company per se, they are known as the people behind the people who build: Contractors, builders and trades businesses.
“Most days you’ll find me on the phone with a contractor, figuring out what they need online, then making sure our web design, SEO, Google Maps, and AI visibility work delivers,” Susan notes. “The folks swinging the hammers already know what their customers are searching for. I just make sure the business shows up when someone goes looking.”
She observes that while ranking on Google used to be the whole game, now AI assisted search and tools like Google’s AI Mode are quietly deciding who gets put in front of people, and most trades companies don’t know it’s happening to them.
“We call it the AI Visibility Gap,” she points out. “You can be a fantastic builder, doing everything right, and still be invisible to the tools your customers are starting to lean on. “That’s why we launched SpottableAI this year. It’s human led, and it works on whether the AI tools actually name your business when someone asks them, not just whether you turn up in a list of links.”
“We built it from scratch in 2016. No buyout, no franchise,” she explains. “We wanted it fully Canadian owned because small trades businesses deserve a partner who knows their community and their country, not someone who’s never been near a BC or Canadian job site. Ten years later, staying close to the people we work for is still what the whole thing runs on.”
Q: How does WebMax support women in construction?
“More and more of our clients are women running their own trades businesses, and they’re some of the most driven people we work with. We get them found, and get them chosen. When the visibility’s working, it puts the spotlight back on the work itself, and these women earn that every day.”
Q: What does your company do to help attract more female workers to the construction industry?
“The difference we can make is helping women led businesses do well. And it adds up. A woman who runs a trades company, wins good work, and builds something that lasts shows the next one it’s possible. That brings more women in, more than any campaign would.”
Q: How has the company grown since it started?
“Steadily, which is on purpose. We’ve never gone chasing growth, because when a company does that, it’s the clients who pay in cut corners. This year’s felt different. With AI assisted search shaking up how people find businesses, the phone’s been ringing with contractors asking how to keep up, and we’ve never been busier.”
Q: What have been the keys to your company’s success?
“What’s kept us going is staying human and honest. We won’t promise rankings or guaranteed placement, because nobody honest can, and the trades have heard plenty of that already. What we will promise is straight talk, work we stand behind, and onboarding that doesn’t pile more onto a contractor who’s already slammed. We’re Canadian owned, BBB A+ accredited, Google Certified, with 80 plus five star reviews.
“But what I’m proudest of is simpler. Ten years in, the clients who started with us are mostly still with us. Jess and Sari at Jessari Realty 
Group said it best after we built their site: WebMax is the one to trust.”
Business Examiner
