Two Cities, One Painting Company: How We Made Merner's Painting & Decorating Visible on Google and AI Search in Winnipeg and Houston

Published by BASolutions AI · October 2026 · Local · Case Study

Merner's Painting & Decorating serves homeowners in two very different markets: Winnipeg, Manitoba and Houston, Texas. Each city has its own customers, its own search habits, and its own competitors. Our job was to make Merner's the painting company people find first in both places, on Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. This post covers how we did it and how that visibility turned into more leads.

The Challenge: One Brand, Two Countries

Merner's does excellent work, but great work does not show up in search results on its own. A homeowner in St. Vital and a homeowner in The Heights both search for a painter in very different ways. They use different spelling, different city and neighbourhood names, different phone area codes, and they expect different things from a local contractor.

One website trying to serve both cities would send Google mixed signals. Is this a Winnipeg company or a Houston company? When search engines and AI tools cannot answer that question clearly, they recommend someone else. So we did not try to force one site to rank in two countries. We gave each market its own site.

Two Domains, Two Markets: .ca for Winnipeg, .com for Houston

The foundation of this project was a simple split. The Canadian .ca domain serves Winnipeg, and the .com domain serves Houston, Texas. Each site has its own local phone number, its own service area, its own content, and its own structured data, so Google never has to guess which city a page belongs to.

• Winnipeg: homeowners searching for Kitchen Cabinet Painters Winnipeg land on mernerspainting.ca, a site written for Manitoba homes, Manitoba weather, and a 204 phone number.
• Houston: homeowners searching for Kitchen Cabinet Painters Houston Texas land on mernerspainting.com, a site built around Houston neighbourhoods, Gulf Coast humidity, and a 346 phone number.

A country-specific domain is one of the clearest location signals you can give a search engine. Pair it with a local phone number, local copy, and matching business details, and Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity all get the same consistent answer about where Merner's works.

What We Built for Winnipeg

Winnipeg is a market we know well. We applied the same local SEO checklist for Winnipeg contractors that we use for every Manitoba client, and built the site around the services people actually search for.

• Dedicated service pages for interior painting, exterior painting, cabinet refinishing, deck staining, and commercial painting, so each page can rank for one clear search intent.
• Cabinet painting content that answers the questions Winnipeg homeowners ask before they call: whether to paint or replace, what the process looks like, and what it costs. Each article targets a different question so they support each other instead of competing.
• Pages Google can read on the first visit. Every page is pre-rendered to plain HTML, so search engines and AI crawlers see the full content immediately instead of an empty shell waiting for JavaScript.
• Consistent business details across the site, schema markup, and Google Business Profile, so the name, phone number, and service area always match.

What We Built for Houston

Houston started from a different place. Merner's had an outdated website that was not bringing in leads. We rebuilt it from the ground up with a modern design that shows off their gallery and reviews, matches their brand, and makes booking a consultation easy.

• Old URLs redirected, not lost. Every page from the old site was mapped to its new home with permanent 301 redirects, so the trust it had already built with Google carried over.
• Clean, structured data. The business is described once in schema markup and referenced from every page, which gives Google and AI tools one consistent record of who Merner's is and where it works.
• Automated quality checks on every update. Before any change goes live, the build checks each page's title, meta description, heading, and image alt text. If something would hurt rankings, it does not ship.
• Houston-focused cabinet content, including a dedicated guide to kitchen cabinet painting cost in Houston, linked from the service pages and the other cabinet articles.

Getting Found in AI Search, Not Just Google

More homeowners now ask an AI assistant who to hire instead of scrolling through ten blue links. We have written about how many people search for contractors with ChatGPT and Perplexity, and the trend is only growing.

AI tools recommend businesses they can understand and verify. For both Merner's sites, that meant:

1. Clear, quotable answers. FAQ sections and service pages answer real questions directly, in plain language an AI can lift into a response.
2. Machine-readable facts. LocalBusiness, Service, and FAQPage schema spell out exactly what Merner's offers and where.
3. Crawlable pages. Pre-rendered HTML means AI crawlers that do not run JavaScript still see every word.
4. One location per site. Because Winnipeg and Houston never share a page, an AI asked for a painter in either city gets an unambiguous match.

This is the core of our AI search visibility service, and it works hand in hand with traditional SEO. The same foundation that earns a spot on Google earns a mention in AI answers.

The Results: Visibility That Turns Into Leads

Visibility only matters if it brings in work. On the first day the new Houston site launched, Merner's received two high-intent leads from homeowners ready to book. Since then, both sites have kept Merner's in front of homeowners searching in their cities, on Google and in AI search, and that steady visibility has turned into a steady flow of new leads in Winnipeg and Houston.

You can see the Houston rebuild and what Merner's had to say about it in our client portfolio. It is the same approach that took Gabriel's Pavers live and visible in Michigan: build the foundation right, and visibility starts at launch.

What This Means for Your Business

Whether you work in one city or several, the lesson from Merner's is the same: search engines and AI tools reward businesses that are clear about what they do and where they do it. If you serve more than one market, each one deserves its own pages, its own local details, and its own content.

Not sure where your site stands today? Start with our free SEO audit, or get in touch and we will show you what it would take to be found in your market, in Canada or the US.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Merner's Painting have two websites?

Merner's serves two separate markets. The .ca site serves Winnipeg, Manitoba and the .com site serves Houston, Texas. Separate sites give each city its own local phone number, content, and business details, which sends Google and AI tools a clear location signal instead of a mixed one.

Can one company rank in two different cities?

Yes, as long as each city is treated as its own market. That means dedicated pages or sites, local contact details, location-specific content, and consistent structured data for each area served.

How do you get a painting company recommended by ChatGPT and other AI tools?

AI tools recommend businesses they can clearly understand. We make sure the site is crawlable without JavaScript, answers common customer questions directly, uses schema markup to describe services and location, and keeps business details consistent everywhere they appear.

Does BASolutions AI work with contractors outside Winnipeg?

Yes. We work with contractors across Canada and the United States, including Merner's in Houston and Gabriel's Pavers in Michigan. Our whole process runs remotely, so location is never a barrier.