SEO for contractors, with the real search numbers

What homeowners actually search

These are real monthly search volumes for the US, from Google Ads data pulled in September 2026. The last column is what advertisers pay on average for one click on that search, which tells you how much each visitor is worth to the companies competing for them.

Two things stand out. First, most of the volume is in searches with "near me" or a city, which Google answers with the map. Second, the searches by type of job ("kitchen remodel contractors", "home addition contractors") are big and, by the difficulty scores we measured, far less contested than "general contractor" on its own. A contractor who names those jobs on their site is competing where the competition is thin.

Step 1: the Google Business Profile

For any search with "near me" or a city, the map at the top gets most of the calls. What decides who shows up there is, in order: how close the business is to the person searching, how well the profile matches the search, and how many good reviews it has.

What you control:

• The primary category. "General contractor" if that's what you are; "Remodeler", "Kitchen remodeler" or "Home builder" if that's where most of your work is. It's the single most important setting on the profile. There's more on this in choosing your Google category.
• Service areas. If you go to the customer, set the cities and counties you work in and hide the address. See how to set your service area.
• Services. Add each type of job by name: kitchen remodeling, home additions, bathroom remodeling, new construction.
• Photos of finished work, uploaded regularly, with the job and the city in the description when you can.
• Reviews. Ask every customer at the final walk-through, while they're happy. A review that mentions the job ("they built our addition in Kendall") helps the profile match those searches. The how-to is in getting Google reviews.

Step 2: a website that says what you build and where

The website feeds the profile and ranks on its own for searches without "near me". For a contractor it needs less than agencies suggest:

• The title of the page should say what you are and where, in words people search: "General Contractor in Miami · Kitchens, Additions and Remodels". That line is what Google shows as the blue link.
• One section per type of job, each with a heading that uses the searched words: kitchen remodeling, home additions, bathroom remodeling. If you only write "Our services", Google can't match you to anything.
• Your license number as text. Customers look it up, and it's a signal that the business is real.
• Finished projects with their city. "Home addition in Coral Gables, 600 sq ft" is useful to the customer and to Google.
• The cities and counties you work in, written out.
• A phone number that dials when tapped. Most of these searches happen on a phone.

We looked at how ten real contractors in Miami do this in the best construction company websites. The one with the most location pages, Fab's Remodeling, links to 62 of them from its homepage.

Step 3: pages per service or per city, only when you can fill them

Once the main page is bringing in calls, the next step is a page for each big job type ("kitchen remodeling in Miami") or each main city. They work when each one has something true and specific: projects done there, permits you pulled there, what that job usually costs. They don't work when the only thing that changes is the city name, and Google tends to ignore those.

Step 4: listings and links

• Directory profiles with the same name, phone and address everywhere: Google, Bing, Apple Maps, BBB, Houzz, Nextdoor, Angi. You don't need to buy leads on them to have a free profile.
• Links from people you already work with: suppliers, architects, designers, the trade associations you belong to (NARI, the local builders association), the local chamber. One link from a real local business counts for more than dozens from directories nobody reads.

What not to pay for

• Packages that promise first place on Google. Nobody controls that.
• Monthly SEO on top of a page that doesn't say what you build or where. Fix the page first; then the monthly work pays off.

If you'd rather not do the monthly part yourself, our local SEO plan keeps your Google profile current and adds something new to your site every month, for $59 a month with no contract.

• Buying leads to replace SEO. Lead sites sell the same contact to several contractors. The math is in how to stop buying leads.

How long it takes

The Google profile can start bringing calls within weeks if the category and reviews are right. A new website takes months to rank on its own, and more if the domain is new. That's why the order matters: profile first, page second, extra pages third.