Local SEO Checklist for Contractors

A local SEO checklist for a contractor has four parts: the Google Business Profile owners check before they invite you to bid, the website that shows your projects, the reviews that describe them, and the tracking that ties inquiries to bids. Work through the fourteen items below in order, put a date beside each one, and aim to finish before owners start collecting bids for spring and summer building season. Most items take an afternoon, not a month.

The checklist

Each item is written so you can check it yourself on a phone in a few minutes, then fix it or hand it to someone with a deadline.

1. Profile: primary category. It reads General contractor or Construction company, whichever matches the projects you want more of. Related trade categories appear only where your own crews do that work (Google on categories).
2. Profile: service-area setup. The street address is hidden and the service area lists the towns, counties or ZIP codes you genuinely build in, not every place within two hours (Google's service-area rules).
3. Profile: services list. Every project type is listed in plain words owners use: home additions, new construction, custom homes, commercial build-outs, tenant improvements.
4. Profile: project photos. Each recent project has progress and finished photos, uploaded with a short description of the work. No stock images, no renderings presented as built work.
5. Profile: name, phone and hours. The name matches your trucks, signs and contracts. The phone rings somewhere answered during the hours shown.
6. Website: a page per project type. Additions, new builds and commercial work each have their own page, describing your process and the decisions owners face on that kind of project.
7. Website: case studies. At least three finished projects are written up with scope, schedule, the problem solved and real photos. Pull them from the job files in your construction CRM.
8. Website: service-area pages. The parts of your area that matter most have a page each, built on projects you completed there.
9. Website: a qualifying bid form. The form asks project type, location, timeline and budget range, and it works on a phone.
10. Website: speed and indexing. Project galleries load quickly on mobile, and Search Console shows your key pages as indexed (Search Console).
11. Listings: consistent details. Your name, phone and website match on Bing, Apple, the Better Business Bureau, builder associations and supplier directories you appear in.
12. Reviews: a fixed moment to ask. Every client is asked at the same milestone, usually the final walk-through, by text or email with a direct link. Nobody is skipped and nothing is offered in return (review policy).
13. Reviews: replies. Every review from the last year has a reply that mentions the project type, never the client's address.
14. Tracking: source on every inquiry. Calls and forms are tagged by source, and each one becomes a record in your CRM marked as a qualified bid, a lost bid or a signed contract.

What to fix first

Start with the settings that decide which searches you appear in, then the ones that turn visits into bid requests, and leave the slow builders for last. The order below assumes one person spends a few hours a week on it.

Make edits to the profile one at a time, a few days apart. Changing the name, category and service area in a single sitting can send the profile into review just as owners are searching.

If the calendar already runs into building season, compress weeks 1 and 2 and push the page writing to the fall. Owners planning next year's additions and new homes start researching while your crews finish this year's.

How often to review

Review the list on a schedule set by your building calendar, not when calls feel slow.

• Every month: check the profile for edits Google or the public made, reply to new reviews, add photos from projects closed that month, and compare qualified bids by source in your CRM.
• Every quarter: spot-check Map Pack results from three or four neighborhoods across your service area, look at Search Console for pages that dropped out of the index, and update one case study.
• Before building season: run the whole checklist again. Owners are choosing builders, so every gap costs more now than at any other time.
• After any big change: a rebrand, a new office, a website rebuild or a new project line. These are the moments profiles and pages break quietly.

For the reasoning behind the profile items, see the Map Pack ranking guide for contractors. For help with categories, see which Google categories fit contractors.

How VETS Growth Marketing helps

We can take this list off your desk as a dated project: the profile and form fixes in the first two weeks, then the project pages and case studies, all live before building season. Every edit happens inside your own Google and website accounts, and the result is reported as qualified bids and signed contracts by source. A growth consultation starts by running these fourteen checks against your business.