Contractor SEO: a 90-day local plan you can measure

Contractor SEO fails most often not from bad tactics but from no checkpoints. Someone builds pages, the owner waits, six months pass, and nobody can say whether a single job came from them. The fix is to set up the measuring before the work starts, then check it at day 30, 60 and 90 against your own job records, not against a rank report.

This guide is the trade-neutral plan. It works for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage doors, remodelers and most other home service trades. The SEO hub explains the measuring chain in more depth; the trade guides for HVAC and plumbing add the trade-specific page lists.

Two contests, two sets of levers

When someone searches "electrician near me" or "garage door repair," Google usually shows a map with a few businesses, then web results. They rank on different things.

Which of the two brings you more calls depends on your trade and market, and your own numbers will tell you within a few months. The map pack is partly out of your hands, because it depends on where the searcher is standing. Web pages are where effort compounds. Do both, and keep their sources separate so you can tell them apart later.

Days 1 to 14: set up the measuring

Nothing in this phase changes your rankings. All of it decides whether you'll ever know what worked.

1. 1

   Verify your site in Search Console

   Add a Domain property, which covers every subdomain and both http and https, and verify it with a DNS record at your domain registrar. If someone else built your site, ask them to add you as an owner rather than sharing a login.

2. 2

   Give organic visitors their own phone number

   Put a tracking number on your website that's used nowhere else, tied to an organic search campaign in your field service software. Every call from it is an organic call, and the job booked from it carries that source.

3. 3

   Tag the website link on your Business Profile

   Add UTM parameters to the website link (for example utm_source=google, utm_medium=organic, utm_campaign=business-profile) so visits and form fills from the profile are told apart from other organic visits.

4. 4

   Make sure forms keep their source

   Submit a test form from a tagged link and check that the lead in your office system shows the source. If it doesn't, fix the form before writing a single page.

5. 5

   Write down your baseline

   Last 90 days: Search Console clicks, Business Profile calls, and booked jobs with an organic or profile source. If your current system can't tell you the last one, that's the first finding.

The Domain property and DNS verification come from Google's Search Console help.⁷ UTM parameters are standard campaign tags; Google Analytics says to always include utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign.⁸

Days 15 to 45: profile and service pages

Business Profile first. It's the fastest lever. Check every field against Google's guidelines: your real business name with nothing added, the fewest and most specific categories, customer-facing hours you actually keep, and a phone number under your direct control.⁶ If customers don't come to your address, hide it and set service areas instead: up to 20, by city or postal code, within about two hours' drive of your base.⁹

Then one page per service. Not one page listing everything. For each service you want more of, write a page that a customer could use to decide: what the job involves, what changes the price, how long it takes, what's guaranteed, how to book. Google's helpful content guidance asks whether a page offers "original information" and shows "first-hand expertise."⁴ A contractor has an unfair advantage here: real job photos, real problems your techs see, real answers your office gives on the phone. Use them.

Days 46 to 90: reviews, area pages, first read

Reviews from every completed job. Ask every customer, the same way, soon after the job. No incentives, no filtering. The FTC's 2024 rule bans buying fake reviews,³ and our post on reviews after the FTC rule lines up what the FTC and Google each allow.

Area pages, only where they're real. Google's spam policies list "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse, and separately warn against generating pages at scale to manipulate rankings.¹ Write an area page when you have work there to show and something specific to say. Skip it when you don't.

Day 90: the first honest read. Pull the same numbers as your baseline and compare.

The 30, 60, 90-day checkpoints

Ninety days is a checkpoint, not a finish line. SEO often takes longer to pay than ads, and Google publishes no timeline. What 90 days does give you is a working measuring chain and enough data to stop guessing.

How to measure it from your jobs

The second card is a version of customer acquisition cost for one channel. If you count your own hours, use the same hourly rate every month so the trend is honest. Website leads landing in one place with their source attached is what makes all three cards work; that's how the TradesWork lead inbox is set up.

If you hire help

Ask any agency, or a marketing platform such as TradesForce, three things before you sign: who owns the domain, site and profile if you leave; which pages they'll build first and why; and whether they'll report results by page group in a way you can check against your booked jobs. The Search Console guide for contractors shows what to look at yourself, so their report isn't the only one you read.