SEO / 8 min read
How a trade contractor gets found in search
A contractor should be found in search by the page that answers the buyer's phrase, not by the home page. Where a site has one services list, that page does not exist, and building it is where the work starts.
A brochure site, as we use the term, has a home page, an about page, a single services page listing everything the business does, and a contact form. A buyer who types a scope into a search box is looking for a page about that scope. On a brochure site that page does not exist.
What follows is the method we use when we plan a contractor's site. It is not a trick. It consists of building the pages a buyer is looking for, describing them in the buyer's words, and keeping the business listing consistent with them.
A service page and a jurisdiction page answer different questions
A service page is about one scope the business bids. Commercial roof replacement, backflow testing, interior demolition, fire sprinkler inspection, or whatever the trade calls the work. It describes the scope, the buildings it applies to, who buys it, how an enquiry proceeds, and what the business needs from the buyer to price it. It is the same page wherever the work is done.
A jurisdiction page is about how that work is bought and delivered under one authority. That authority might be a state transportation agency, a school construction authority, a city's facade inspection programme, or a public owner with its own bid form. The page says what differs there: the bid form, the unit price schedule, the wage regime, the submittal format. It is tied to work the contractor has delivered under that authority, and it is published under insights rather than as a location page.
One page per scope rather than a list, and why a city page is not the next step
A single services list asks one page to answer every question a buyer could have. We do not ask that of a page. A buyer searching for one scope is asking a narrow question, and we give that question a page of its own.
A page for one scope can be specific in every line. Its title names the scope. Its heading is written the way a buyer types. The scope is written in that trade's own language, and the links go to the projects that show the work and to the jurisdictions it has been delivered under.
The next step is not a page for every town in range. We do not write city pages, because we have nothing to put on them that is true only of that city. When we plan a site we assume that a search for a scope near a place comes from a different buyer. We assume that buyer is comparing directories and lead brokers rather than sending a bid set. We plan the site for the buyer who sends the bid set.
What each page carries
Each page has one job, and we do not let one page do the job of another.
| Page | What it answers for the buyer | What it must contain | What it links to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Service page | Whether the business does this work, and how | The scope in the trade's own words, the building types, who buys it, and what an enquiry needs to include | The jurisdiction pages that touch the scope, and the projects that show the work |
| Jurisdiction page | How this work is bought and delivered under this authority | The bid form, the unit price schedule, the wage regime, the submittal format, and the projects delivered under it | The service pages for the scopes involved, and the projects delivered there |
| Project page | Whether the business has done work like the buyer's | One job: the building, the scope, what was found, what was delivered, published with permission or anonymised | The service it belongs to and the jurisdiction it was delivered under |
| Google Business Profile | Whether this is a real business the buyer can call | Categories, service area, hours, phone, services and photographs, all matching the site | The page on the site that matches the profile's primary category, rather than the home page by default |
What a Google Business Profile needs
A buyer can meet the profile before the site, so we make it agree with the site in every detail. The same name, the same hours, the same phone, the same services and the same address setting.
- A primary category chosen for the main trade
- The primary category is the trade the business would name first if asked. Secondary categories cover the other scopes it bids, and nothing is added because it sounds useful.
- A service area where that is how the business works
- For a contractor who travels to the work, we set a service area and do not show the address where it is a home or a registered office. For a shop the public can visit, we show the address. The setting matches how the business operates.
- Hours that match the site, and a phone that is answered
- The hours on the profile, the site and the footer are the same hours. The phone number is the one somebody picks up during them.
- Services listed the way the site names them
- Each service on the profile matches a service page on the site, in the same words. We do not list a service on the profile that has no page behind it, because the link would have nowhere to go but the home page.
- Photographs of the business's own work
- Photographs of real jobs, with permission where a client is identifiable, captioned plainly. No stock construction imagery.
- A description written for a person
- The description says what the business does, where, and for whom, in plain sentences. It is not a list of search phrases.
- Reviews that are real
- Reviews are requested from customers after a job is finished, and never written, bought or exchanged. Where you want replies handled, they are written to the customer, not to the search engine.
- A website link that points at the right page
- The link goes to the page that matches the profile's primary category. Where the business has one main scope, it goes to that scope's page.
The role of project pages
Project pages are where the proof lives. A service page says the business does the work. A jurisdiction page says how the work is bought and delivered under one authority. A project page shows one job, with the scope, the building type, the constraints and what was delivered. It is written for a buyer deciding whether the contractor has done work like theirs.
Project pages also carry the specific knowledge a jurisdiction page needs. The authority that reviewed the job, the inspection sequence, the access constraints, the wage regime on a public job. All of this is true of a place and hard to fake. Written once on the project page and linked from the service and jurisdiction pages, it makes both of them specific.
The rules are the same as everywhere else on the site. A project is published with the client's written permission or it is anonymised, with the client, the address and the contract value removed. The captions describe what is in the photograph, which is the work, not a search phrase.
Writing titles and headings from the words a buyer types
The words come from the buyer, not from the agency and not from the trade's own marketing.
- 01
Collect the buyer's words before writing anything
Read the enquiry emails, the invitations to bid and the questions asked on the phone. Write down the phrases the buyer used for the work, exactly as they used them. Where the site already has Search Console, read the query report as well.
- 02
Choose one phrase per page
Each page answers one phrase: a scope, or a scope under one jurisdiction. We give each phrase one page and each page one phrase, so that no two pages are written for the same search and no page is written for several.
- 03
Write the title from that phrase
The title is the scope, then the jurisdiction where the page is about one, then the business name, in plain words. Nothing is repeated and no adjectives are added.
- 04
Give the page one H1 that says the same thing as a sentence
The H1 is the phrase written the way a person would say it, once, at the top of the page. It is not the title tag pasted in again and it is not a slogan.
- 05
Name each section heading for what the section answers
The headings below the H1 describe the content beneath them: the scope, the buildings, the process, the jurisdiction, the projects. They are written so that a person scanning the page can find the section they came for without reading the rest. The headings do not carry the phrase again.
- 06
Read it back as the buyer
If a title or a heading would not be said aloud to a customer on the phone, we rewrite it.
What to measure, and what not to expect it to say
We set up Search Console when the site launches, and we read the measurements page by page rather than as a total.
- Which queries each page appears for in Search Console, read page by page rather than for the site as a whole.
- Whether the page that appears for a phrase is the page written for it, or the home page standing in for a page that does not exist.
- Whether every page that should be indexed is indexed, and whether any page that should not be has been.
- Enquiries by page: which page the form was submitted from, and which page a caller was on where the phone system can report it.
- What the Business Profile reports about calls and visits, read against the hours and categories set.
- The profile and the site checked against each other after every change to hours, phone, categories or services.
- The pages that appear for phrases the business does not want, checked against their headings.
- How long the measurement has run before a conclusion is drawn from it. We do not draw one from a single month of a new page.
Want this applied to your set?
Send it over and we will tell you what it costs to price properly.