Google Business Profile for contractors: the ten minutes that matter
For local service searches, the map pack above the results gets more clicks than the site that ranks first. Here is the short list of what actually moves a contractor's profile, and what to ignore.
When someone searches “commercial plumber near me,” the three businesses in the map box get the calls. Your website matters for the longer, more specific searches; the map pack matters for the local ones. Most contractors have a profile and have never opened it. Here is what matters.
The five things that move the needle
- Primary category. Set it to the most specific category that matches your main business: “Roofing contractor,” not “Contractor.” Add secondary categories for the others. This is the single biggest factor and most profiles have it wrong.
- Reviews, with replies. Count and recency. Ask every finished job for one, with a direct link. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, briefly and without arguing. Google weights the reply.
- Services, listed. Add each service you sell, with a sentence. This connects your profile to specific searches the way service pages do on the site.
- Photos, real ones, regularly. Jobsite photos, trucks, crew. A profile with a hundred photos added over two years beats one with ten professional shots from 2021. This is where real project photography earns its keep.
- Consistency. Name, address and phone must match the website exactly, and match every other listing (Yelp, BBB, the licensing board). Mismatches cost ranking.
What to ignore
- Posts. They expire and barely move anything for contractors.
- Products. Not relevant to most trades.
- Paying someone $300 a month to “manage” the profile. The work above is ten minutes a week.
The connection to the website
The profile links to your site, and the site’s service pages confirm to Google that you do what the profile says. A profile that says “fire protection contractor” linking to a site with a page per service (inspection, installation, alarm, backflow) reinforces both. One with a single “Services” page does not.
Every Ironsite website launch includes setting the profile up correctly and writing the ten-minute weekly routine into the 90-day plan. What is in a website.
Core Web Vitals in plain English, and why your site fails them
Google measures how fast your site loads, how soon it responds, and whether things jump around. Most contractor sites fail on a phone on a jobsite. What the three numbers mean and how a site passes.
One page per service: the SEO play most contractors miss
Google ranks pages, not websites. A contractor with fifteen specific service pages outranks one with a single 'Services' page every time. Here is how to structure it, with examples by trade.
Fifteen minutes. No pitch deck.
Tell me what you build and where the leads come from today. I will tell you what I would change, and what it would cost. If it is not a fit, I will say so on the call.