Most contractor websites were built once, by a nephew or a template company, and never touched again. They have a home page, a services page with six services on it, an about page, and a contact form. They rank for the company name and nothing else.
Google in 2026 rewards a different kind of site. One page per service per city. Fast on a phone. Real photos of real jobs. Reviews the search engine can read. Answers to the questions people actually type. And a straight line from the search result to a phone call.
None of that is complicated. It is just more pages, done right, than most owners think a website needs. Here is what the site needs and a page structure you can copy.
One page per service, per city
This is the single biggest change most contractor sites need. Google ranks pages, not websites. A page called Services that lists gutter cleaning, gutter guards, and roof washing in three paragraphs will not rank for any of them. A page called Gutter Cleaning in Franklin, TN with 600 words about gutter cleaning in Franklin can.
So the math is services times cities. Three services in five towns is 15 pages plus the three parent service pages. Sounds like a lot. It is a weekend of writing, and it is the difference between showing up and not.
Each service-city page needs:
- The service and the city in the title, H1, and URL.
- 500 to 900 words that are specific to the service. What it includes, how long it takes, what it costs as a range, what affects the price.
- Something about that city that is not filler. Neighborhoods you work in, the local housing stock, the HOA that requires it, the water hardness that makes it necessary.
- Two or three real photos from jobs in or near that city.
- Reviews from customers in that city if you have them.
- A FAQ block with three to five questions.
- A phone number and a form.
Do not copy the same page and swap the city name. Google catches it and so do customers. If you cannot write something real about a city, you probably do not do enough work there to need the page yet.
Speed, on a phone, on a cell connection
Most of your visitors are on a phone, usually standing in their driveway looking at the thing they want cleaned or fixed. If the page takes four seconds to load, they are back to the search results.
What slows down contractor sites, in the order we see it:
- Photos uploaded straight from the phone at 4 MB each. Resize to under 200 KB. Every one.
- Page builders that load 40 scripts to render a header. Pick a lean theme or a static site.
- Chat widgets, popups, and tracking pixels stacked on top of each other. Keep one of each, or none.
- Autoplaying video in the hero. Use a still photo with a play button.
- Cheap shared hosting. Spend the extra $15 a month.
Test with PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. A score in the 80s or above is fine. In the 40s, you are losing calls.
Proof on the page: real photos and reviews
Nobody calls a company they do not believe. Two things on every service page do the convincing.
Real photos, not stock
A stock photo of a smiling man in a clean polo holding a pressure washer tells the visitor nothing. A slightly crooked photo of your crew lead on a two-story colonial in the customer’s own neighborhood tells them you are real and you are local.
Set a rule for the crew: three photos per job. Before, after, and one with a person or a truck in the frame. Name the files with the service and the city before you upload them. Add alt text that says what is in the picture. That is all the image SEO you need.
Reviews on the page, with schema
Reviews do two jobs. They convince the visitor, and they tell Google you are a real business with real customers. For the second job, the reviews need to be in the page in a way the search engine can read. That means review or aggregate rating schema, the structured code that sits in the page and labels the data.
Practical version:
- Pull your Google reviews onto the site with a widget or by hand. Put three on every service page, matched to the service if you can.
- Add LocalBusiness schema to the site with your name, address, phone, hours, and service area.
- Add FAQ schema to every FAQ block.
- Do not fake the aggregate rating. Google has removed rich results for exactly that.
If your review count is thin, fix that before you touch the website. A site with 12 reviews will not outrank a competitor with 200 no matter how good the pages are. See Google Business Profile for field service for the process that gets reviews coming in every week.
Content that answers real questions: FAQ sections and articles
The site needs to answer questions at two moments. When the customer is ready to buy, and two weeks before that.
FAQ sections that answer the real questions
Every service page gets a FAQ block. Not “Why choose us?” The questions your office hears on the phone. How much does it cost. How long does it take. Do I need to be home. Will it hurt my plants. What if it rains. Are you insured.
Write the answers in two to four sentences, directly, with a number when there is one. “A single-story driveway pressure wash usually runs $150 to $300 depending on square footage and how much oil staining there is.” These blocks rank for long questions, and they feed the AI answer boxes that now sit on top of many searches.
Articles that answer questions before someone is ready to buy
A service page catches the person who is ready to call. An article catches the person two weeks earlier, when they are typing “why is my dryer taking two cycles” or “how often should gutters be cleaned.” Answer that question well and link to the service page.
Five to ten good articles beat fifty thin ones. Pick the questions your customers ask, write 1,000 words each from your real experience, and update them once a year. This is the part of the site that grows traffic year over year while the service pages hold the ranking. For how to pick topics that actually get searched in your area, see local SEO for trades companies.
Google Business Profile connected to the site
Your Business Profile and your website should agree on everything. Same name, same phone number, same address format, same hours, same service list. Link the profile to the home page or, better, to a landing page for your main city. Link each service on the profile to the matching service page.
Post to the profile weekly with a job photo and a sentence. Answer every review. Add your service area towns. The profile is what shows in the map pack, which is where most of the calls come from. The site is what convinces them after they click.
Clear calls to action and forms that work on a phone
Every page needs a phone number in the header that dials when tapped, a Get a Quote button that is visible without scrolling, and a form that takes under 30 seconds to fill out on a phone.
Form rules:
- Name, phone, address, what do you need. Four fields. Add a photo upload if you quote from photos.
- Big tap targets. No dropdown with 40 options.
- A phone field that brings up the number keyboard.
- A confirmation message that says what happens next and when.
- The submission goes to a phone by text, not just an inbox that gets checked at night.
- Somebody or something replies within minutes. A form that goes nowhere is worse than no form.
If your forms are producing submissions and no jobs, the problem is usually the follow-up, not the form. That is covered in why your contractor website does not get calls.
Page structure example: a pressure washing company
Say you run a pressure washing company in and around Chattanooga with three core services and four towns you want to own. Here is the site map.
Home
Who you are, what you do, where, with a phone number and a quote button above the fold. Three review snippets. Links to the three service pages.
Service pages (parent)
- /house-washing
- /driveway-and-concrete-cleaning
- /roof-cleaning
Each 800 to 1,200 words, the general version. Photos, FAQ, reviews, pricing ranges.
Service by city pages
- /house-washing/chattanooga
- /house-washing/hixson
- /house-washing/ooltewah
- /house-washing/cleveland-tn
- /driveway-and-concrete-cleaning/chattanooga
- /driveway-and-concrete-cleaning/hixson
- and so on, 12 pages total
Each 500 to 900 words, specific to that service in that town.
Commercial page
- /commercial-pressure-washing
Apartment communities, HOAs, restaurants. Different buyer, different page. If you sell to property managers, this page should speak their language, and that language is covered in what property managers want from vendors.
Service area page
- /service-area
A list of every town you cover with a link to the city pages that exist.
Articles
- /articles/how-much-does-house-washing-cost
- /articles/soft-wash-vs-pressure-wash
- /articles/how-often-to-clean-a-driveway
- /articles/does-roof-cleaning-void-your-warranty
- /articles/pressure-washing-before-selling-a-house
About, Reviews, Contact
Real photos of the real crew. A reviews page pulling from Google. Contact with a map and the form.
That is about 30 pages. Built once and updated when you add a town or a service, it will outrank almost every template site in your market within a year.
Where Intrepid fits
We build sites for trades companies on this exact structure, write the service and city pages from your real jobs, and wire the forms into Jobber so leads get a reply in minutes. If your current site is one services page and a contact form, see our website work or book a call and we will show you what the page count should be for your market.