What a contractor website needs

The facts here come from primary sources: the California Contractors State License Board's advertising guidelines for contractors (as one state's example), Google Business Profile Help on service areas and its guidelines for representing your business, Google Search Central's spam policies, and the W3C's forms tutorial. Licensing and advertising rules differ from state to state and trade to trade; this guide is not legal advice, so check your own state's board.

The short answer

A contractor website needs a page for each service you want to be hired for, an honest list of the areas you serve, your license number wherever your state requires it, photos of your own finished work, a short quote request form, real reviews, and business details that match your Google Business Profile. A phone number people can tap on a phone belongs at the top of every page.

Service pages

Give each service you sell its own page: roof replacement, roof repair, gutters; or panel upgrades, EV charger installs, rewiring. Say what the job involves, what kinds of property you work on, roughly how long it takes, what the customer needs to decide, and whether you handle permits. Add photos of that job type and one clear call to action. A single "Services" page with a bulleted list gives people, and search engines, very little to go on.

Only list work you can legally do. California's board puts it plainly: "You cannot advertise for construction work outside of areas for which you are licensed." In its example, a masonry contractor "cannot advertise for electrical work" unless they also hold an electrical license. Other states have their own versions, so match your service pages to your actual licenses. Our website content checklist lists what to gather for each page.

Service-area pages

Most contractors work at the customer's property, so the area you serve matters as much as the service. Name your main towns, counties or neighborhoods on the homepage and contact page. If you add a page per area, make each one worth reading: jobs you have done there, local permit or building notes, the crew or office that covers it.

Be careful with copy-and-paste city pages. Google's spam policies describe doorway abuse as "when sites or pages are created to rank for specific, similar search queries", and give as an example "Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page". Our guide to local SEO and service-area pages shows what makes an area page useful rather than a doorway.

License and insurance details

Many states require a contractor's license number in advertising, and a website counts as advertising. The rules vary, so check yours. California is a clear example. Its board lists "any website or post that solicits business on the Internet" among the forms advertising can take, and says licensed contractors "must include their license number in all construction contracts, subcontracts, and calls for bid, and all forms of advertising." Not doing so carries a civil penalty.

The same guidelines show why you should read the rules rather than guess. California says "The law prevents you from noting in your advertising or any presentation to the public that you are bonded", and that it is a misdemeanor to use "false, misleading, or deceptive advertising" to get people to sign improvement contracts. Ads for asbestos removal must carry extra registration numbers. So "licensed, bonded and insured" is fine in some states and a problem in others.

Our view: put the license number, with the state and classification, in the site footer so it appears on every page, and add a link to the state board's license lookup so customers can check it themselves. If you show insurance details, say only what your policy and your state allow.

Project galleries

Photos of finished jobs persuade more than anything you write. Use your own photos, taken on your own jobs, and show before and after where you can. Stock photos of a stranger's kitchen do not prove anything about your work, and photos copied from another contractor's site can bring a copyright claim. Ask customers before you publish photos that show their home, their address or their faces, and keep that permission in writing. Our guide to website photos and image licensing covers the rights side, and image optimization keeps large galleries fast.

A short caption helps each project: the job, the town, the main materials and what the customer wanted. Those captions are also some of the most useful, specific text on a service-area page.

The quote request form

The W3C's forms tutorial notes that "users usually prefer simple and short forms" and advises: "Only ask users to enter what is required to complete the transaction or process; if irrelevant or excessive data is requested, users are more likely to abandon the form." For a first estimate that usually means name, phone or email, the address or town, the type of job, a short description and an optional photo upload.

Give every field a visible label, say which fields are required in words, and tell people what happens next ("we call back within one working day"). Send a confirmation email so they know the request arrived. Our guides to website forms and form spam go further. If you book site visits for fixed time slots, see online booking for service businesses.

Reviews

Homeowners check reviews before they let anyone in. Show a few real reviews next to the matching project or service, with the customer's first name and town if they agree, and link to your Google reviews. Do not write, edit or buy reviews. Our guide to reviews and testimonials on websites covers asking for reviews and the rules around them.

Matching your Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile and your website should tell the same story. Google asks businesses to "Represent your business as it's consistently represented and recognized in the real world across signage, stationery, and other branding" and to "Make sure your address and/or service area is accurate and precise." Use the same business name, phone number and service area on both.

Many contractors are what Google calls a service-area business: one that "visits or delivers to customers directly but doesn't serve customers at their business address", with plumbers given as an example. Google says such a business can "only have one profile for the whole area that they serve" and that if you do not serve customers at your address you should remove it from the profile. You can set "up to 20 service areas", and the overall area "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based." If you work from home, your website does not need to show your home address either; the towns you serve and a phone number do the job. Our guide to Google Business Profile walks through the setup.

For paid leads, our guide to Google Ads for contractors compares Local Services Ads and Search campaigns; both send people to the pages described above.

A short checklist (our view)

• Phone number and a "Get a quote" button at the top of every page.
• One page per service you want to be hired for, only within your license.
• Service areas named clearly; area pages only where you have something real to say.
• License number, state and classification in the footer, with a link to the board's lookup.
• Your own project photos, with customer permission and short captions.
• A short, labelled quote form that confirms what happens next.
• Real reviews, and the same name, phone and service area as your Business Profile.
• A site that loads fast on a phone (see Core Web Vitals) and passes the accessibility basics.

Restaurants, law firms, nonprofits and photographers have matching guides in what a restaurant website needs, what a law firm website needs, what a nonprofit website needs, what a photography website needs, what a salon website needs, what a cleaning business website needs, what a landscaping website needs, what an auto repair shop website needs and what a moving company website needs. If you would rather have it built for you, our website development service builds custom WordPress and static websites made to load fast, rank well and be easy for your team to edit.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to show my contractor license number on my website?

In many states, yes, but the rules vary. California's Contractors State License Board says licensed contractors must include their license number in all forms of advertising, and counts websites that solicit business as advertising. Check your own state's licensing board.

Can I say "licensed, bonded and insured"?

It depends on the state. California's board says the law prevents contractors from noting in their advertising that they are bonded. Check what your state allows before you use the phrase anywhere on your site.

Should I make a page for every town I serve?

Only where you have something real to say about that town, such as projects you did there. Google's spam policies count pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse.

Should my home address be on my website?

Not if customers do not visit you there. Google says a service-area business that does not serve customers at its address should remove the address from its Business Profile; name the areas you serve and give a phone number instead.