Contractor Website Checklist: 12 Things Your Site Should Have
A practical checklist based on the 12-point scorecard we used to audit 150 contractor websites. Each item explains what it is, why it matters, and how to check if your site has it.
We audited 150 contractor websites across electricians, plumbers, HVAC, roofers, and builders in the Boston area. Every site was scored against the same 12-point scorecard. Not a single site scored full marks. Most scored poorly on at least half the items.
This checklist is that scorecard, written up as a practical guide. You can use it to check your own site. Each item has three parts: what it is, why it matters, and how to check if your site has it. Work through them in order. The first few are the most important.
The 12-point checklist
First-screen clarity
What it is: When someone lands on your homepage, the first thing they see should tell them three things: what trade you are, what area you cover, and what your main service is. This is the top of the page, before scrolling, on a phone.
Why it matters: Visitors decide in seconds whether they are in the right place. If your homepage opens with a stock photo and a vague tagline like 'Quality work you can trust', they bounce back to Google. If it says 'Licensed Electrician in Malden, MA' with a Call Now button, they stay.
How to checkOpen your site on your phone. Look at the first screen without scrolling. Can a stranger tell what you do and where you do it? Is there a visible call-to-action? If not, rewrite your headline and move the button up.
Service clarity
What it is: Each major service you offer should have its own page or clearly defined section. Not one page listing everything in bullet points, but separate pages for the jobs you want to win. An electrician should have pages for panel upgrades, EV charger installs, inspections, and emergency work. A plumber should have pages for boiler repair, drain clearing, leak detection, and bathroom installs.
Why it matters: Service-specific pages rank for specific search queries. Someone searching for 'panel upgrade electrician Boston' wants to land on a page about panel upgrades, not a generic services list. Separate pages also let you explain what each service includes, who it is for, and how to book it.
How to checkList your top five services. Now check your site. Does each one have its own page with a description, a photo, and a contact link? If they are all crammed onto one page, you are losing search traffic and enquiries.
Contact path
What it is: A visitor should be able to contact you from any page on your site within two taps. That means your phone number is in the header and tappable on mobile. Your contact form is on a dedicated page linked from the main menu. Your homepage has a visible 'Call now' or 'Get a quote' button above the fold.
Why it matters: In our 150-site audit, 80% of contractor websites had no booking or contact link captured in the data. The contractors who did have booking links, through tools like Jobber or Housecall Pro, consistently scored higher overall. Making contact easy is the single biggest conversion lever on a contractor site.
How to checkOn your phone, open your homepage. Can you tap the phone number to call? Can you reach a contact form in one tap from the menu? Fill in the form and submit it. Did you get the email? If any step fails, that is a lost enquiry happening right now.
Mobile usability
What it is: Your site should work properly on a phone. Text is readable without zooming. Buttons are large enough to tap with a thumb. Forms fit the screen width. Images load quickly and do not push content around as they load.
Why it matters: More than half of your visitors are on mobile. Google uses mobile-first indexing, which means it ranks your site based on the mobile version, not the desktop version. A site that looks great on a laptop but is hard to use on a phone will rank lower and convert worse.
How to checkOpen your site on your phone. Turn off Wi-Fi and use 4G. Try to read the homepage, find your services, and fill in the contact form. If you have to pinch, zoom, wait, or struggle with the form, your customers do too.
Trust signals
What it is: Your Google reviews, star rating, licenses, certifications, and years in business should be visible on your site. Not buried in a footer, but placed where visitors see them while deciding whether to call.
Why it matters: More than 40 businesses in our audit had strong Google reviews (some with 100, 300, even 695 reviews) but thin websites that did not mention them. Your reviews are your strongest sales asset. If they live only on Google and never appear on your site, you are asking visitors to leave your site to verify your reputation. Some of them will not come back.
How to checkCheck your homepage. Is your star rating visible? Are there quotes from real reviews? Is your license number or certification mentioned? If not, add them. You can pull review snippets directly from your Google Business Profile.
Local SEO basics
What it is: Each page should have a title tag that includes your trade, your city, and your main service. Example: 'Boiler Repair & Emergency Plumbing in Malden, MA | Your Business Name'. Meta descriptions should say what you do and give a reason to click. Your site should be registered in Google Search Console with a submitted sitemap.
Why it matters: Page titles are the single most important on-page SEO signal. In our audit, at least a third of contractor sites had titles like 'Home' or 'About' or the domain name. When your title says 'Home', Google has to guess what you do. When it says 'Boiler Repair in Malden', Google knows exactly which searches to rank you for.
How to checkGo to your browser tab and read the page title. Does it include your trade and city? Now check each service page. Does each one have a unique title that mentions the specific service and your area? If not, those need rewriting.
Service-area content
What it is: A page or section that lists the towns and neighbourhoods you cover. Not just 'serving the Greater Boston area', but specific place names: Malden, Medford, Somerville, Everett, Revere. Written as natural content, not a keyword-stuffed list.
Why it matters: People search for contractors by location. 'Plumber in Medford', 'electrician near Malden', 'roofer Boston MA'. If your site does not mention the towns you work in, you will not appear in those searches. A service-area page also answers a practical question for visitors: do you cover my area?
How to checkList the towns you actually work in. Check your site. Are they mentioned anywhere? Is there a page or section dedicated to your service area? If not, write one. List each town with a sentence or two about the work you do there.
Proof of work
What it is: Real photos of jobs you have completed. Before and after shots. Project descriptions with the location, the problem, and the result. Not stock images of generic construction workers, but photos from your actual projects.
Why it matters: Several builders in our audit had 100+ project photos on Google but none on their website. That is wasted proof. Stock photos are obvious and they make your site look like every other contractor site. Real photos show what you can actually do and give visitors confidence that you have handled jobs like theirs before.
How to checkPick five recent projects. Take or find the photos. Write a short caption for each: what the job was, where it was, what you did, and how long it took. Add them to a Projects or Gallery page. If you have before-and-after photos, those work particularly well.
Differentiation
What it is: Something on your site that a competitor's site does not have. It could be a same-day emergency response promise, a fixed-price quote guarantee, photos of a job type that is rare in your area, a specific certification, or a clear statement about what makes your business different.
Why it matters: When every contractor site says 'quality work, fair prices, free estimates', none of them stand out. In our audit, differentiation was one of the weakest scoring categories across all trades. Most contractor sites are interchangeable. The one that says something specific is the one that gets called.
How to checkWrite down three things that make your business different from the contractor down the road. Now check your site. Are any of those things mentioned? If not, add them. Be specific. 'Family-owned for 15 years' is better than 'experienced and reliable'.
Speed and currentness
What it is: Your site should load in under three seconds on a mobile connection. Pages should not have broken links, missing images, or copyright dates from three years ago. Your latest project or review should be recent, not from 2022.
Why it matters: Slow sites lose more than half their mobile visitors before the page finishes loading. A site that looks abandoned, with old dates and stale content, makes visitors wonder whether you are still in business. Google treats both speed and freshness as ranking signals.
How to checkOpen your site on your phone over 4G. Count how long it takes to become usable. Check the footer for a copyright date. Click a few links. If anything is broken, slow, or stale, fix it or ask someone to fix it for you.
Tracking readiness
What it is: Google Analytics 4 installed and receiving data. Google Search Console connected and verified. A sitemap submitted to Google. At minimum, you should be able to see how many visitors you get per month, what queries bring them to your site, and which pages they look at.
Why it matters: 79% of the contractor sites we audited had no tracking at all. That means most contractors have no idea whether their website is working. They cannot measure whether changes help or hurt. They cannot safely run ads because they have no baseline. Tracking is free and takes about thirty minutes to set up.
How to checkGo to your site and check whether you see a GA4 tag in the page source, or log into Google Analytics to see if data is flowing. If not, create a GA4 property, install the tag, and connect Search Console. If that is beyond your comfort level, a done-for-you service includes this as standard.
Next-step confidence
What it is: Every page on your site should end with a clear next step. Call this number. Fill in this form. Book online. Get a free quote. Not a generic 'learn more' link, but a specific action that moves the visitor from browsing to contacting you.
Why it matters: In our audit, the contractors who scored highest on next-step confidence were the ones with booking links from Jobber, Housecall Pro, or similar tools. The ones who scored lowest had no visible call-to-action anywhere. A page without a next step is a dead end. The visitor goes back to Google.
How to checkVisit every page on your site. At the bottom of each one, is there a clear instruction? Is there a button or link to contact you? If not, add one. 'Call [your number] for a free quote' is enough. The point is to make the next action obvious and immediate.
How to score your site
Go through each of the 12 items above. For each one, give your site a score of 0 (missing), 1 (partially there), or 2 (fully done). The maximum score is 24.
In our audit of 150 contractor sites, not a single one scored above 19. The average was around 8. If your site scores 16 or higher, you are ahead of most contractors in your area. If it scores below 8, you are likely losing enquiries every week to problems you can fix.
What the 150-site audit found
The most common failures across all 150 sites were: no tracking (79%), no booking or contact link (80%), generic page titles (at least a third), and weak next-step confidence. The strongest category across all trades was website ownership, but even there, 26% of businesses had no owned website at all.
The contractors who scored highest were the ones who used booking tools like Jobber or Housecall Pro, had real project photos on their site, and had written page titles that included their trade and location. None of those are expensive or complicated. They just require someone to do them.
Use the interactive version
We built a free interactive checklist tool that runs through these 12 items and scores your site automatically. It takes about three minutes and gives you a personalised report.
Try the interactive checklistWant all 12 items handled for you?
WebDoneNow builds contractor websites that cover every item on this checklist. Service pages, local SEO, tested contact forms, tracking, schema markup, and real support after launch. Starting at $348.