Quick answer
We pulled the top 20 contractor profiles ranking for "contractor in [city, state]" in the ten most populous cities of every US state, 9,700 profiles in all. 1,341 (14%) listed no website. 1,681 homepages had no H1. 1,261 had fewer than 200 words. 1,012 had a title tag that was missing or just said Home.
In July 2024 we looked at 9,700 contractor Google Business Profiles to answer one question: of the contractors who already rank in the map pack, how many have the basics in place? The short answer is that a large share do not. One in seven has no website at all, and among those that do, thin pages and missing title tags are common.
How the study was run
We searched "contractor in [city], [state]" for the ten most populous cities in each state and recorded the top 20 Google Business Profiles for each search. That gave 9,700 profiles. For each one we captured the rating, the review count, whether a website was listed, and, where a website existed, the homepage's title tag, H1 and word count. City-level review rankings are in the full data report.
What we found
Of 9,700 ranking profiles, 1,341 had no website listed. Of the homepages we could check, 1,681 had no H1, 1,261 had fewer than 200 words, and 1,012 had a missing or placeholder title tag. 759 profiles carried a rating of 4.0 or lower. These are contractors already on page one of the map; the ones below them are in worse shape.
| Finding | Profiles | Share of 9,700 |
|---|---|---|
| No website listed on the profile | 1,341 | 14% |
| Homepage with no H1 heading | 1,681 | 17% |
| Homepage under 200 words | 1,261 | 13% |
| Title tag missing, or just "Home" / "Homepage" | 1,012 | 10% |
| Rating of 4.0 or lower | 759 | 8% |
| Linked to a dead Google-built site | 184 | 2% |
| Facebook or Instagram used as the website | 129 | 1% |
Many of the contractors with no website still rank because the profile itself carries them: reviews, categories and years in business. That is a fragile position. A competitor with a working site and a few location pages has every lever those contractors do not.
Reviews per capita
Raw review counts favor big cities, so we also ranked cities by reviews per capita: total reviews across the top 20 profiles divided by the city's population. Casper, Wyoming had 150 reviews across its top 20 for a population of 59,038, or 0.00254 per person. Cheyenne had 200 reviews for 65,132 people, 0.00307 per person. Cheyenne has more reviews and more people, and still slightly more reviews per person. The top 15 cities by review count, by reviews per capita and by star rating, plus the customer-satisfaction categories by rating, are in the data report linked above.
What to do with this
If you rank today without a website, or with a homepage that has no H1 and under 200 words, you are winning on the profile alone. Fix the three cheapest items first: a real title tag that names the trade and the city, one H1 that says what you do, and 300 or more words on the homepage that describe the services and the service area. Then start asking every finished job for a review. The local SEO service page lists what we do on each plan. The AI search service page covers how we get contractors named when homeowners ask ChatGPT or Google AI who to call.
Questions people ask
- How many profiles were in the study?
- 9,700 contractor Google Business Profiles: the top 20 results for "contractor in [city, state]" in the ten largest cities of each state.
- What is reviews per capita?
- Total reviews divided by the city's population. It lets you compare review activity between a small city and a big one. Casper, WY had 150 reviews for 59,038 people (0.00254 per person); Cheyenne had 200 for 65,132 (0.00307).
- When will it be updated?
- The next run is planned as an annual refresh. These figures are from July 2024.