SEO BY INDUSTRY · CONTRACTORS
Big-ticket jobs start with a search. Contractor demand by metro, with prices.
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Two numbers decide whether this is worth doing: what one click costs in this market, and what the traffic behind that click prices at. Both are measurements of ours. We publish no retainer range we cannot source, which is why you will not find one here.
WHAT ONE CLICK COSTS
TOP CPC · SARASOTA-BRADENTON METRO · “ROOFING CONTRACTOR NEAR ME”
The dearest click we have recorded in this category. It is what the ad auction charges for one visit from someone who has not decided anything yet — and it is the yardstick for every SEO quote you will ever be handed, including ours.
SRC: Google Ads scoped to Sarasota-Bradenton, 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026
WHAT THE TRAFFIC IS WORTH
PER MONTH · AD-EQUIVALENT · ONE KEYWORD
“roofing contractor near me” in Sarasota-Bradenton metro: 320 searches a month at $104.46 a click. That is what the traffic behind one keyword prices at if you rent it from Google. How much of it a ranking hands you depends on where you land — that part is yours, and not ours to promise.
SRC: volume × CPC · Google Ads scoped to Sarasota-Bradenton, 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026
Every commercial term in the contractor SEO category, with where on this page it gets answered. 5 terms, 2,020 searches a month, one page.
| SEARCH TERM | VOL/MO | CPC | ANSWERED BY |
|---|---|---|---|
| seo for contractors | 590 | $35.76 | The guide → |
| seo for construction companies | 590 | $40.24 | How we work → |
| contractor seo services | 320 | — | How we work → |
| home remodeler seo | 260 | $23.19 | Metro demand → |
| seo for painting contractors | 260 | $10.76 | The guide → |
SRC: Google Ads, US, Jul 2026. Volume and CPC are twelve-month averages, so neither moves week to week. A dash means no advertiser data for that term.
54 metros, 691,460 contracting searches a month, collected the same way every week. Every row opens that metro's own data page.
| METRO | SEARCHES/MO | TOP CPC | KEYWORDS | DATA PAGE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | 53,920 | $41.56 | 164 | New York market data → |
| Houston, TX | 41,270 | $47.59 | 144 | Houston home services data → |
| Chicago, IL | 40,370 | $55.97 | 99 | Chicago home services data → |
| Los Angeles, CA | 35,510 | $52.67 | 129 | Los Angeles home services data → |
| San Diego, CA | 29,600 | $93.44 | 167 | San Diego home services data → |
| Phoenix, AZ | 27,710 | $65.75 | 113 | Phoenix home services data → |
| Atlanta, GA | 25,680 | $75.23 | 113 | Atlanta home services data → |
| Austin, TX | 24,940 | $66.31 | 128 | Austin home services data → |
| Denver, CO | 22,890 | $77.34 | 129 | Denver home services data → |
| Las Vegas, NV | 22,050 | $51.19 | 138 | Las Vegas home services data → |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL | 22,050 | $87.11 | 109 | Tampa-St. Petersburg home services data → |
| Philadelphia, PA | 21,890 | $44.27 | 68 | Philadelphia home services data → |
| ALL 54 METROS | 691,460 | $104.46 | 3,995 | highest CPC: Sarasota-Bradenton |
Showing the top 12 of 54 metros by demand; the totals row covers all 54.
All 54 metros →SRC: 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026, aggregated from committed city data at build time. Volume is metro-scoped Google Ads data; TOP CPC is the highest single keyword bid in that metro's contracting set, from keywords with at least 300 searches a month — below that a CPC is one advertiser, not a price. Each DATA PAGE opens that metro's home services slice, which covers more than contractors; rows without one open the whole metro.
Sarasota-Bradenton carries the most expensive contracting click we have recorded: $104.46, for “roofing contractor near me”. Des Moines's peak is $3.80. Same country — the market you are in changes the arithmetic more than anything you do on your website.
GUIDE · READ BEFORE YOU HIRE ANYONE
Everything we would say in a first call, written out. No gate, no email required. Open what applies to you.
Nothing about contractor SEO is unusual as a technique. What is unusual is the cost of being wrong: an advertiser will pay $104.46 for one click on “roofing contractor near me”. That price sets everything downstream — more competitors, more spend, and a page one where directories with long head starts hold most of the organic slots. Read the price before you read anyone's proposal.
$104.46 · dearest recorded click, Sarasota-Bradenton metro
A business publishing one page that lists everything competes for none of it well. Each market has its own demand curve: across the 54 metros we track, contracting demand runs from 150 to 54K searches a month. Build per service, per city, and let the demand decide the order you build them in.
54 metros · 691K searches/mo · 3,995 keywords
For location-shaped queries the three map slots sit above everything organic, and national directories cannot occupy them — they have no local address. That is the one structural advantage a real business has over a directory. It is also less contested than it looks: of the 978 contracting listings we track, 159 have no website at all and are competing on profile alone.
159 of 978 tracked listings have no website (16.3%)
Effort follows demand, not preference. New York is the largest contracting market we track at 54K searches a month across 164 keywords. Every metro in the table above has its own page with the same breakdown, so choosing where to start is a reading exercise rather than a guess.
New York · 54K searches/mo · 164 keywords
This one is worth saying plainly because it is sold constantly. We tested it against our own tracking: across 8,384 listings, review count and map position correlate at r = −0.021 — statistically nothing. On narrow service terms it is r = −0.003. Reviews do other work, and they may well win you the click once you rank. They are not the lever that gets you there.
r = −0.021 across 8,384 tracked listings · our own measurement
Every figure here carries the source it came from, in the line beneath it. The metro data is republished in full on 54 city pages and 239 city × vertical pages, free and ungated, whether or not you ever become a client. If a figure and its source disagree, the source wins and we will fix the page.
54 city pages · 239 city × vertical pages · refreshed weekly
Three steps, in this order, every time. The first is free and you run it yourself.
STEP 01
A technical read of your site — what is broken, what is missing, and which of it actually affects ranking. You run it yourself.
Free with an account · about thirty seconds
STEP 02
The keyword and competitor picture for the metros you serve, built from the same data on this page. You see the market before anyone quotes you a price for it.
Drawn from the 54-metro collection
STEP 03
The fixes, in the order the data says they matter — profile, pages, citations — and the rank tracking to show whether any of it moved.
Positions checked on a schedule, not on request
For most contracting queries the map pack is the result. It sits above the organic list, it takes three slots, and it is the one part of the page national directories cannot occupy — they have no local address.
Each one collected the same way, on the same weekly schedule, and republished in full on its own page.
SRC: 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026
Name, address, phone, rating, review count and map position for every listing in the category, in every metro.
SRC: Google Maps, 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026
159 of those listings compete on their Google profile alone. They still hold map positions.
SRC: Google Maps, 54-metro collection, through Aug 30, 2026
Across the 54 metros we track, 16.3% of contractors holding a Maps listing have no website at all — they rank on profile strength alone. If they can hold a slot without a site, a business with a site and a claimed profile is leaving the easiest win in local search on the table.
The questions we are actually asked, answered with our own numbers.
Three things, in order: a technical scan of your site, a keyword and competitor picture for the markets you serve, and the work to fix what the scan found. The scan is free with a Google sign-in, and you run it yourself.
Rankings, backlinks and page speed · free tier, no card
We track 54 metros for contractors and publish the demand for each one — keyword volume, cost per click, and the businesses competing. Every metro in the table above opens its own page. If yours is not there yet, the roster grows with each weekly pull.
54 metros · 3,995 keywords · 691K searches/mo
Because the work behind the click is worth a lot. The dearest contracting click we have recorded is $104.46 — “roofing contractor near me” in Sarasota-Bradenton metro. Ranking is the alternative to paying that price every single time someone clicks.
$104.46 · 320 searches/mo · Sarasota-Bradenton metro
We do not publish a timeline, because we cannot source one. What we can tell you is what changes weekly and what does not: map positions move within weeks of a profile being fixed; organic positions on competitive commercial terms move over months. Anyone quoting you a month-by-month ranking forecast is guessing.
No forecast published — we do not have data that would support one
Search volume and cost per click are Google Ads figures, collected on a weekly schedule rather than estimated. Business and map data come from a live read of Google Maps in each metro. Every figure on this page carries its source underneath it. Anything we cannot source, we do not publish.
Collected through Aug 30, 2026 · 54 metros
Run the scan against your site before you talk to anyone, us included. It checks the technical signals that actually move rankings and tells you which ones you are failing. If it comes back clean, we will tell you that.
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OR JUST TAKE THE DATA
Everything on this page is published free and ungated, client or not. If you would rather read your own metro's numbers before anything else, they are already up.
Every vertical we publish demand data for, with its head term's monthly search volume and the highest advertiser cost per click in that term set.
SRC: Google Ads, US, Jul 2026
HOW THIS DATA WAS COLLECTED
Keyword volume and cost per click come from Google Ads via DataForSEO — the category terms at US national scope, the metro figures scoped to each metro individually. Business, rating and map data come from a live read of Google Maps in the same metros. Everything is collected on a weekly schedule, not on request.
This is first-party data and we publish the whole set, client or not. There are no third-party benchmark figures on this page: no borrowed retainer ranges, no click-through-rate curves, no industry averages. If we did not measure it, it is not here.
THE PUBLISHER
Search-market data and local SEO, nationwide. We publish the search ledger for 54 metros and 239 city × vertical markets, and refresh every one of them weekly.
THIS EDITION
Reuse any figure on this page with attribution.