I had a great exchange in the comments of one of my recent LinkedIn posts about contractor SEO. A fellow SEO strategist named Bree Sharp jumped in and made two points that I thought deserved their own blog post — because she’s right, and these two fixes alone can move your rankings faster than almost anything else you’ll do this year.
If you’re a contractor — plumber, roofer, electrician, HVAC, landscaper, general contractor — and your website isn’t showing up on Google the way it should, there’s a good chance one or both of these issues is the reason why.
Let’s get into it.
Fix #1: Schema Markup — The Technical Signal Most Contractors Are Missing Entirely
Schema markup is structured data you add to your website that tells Google exactly who you are, what you do, and where you do it. It’s not visible to your visitors — it lives in the code — but Google reads it and uses it to understand your business at a deeper level.
Here’s the thing: most contractor websites have zero schema markup. Not outdated schema. Not incomplete schema. Zero. Nothing at all.
That means Google is having to guess what your site is about based on your content alone. And when you’re competing against contractors who DO have schema in place, that guessing game is costing you rankings.
The specific schema types that matter most for contractors are:
- LocalBusiness schema — tells Google your business name, address, phone number, hours, and service area
- Service schema — tells Google what specific services you offer (roofing repair, HVAC installation, etc.)
- FAQPage schema — marks up your FAQ sections so Google can display them directly in search results
- Review schema — helps your star ratings show up in search results
Bree made a great point about the relationship between schema and your Google Business Profile. When your schema data matches your GBP exactly — same business name, same address, same phone number, same service categories — Google gets a consistent signal from two different sources. That consistency builds trust and authority in Google’s eyes. We’ve seen pages jump from position 8 or 10 all the way to the top three within a few weeks of getting this alignment right.
If you’ve never added schema to your contractor website, this is the fastest technical win available to you right now. It doesn’t require changing your content, redesigning your site, or building links. It’s a behind-the-scenes upgrade that sends a much clearer signal to Google about who you are.
Fix #2: Internal Linking — Your Service Pages Are Isolated Islands
This one is so common it’s almost universal. I look at contractor websites every week and almost all of them have the same structural problem: service pages that exist in complete isolation from each other.
You have a roofing repair page. You have a roof replacement page. You have a commercial roofing page. But none of those pages link to each other. They’re islands with no bridges between them.
Here’s why that’s a problem. Google uses internal links to understand the relationship between your pages and to determine which topics your site has real authority on. When your service pages don’t connect to each other, Google can’t see the topical depth of your expertise. It can’t follow a logical path from one related service to another. And as a result, your pages don’t carry the authority they should.
The fix is straightforward but it takes a deliberate approach:
- Link from each service page to related service pages with descriptive anchor text
- Link from your blog posts to relevant service pages — every educational piece of content should point back to a service
- Create topical clusters — group related services together and make sure they all reference each other
- Build a clear pathway from your homepage to your most important service pages
For example, if you’re a plumber, your water heater installation page should link to your water heater repair page, which should link to your emergency plumbing page, which should link back to your main plumbing services page. Google follows those connections and builds a picture of your expertise across the whole topic of plumbing — not just on one isolated page.
This is one of the fastest wins we see with contractor websites because the pages already exist. You’re not creating new content. You’re just connecting what you already have.
Why These Two Fixes Work Together
Schema markup tells Google what your pages are about. Internal linking tells Google how your pages relate to each other. Together, they give Google a complete picture of your business — what services you offer, where you offer them, and how those services connect.
Most contractor websites are missing both. That’s actually good news for you, because it means your competitors probably haven’t done this work either. Getting these two things right puts you ahead of the majority of contractors in your market without needing to outspend anyone on ads or spend months building links.
Where to Start
If you’re not sure whether your site has schema markup, you can check using Google’s Rich Results Test tool — just search for it and paste in your URL. It’ll tell you exactly what structured data is or isn’t present.
For internal linking, start simple. Open your top five service pages and ask yourself: does each one link to at least two related service pages on my site? If not, start adding those links today. Use natural anchor text that describes what the linked page is about — “our emergency plumbing services” is better than “click here.”
These aren’t glamorous fixes. They won’t show up in before and after screenshots the way a new website design will. But they are the kinds of technical improvements that move rankings consistently and hold up over time — because they’re built on giving Google exactly what it needs to understand and trust your site.
If you want help auditing your contractor website for these issues, we offer a free SEO audit for Phoenix-area businesses. Reach out at 4seopros.com or call us at (480) 648-3306.