18 to 41
clicks a month from Google search, up 128%
Thomas, Bournemouth Roofing & BuildingRoofing and building, Bournemouth
August to September 2026, two months. Source: Google Search Console.
SEO for builders that gets you on the shortlist.
For builders who do extensions, loft conversions, renovations and structural work, we shape your Google profile and your site's pages around the checks a homeowner makes before choosing a builder. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results, with nothing to pay upfront and nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
- Nothing to pay until the results agreed in writing are met
- One builder per area: the firm quoting against you can't hire us
- GS Renovation: +123% clicks, July to September 2026 (Search Console)
+123%more clicks from Google
“Now every day I have some job. They call, they text, I find the emails.”
George, GS RenovationRSJ and renovations, London
July to September 2026. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyProof from a London builder who takes walls out.
All client resultsGeorge's firm, GS Renovation, fits RSJs and steel beams, takes out load-bearing walls and builds extensions across London. On camera, he says that before working with us he could not be found anywhere on Google. Bournemouth Roofing & Building, whose website we built, does building work as well as roofing. Each figure runs from the first month we tracked to the best month since, using Google's complete monthly data.
GS Renovation is our only builder case study so far. Bournemouth Roofing & Building is a new client: its figure covers August and September 2026, two months, so read it as an early result, not a long-run one. We also built the websites for Worktop Worx, a stone worktop firm, and K&B Screeding, a floor screeding contractor in Slough working on extensions and new builds, but neither has enough data for figures yet.
When does a homeowner start looking for a builder?
Months before anyone is on site. On Google Trends, UK searches for "loft conversion" have peaked in January every year since 2022. Between that search and the first day on site come drawings, building regulations approval, quotes and a contract.
The money explains the care. The FMB's cost guide puts a standard 20 m² single-storey extension at around £40,000 and a dormer loft conversion at around £50,000. Nobody hands that to the first name on the map.
The FMB's guide to choosing a builder tells homeowners to "create a shortlist of builders with the right experience for your project, then carry out your own checks". Its list runs to ten checks, from recent projects like theirs and reviews to verified insurance, trade memberships and at least three written quotes compared like for like.
So the work is aimed at those months. Pages that answer the early questions make your name familiar before the shortlist is drawn up, and a profile and site that pass the checks keep it there.
Why do project photos and case pages matter so much?
Because they are the evidence homeowners are told to ask for. The same FMB guide tells them to look at examples of relevant work and ask four things. When was it finished? Was it a similar size and budget? What problems came up, and how were they handled? Will the same team do their job? A good project page answers all four.
Homeowners meet the same evidence elsewhere. Houzz pairs a directory of professionals with photos browsed by room and style, and on MyBuilder, customers decide who gets their details from your profile, past jobs and reviews. Even the FMB's inspectors can look at photographs from earlier stages of a job before a builder is allowed to join.
So the marketing starts on your phone. Photograph the footings, the steel going in, the building control visit, the site swept before you leave and the finished room, then send them on WhatsApp. We write each finished job up as a project page and a post on your Google profile, naming the job and the area the way a homeowner would search for it.
Photos and pages do different jobs. Google's own ranking advice says profile photos let you show customers what you offer. A written project page covers one job in one place, which gives Google something specific to show when someone searches for that work.
What we do for a building firm.
Alongside the project pages, three pieces of work run every week once they are set up. The profile side is our Google Business Profile management service, set up for building work. If roofing is a big share of your jobs, SEO for roofers covers that side.
A profile set up for the big jobs
Google offers several categories that sound right, including Builder, Building firm, Construction company and General contractor. We choose the primary one for the jobs you most want, then compare it with what the firms above you use. Services go in the homeowner's words, such as kitchen extension, and the service area matches where you actually take jobs. How category choice works.
Extension, loft and structural pages
Extensions, loft conversions, garage conversions, renovations and structural work each get a page. Each one answers what a homeowner asks first: what the job involves, whether it needs planning permission and who signs it off. Then how long you are on site and, if you are happy to say, a typical price. What a service page needs.
Reviews from fewer, bigger jobs
Google counts your number of reviews towards prominence, which it lists alongside relevance and distance. Big jobs take weeks, so reviews come in slowly and each one counts. At handover, every customer gets a simple request for a review. How to ask within the rules.
Which credentials does a homeowner look for in a builder?
FMB membership, TrustMark registration, an insurance-backed guarantee, building control sign-off and the right insurance. Building trades in the UK are unlicensed, as the FMB tells homeowners, so these are the evidence a homeowner has to go on. Here is what each one means and where it goes on your site.
- FMB. Before a builder joins, the FMB checks trading and credit history, public liability insurance and, for limited companies, the directors, then inspects the work. Using its logo without permission is a criminal offence, so a genuine member's logo should link to its entry in the FMB's Find a Builder directory.
- TrustMark. A government-endorsed quality scheme covering work done in and around homes, by its own account the only one, with around 18,000 registered businesses. Its consumer protection rules expect a minimum two-year guarantee, and the cover a registered firm must hold in case it stops trading includes defects and non-compliance with Building Regulations.
- An insurance-backed guarantee. The FMB Building Work Guarantee, for example, lasts 2, 6 or 10 years and covers up to the full contract price if the builder has ceased trading. If you offer one, it goes beside your quote form.
- Building control. Building Regulations cover the construction and extension of buildings, and approval is separate from planning permission. A loft turned into a room needs building regulations approval. That holds even when the roof work is permitted development, which in England caps the extra volume at 40 cubic metres on a terraced house and 50 on others.
- Structural sign-off. For a knock-through, a structural engineer or surveyor can confirm whether the wall is load-bearing and design the beam. GS Renovation's site says on its first screen who designs the steel, who fits it and who signs it off.
- Insurance. Employ anyone outside your family and the law requires employers' liability insurance for at least £5 million. Public liability is what the FMB asks to see before you can join.
What is the best advertising for a builder?
Whatever is still there when the homeowner is ready. For extensions and lofts that is mostly your Google profile and your own pages, which are there in January when the research starts and still there months later when the shortlist is drawn up.
Checkatrade and MyBuilder run on the same photos and reviews, under their own rules. MyBuilder charges a fee when a customer shortlists you, and Checkatrade says every trade passes up to 12 checks and shows more than 6 million reviews. The reviews you collect there stay on their site, next to other builders' names. How the alternatives charge.
Paid ads can fill a gap in next month's diary. Ads, websites and social media get their own quote once the free analysis is done; the pay-on-results terms cover your Google profile and local SEO. When ads make sense.
Your best advert may be the job itself. The FMB tells homeowners who have watched an extension or loft go up nearby to ask the owner who built it. When that neighbour searches your name, the profile and website they find should match the board on the scaffold.
Nothing upfront. Paid on results.
Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results. There is nothing to pay upfront: you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
- Agreed in writing first
- What counts as a result, and how it is measured, is set before any work starts.
- One business per trade, per area
- If we take you on, we turn down your competitors.
- No lock-in
- After the result, a rolling monthly fee you can stop whenever you like. Leave before it and you owe nothing.
- Straight answers
- If your market is not winnable, the free analysis says so.
Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately after the free analysis. How pay on results works
From first call to first result
Free analysis
Tell us your trade and area. We record a short video of where you rank, who is above you and what would have to change. It is yours to keep.
An honest answer
If your market is not winnable, we say so. If it is, we agree in writing what a result is and how it is measured, before anything starts.
The work
Your Google Business Profile, the pages that need to rank, citations and reviews. One business per trade per area, so never your rival as well.
You see every number
Clicks, calls and where you show up, in your own portal, straight from Google. You pay once the agreed results are met.
What people ask us
How much does SEO cost for a builder?
We do not publish a fee, because a builder in central London and a builder in a market town face very different competition. You get a number once we have seen your market in the free analysis. For local SEO and Google Business Profile work you pay nothing upfront, and nothing until the results we agree in writing, before we start, have been met. From that point you pay monthly on a rolling basis, and you can cancel any time. If you walk away before then, you owe nothing. Websites, ads and social media are quoted on their own.
How long before SEO brings in building work?
Nobody can honestly promise you a date, so we don't. Two clocks run at once: how long it takes to pass the builders above you, and how long a homeowner takes to get from a first search to a signed contract. The free analysis measures the first gap. Drawings, approvals and quotes set the second.
Is SEO worth it when most of my jobs are word of mouth?
Referrals still get checked. The FMB's advice to homeowners is that a personal recommendation "shouldn't replace your own checks", and those checks include reviews, previous work and verified insurance. If your name leads to a profile with four photos and no reviews, the referral has to carry the whole decision. SEO also reaches the homeowners who have nobody to ask.
Will you work with another builder in my area?
No. We take one builder per area. Once you are with us, the firm down the road quoting against you for the same extensions cannot sign up. If another builder near you got there first, we say so straight away.
Do you do SEO for construction companies too?
If you build for homeowners, yes. Extensions, lofts, renovations, structural work and one-off houses for private clients all fit. Construction SEO for contractors who win work through tenders and frameworks is a different job, because the buyer is a procurement team, not a homeowner searching Google. The free analysis will show whether homeowners near you search for the jobs you do.
Can SEO bring me bigger jobs instead of small works?
It can aim your profile and site at them. The main category, the services you list and the job pages all tell Google and homeowners what you want to be known for, so we build them around the work you name, such as extensions and lofts, and leave off the small jobs you would rather not chase.
Do Google's AI answers change anything for a builder?
Less than you might think. Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant to its AI features, AI Overviews and AI Mode included, with no special optimisation needed to appear in them. For a builder, those best practices are the same clear job pages and project write-ups a homeowner reads before ringing. A one-page site with a gallery gives Google little to draw on either way.
What do you need from me to start?
Your trade, the area you work and the jobs you want more of. After that, access to your Google profile and website, photos from recent jobs, and details of any memberships, insurance and guarantees you hold. A website someone else built is fine if it is sound, and we work on it as it is; if it needs rebuilding, we tell you, and the rebuild is quoted separately. You keep building; we do the writing and the weekly work.
Find out where you rank for extensions and lofts.
Send your trade and where you build. Within two working days you get a short video of your patch: the extension and loft searches you show up for, the firms listed above you, and what they have that your profile and site don't. It's free and yours to keep, and if we don't think your area can be won, we'll tell you.