16 SEO mistakes contractors make on their websites and with SEO vendors

Contractor SEO fails in predictable ways. Some mistakes are old tricks that Google now treats as spam. Some are accidents during a site rebuild. Some come from a vendor who promised more than anyone can deliver. This list covers 16 of them, with what each one costs you, how to spot it, and the fix. It leans on Google's own documentation, linked where the rule appears, so you can show a vendor or a web designer the source. Business Profile errors like padded business names and hidden addresses have their own page, Google Business Profile mistakes, and the technical checks live in our SEO audit checklist. For the bigger picture, start with local SEO for contractors and our SEO service page.

1. Stuffing the same keywords into every sentence

What it costs: readers hear a robot, and Google's spam policies list keyword stuffing, meaning filling a page with keywords in unnatural lists or blocks, as a violation. How to spot it: read a page aloud. If "best roofing company Springfield" shows up in every paragraph, it is stuffed.

Fix: say it once where it belongs, in the heading and the first paragraph, and use the rest of the page to describe the work: materials, process, timelines, what the customer should expect.

2. Giving every page the same title

What it costs: Google's guidance on title links says each page should have its own distinct, descriptive title and to avoid repeated or boilerplate title text. It also says Google may write its own title link when a title is inaccurate or poor. A site where every page is titled "Home | Example Roofing" leaves that choice to Google.

How to spot it: search your domain in Google, or open each page's tab. Fix: write a title per page that names the service, the area where relevant, and your company name at the end.

3. Publishing a page for every service and town with only the names swapped

What it costs: Google defines doorway abuse as pages built to target similar queries that lead users to a less useful destination, and scaled content abuse as many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings. Two hundred near-identical pages risk the good ones.

Fix: publish a town page only when you have something real to say about it: jobs you have done there, local conditions, local rules to confirm. Our guide to service area pages that rank shows the format.

4. Buying links or joining link swaps

What it costs: Google's spam policies treat buying or selling links for ranking, and using automated programs to create links, as link spam. Paid links are acceptable when qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Google says sites that violate its policies may rank lower or not appear in results at all.

How to spot it: a vendor sends a monthly "backlink report" full of directories and blog posts you have never heard of. Fix: earn links from places that know you: suppliers, chambers, sponsored teams and local news. See backlinks for local businesses.

5. Hiring a vendor who guarantees page one

What it costs: months of retainer fees and no way to hold the vendor to anything. Google's guidance on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number-one ranking and that you are responsible for the actions of any company you hire. It also says to be wary of vendors who claim a special relationship with Google or will not explain what they plan to do.

Fix: ask for a written list of what they will change, access to the reports yourself, and the names of two clients you can call. Put your accounts in your own name.

6. Launching with the noindex tag still on

What it costs: Google says a noindex tag keeps a page out of search results. Developers often add it to a staging site, and it comes along when the site goes live. The result is a new site that never appears.

How to spot it: check in Search Console's page indexing report, or view the source of a page and search for "noindex." Fix: remove it. Also check that robots.txt is not blocking the pages, since Google's documentation says a page blocked from crawling never has its noindex rules read. Then ask Google to recrawl.

7. Navigation built from buttons instead of links

What it costs: Google says it can only crawl links that are a elements with an href attribute. A menu that opens pages through click handlers can leave service pages undiscovered.

Fix: ask your designer whether every menu and footer item is a real link, and test by turning off scripts. Use anchor text that names the page, not "click here."

8. Letting four versions of the site exist at once

What it costs: Google's guide to duplicate URLs says one page can be reached at several URLs, such as with and without www, and tells owners to pick one canonical URL and redirect the others to it. It also says Google prefers https pages over equivalent http pages as the canonical.

Fix: pick one address, redirect the rest permanently, and use that same address in your sitemap, your internal links and your Business Profile.

9. Redesigning the site without mapping the old URLs

What it costs: every old page that ranked becomes an error. Google's site move guidance says to map each old URL to its new URL, use permanent server-side redirects, avoid sending everything to the home page, and keep redirects in place for at least a year.

Fix: before launch, export the old URLs from Search Console and your sitemap, match each to the closest new page, and test the list on launch day. Expect some temporary movement in rankings.

10. Publishing AI-written pages in bulk

What it costs: Google says its ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, and its spam policies list scaled content abuse. Fifty generic blog posts about "five signs you need a new roof" add nothing a competitor's site does not already say.

Fix: write fewer pages from real jobs: a project, what you found, what you did, how long it took. A person on your crew should be able to confirm every fact. See AI for writing website content for safe uses.

11. Uploading photos named IMG_4021 with no alt text

What it costs: Google's image guidance calls alt text the most important metadata attribute for images and says a descriptive file name gives it light clues about the image. It also helps visitors using screen readers.

Fix: name the file for the job ("standing-seam-metal-roof-replacement.jpg") and describe the picture in plain words in the alt text. Do not stuff keywords into it.

12. Expecting to rank in towns far from your base

What it costs: Google's local ranking guidance says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. You can build the other two, but you cannot move the distance. Money spent chasing a town forty minutes away rarely pays back.

Fix: list the towns you serve in the places Google lets you, publish real work from them, and put your effort into the ones within a drive you can staff. Track calls by town.

13. Paying someone to "boost" your Google Business Profile

What it costs: the same Google page states that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Any fee for a guaranteed placement on the map is money gone.

Fix: spend on what the page does say helps: a complete profile, genuine reviews and replies, and links from other websites. Our guide to getting more Google reviews covers the part you control.

14. Running the site without Search Console

What it costs: you cannot see which searches bring clicks, which pages are not indexed, or when an error starts. Problems like a lost sitemap or a blocked page go unseen for months.

Fix: verify the site and check it monthly. Setup is usually quick: how to set up Google Search Console. Give a vendor read-only access during an audit.

15. Judging SEO by a rank report instead of calls

What it costs: rankings differ by searcher location, device and time, so a report showing position three can sit beside a phone that is not ringing. A vendor can look successful while the business gets nothing.

Fix: count calls, form fills and booked jobs from search every month. Call tracking and a "how did you hear about us" field in the CRM make it possible.

16. Treating SEO as a project that ends at launch

What it costs: pages age, phone numbers change, services come and go. A site with last year's offers and dead links looks abandoned to customers.

Fix: put a monthly 30-minute review on the calendar: check Search Console, add one real project page, update a stale page, and confirm the phone number and hours. Small steady additions beat a rebuild every three years.

Where to start

1. Check items 6, 8 and 14 today. They cost nothing to verify and can hide a whole site.
2. Review your vendor against items 4, 5 and 15. Ask what links they have built, what they guarantee, and how they count calls.
3. Fix titles and clone pages (2 and 3) over the next month. One real page per service and a few strong town pages beat hundreds of thin ones.

Frequently asked questions