Roofing searches don't all look alike. "Roof leak repair" is urgent. "Roof replacement cost" is the start of a decision that can take weeks and three quotes. And after a hailstorm, "hail damage roof inspection" spikes in a handful of ZIP codes overnight. Roofing SEO is the work that puts your company in front of all three, in the towns your crews actually drive to, without paying for every click.

Most of it is work an owner or office manager can do. Google publishes what it looks at, and the rest is a routine. This guide covers what's specific to roofers. For the general version every trade follows, see our local SEO guide for contractors.

How Google picks which roofers to show

Google says local results are based mainly on three things:

  • Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.
  • Distance: how far your business is from the person searching.
  • Prominence: how well known your business is. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.

Distance you can't change. Everything below works on relevance (telling Google exactly which roofing jobs you do, and where) and prominence (reviews, photos, links and mentions). Google also says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Two more things are different for roofers. First, the homeowner usually compares before calling, so your profile and website have to win that comparison, not just appear. Second, storms create sudden demand in places you may not normally work, which tempts roofers into shortcuts Google's guidelines don't allow. Both come up below.

Step 1: Set up your Google Business Profile for roofing

Your Google Business Profile is what shows in the map results for "roofer near me" and "roofing company {town}". For a roofing company, the details that matter most:

  • Categories. Google says to pick a specific category rather than a broad one, and to use "a few" categories rather than one for every service you offer. For most residential roofers, the roofing contractor category is the primary one. Add others only for work you really do as a regular part of the business, such as gutters or siding, if Google's list has a matching category. If you change categories later, Google may ask you to verify again.
  • Your real business name. Google's guidelines don't allow unnecessary information in the business name. "Summit Roofing", not "Summit Roofing – Hail Damage & Roof Replacement Dallas".
  • Service area, not a fake address. If customers don't come to your office, Google says to hide the address and set a service area. Google says that service area shouldn't extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where you're based, though larger areas may be appropriate for some businesses.
  • One profile per business. Google's guidelines say there should only be one profile per business. Extra profiles to "cover" more towns put all of them at risk.
  • Services listed one by one: roof replacement, roof repair, leak repair, storm and hail damage inspection, metal roofing, flat roofing, gutters. Use the words homeowners search with.
  • Photos of your own work. Google suggests photos and videos to show customers what you offer. For a roofer that means tear-offs, finished roofs, your crew and trucks, and drone shots if you have them, with new ones added as you finish jobs.

Storm season and your profile

Google's guidelines say a rented mailing address where you don't operate isn't eligible for a Business Profile, and service-area businesses can't list a virtual office unless it's staffed during business hours. So when a hailstorm hits a town an hour away, don't open a "location" there. If it's within reach, add it to your service area, post storm inspection updates on your profile, and send people to your storm damage page.

Step 2: Build a page for each roofing service

One "Services" page with a bullet list can't match the very different searches roofers get. Give each service its own page:

  • Roof replacement: the process from inspection to cleanup, how long it takes, what drives the price, the shingle lines or materials you install, your warranty
  • Roof repair and leak repair: the signs homeowners notice (water stains, missing shingles, granules in gutters), what a repair involves, when repair stops making sense
  • Storm and hail damage: what you inspect for, how you document damage, how the insurance process works in your state
  • One page per roof type you install: asphalt shingle, metal, tile, flat or low-slope roofing
  • Gutters, siding, skylights or commercial roofing, only if they're a real part of your business

Each page should answer the questions your estimators already hear, show photos from your own jobs, name the towns you work in, and put the inspection button and phone number at the top. Give each page a title that says what it is, such as "Metal Roof Installation in Fort Collins, CO | Summit Roofing". Google's SEO Starter Guide says a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes its contents.

Our guide to roofing website design covers the rest of the site: the project gallery, trust signals, financing and speed.

Step 3: Cover your towns without doorway pages

Roofers often serve a whole metro area, and it's tempting to clone one page fifty times with a different city name. Google's spam policies list "pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse, and blocks of text listing the cities you want to rank for as keyword stuffing.

What works is a smaller set of town pages with something genuinely local on each:

  • Projects you've done in that town, with photos and the roof type
  • Reviews from customers there
  • What you see on roofs there: the age of the housing, common roof types, hail or wind history, HOA rules on roof colors or materials
  • Which crews or office serve that area

If you don't have real projects in a town yet, list it on your main service area page instead of giving it a thin page of its own. Our guide to service area pages for contractors shows how to build them.

Step 4: Use project photos as search content

A roof is visual, and roofers have more good photos than most trades: before, during and after, often from a drone. Use them on the website, not just on social media:

  • One page or post per notable project, naming the town, the job and the products you actually used: "Tear-off and new architectural shingles on a 1990s two-story in Loveland."
  • Descriptive file names. Google's image guidelines say to use short, descriptive file names rather than generic ones like image1.jpg. "loveland-roof-replacement-after.jpg" says more than "DJI_0042.jpg".
  • Alt text that describes what the photo shows. Google calls alt text the most important attribute for giving it information about an image.
  • Photos near the text about them. Google recommends placing images near relevant text.

Resize and compress photos before uploading. A gallery of full-size drone shots will slow the page down on a phone.

Step 5: Build a steady flow of reviews

Homeowners comparing three roofers read reviews closely, and reviews count toward prominence. The routine that works: ask every customer when the job is finished and the yard is clean, send your Google review link by text that day, and reply to every review.

Reviews that mention the town, the type of job and how the crew left the property are the most useful to the next homeowner. You can ask customers to mention what you did, but don't script them: Google's content policy doesn't allow businesses to offer incentives for reviews, to selectively ask only happy customers, or to have staff solicit reviews with specific content. Our guide on how to get more Google reviews covers the full routine.

Step 6: Plan storm content before the storm

Storm demand arrives fast, and a page published the day after the hail has little time to be found. Build it ahead of the season:

  • A permanent storm and hail damage page that explains what you inspect, how you document damage, what the insurance process looks like and what the homeowner pays. Update it each season instead of creating a new page every storm.
  • Answers to the questions homeowners ask after a storm: "How do I know if hail damaged my roof?", "Should I call my insurance company or a roofer first?", "What do I do about a leak before the roof is repaired?"
  • Profile posts and updates when a storm hits your area, pointing to the storm page.
  • Be careful with insurance and deductible claims. Some states limit what roofers can promise. Our roofing marketing ideas covers Texas, where offering to waive, rebate or absorb a deductible is illegal. Check your state's rules before you write about it.

For the paid side of storm season, see Google Ads for roofers, which covers storm campaigns you can keep paused until you need them.

Links from other websites count toward prominence. For roofers, the realistic sources are:

  • Manufacturer contractor locators. Shingle manufacturers run directories where homeowners search for roofers near them. GAF has a "Find a roofing contractor near you" search by ZIP code, with a tool to verify a contractor's GAF certification. Owens Corning lists independent contractors in its network by level, including Preferred and Platinum Preferred contractors. If you hold a certification, make sure your listing is complete and your business name, phone number and website match your Business Profile. Use the manufacturer's badge only for the certification you actually hold.
  • Suppliers and distributors that list or feature local contractors
  • Local sponsorships (youth teams, charity builds, school events) that list sponsors on their website
  • Local news, for example when you give practical advice after a hailstorm
  • Your chamber of commerce, home builders' association or trade groups

Don't buy links or trade links for the sake of ranking. Google's spam policies list buying links for ranking purposes and excessive link exchanges as link spam.

Step 8: Keep your details consistent everywhere

Search engines cross-check your business name, address and phone number across the web. Make sure they match on your Business Profile, your website, Bing Places, Apple Business, Yelp, the manufacturer locators above and any directory you're listed in. If you change phone numbers, use call tracking or move, update all of them.

Step 9: Add RoofingContractor structured data

Structured data describes your business name, phone number, hours and website in a format search engines can read. Schema.org has a RoofingContractor type, and Google recommends using the most specific LocalBusiness type possible. Two cautions from Google's documentation: structured data doesn't guarantee any special display in search results, and review markup is only recommended for sites that collect reviews about other businesses. Don't mark up your own testimonials to try to get stars.

Step 10: Measure inspections and contracts, not rankings

Rankings change depending on where the searcher is standing, so they're a noisy measure for a roofer. Track what pays:

  • Business Profile performance: calls, website clicks and direction requests from your profile
  • Google Search Console (free): which searches show your site and which pages get clicks
  • Inspections and signed contracts by source: ask every new lead how they found you and record it in your CRM or roofing estimate software

Compare channels by signed roofs, not calls. One replacement from a town page pays for a lot of work on that page.

Roofing SEO mistakes to avoid

  • Keywords or city names added to the business name on Google
  • A "location" in a storm-hit town where you don't really operate
  • Several Business Profiles for one company
  • Dozens of cloned city pages with only the town name changed
  • Stock photos of roofs you didn't build
  • Manufacturer badges or certifications you don't hold
  • Reviews bought, incentivized or collected only from happy customers
  • Bought links or link packages

If you hire roofing SEO help

Most of the steps above are work you can do in-house. If you'd rather hire an agency, Google's advice on choosing an SEO applies: no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, be wary of firms that email you out of the blue, and ask what results they expect, in what timeframe, and how they measure success. Ask to see roofing companies they've worked with and look those companies up on Google yourself.

Keep ownership in your company's name: the Business Profile, the domain, the website and Search Console, with the agency added as a user. That way you keep everything if you part ways. And judge them on inspections and signed contracts, not on a ranking report.

For more ways to fill the schedule, see our roofing marketing ideas. Just starting out? Read how to start a roofing business.