General Contractors, Kitchen Remodeling & Custom Pool Builders
MARKETING FOR
CONTRACTORS.
Blank Box Digital builds the search presence and the estimate follow-up that general contractors, kitchen remodelers, and custom pool builders run on. SEO, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, project pages, Google Business Profile, and automated follow-up, handled by a small team in Austin, TX with no handoffs, on month-to-month terms.
How a Job Arrives
The Homeowner Hires Whoever Called Back First and Showed Up
A contractor does not get a job from a ranking or an ad. It gets a job when a homeowner finds the company, likes what the photos and reviews show, requests an estimate from two or three companies, and signs with the one that answered first and kept in touch while they decided. Every service we sell to contractors maps to one step on that path, and we report on the whole path, not on whichever step looks best this month.
That is also why we do not sell contractors a single channel in isolation. An ad campaign that fills the phone with handyman calls, or a project gallery with no estimate form behind it, spends your money building the next company's backlog.
Each step below names the service that owns it. Pricing for each is on our pricing page.
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Search
Someone types "kitchen remodel contractor near me," "pool builders" plus the city, or "how much does a home addition cost" into a phone, usually weeks before they are ready to talk to anyone.
Owned by SEO, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, Google Business Profile
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Look
They open the profile and the site and check the same things every time: photos of finished work like theirs, the reviews, and whether the company is licensed and insured. A company with no recent photos does not make the shortlist.
Owned by Project pages, galleries, profile photos, review flow
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Estimate
They request estimates from two or three companies. The form asks enough to tell a kitchen from a cabinet repair, and the first company to reply usually gets the first visit.
Owned by Estimate forms, lead qualification, speed to lead
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Decide
Weeks pass between the estimate and a decision, longer for additions and pools. The company that checks in with something useful is the one still in the conversation when the homeowner is ready.
Owned by Follow-up sequences, your CRM
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Contract
A signed contract, then the review request and the photos of the finished job that feed the next homeowner's search.
Owned by Review flow, Google Business Profile
Our Services
What We Do for Contractors
SEO
One page for each project type you take, one for each area you serve, and the technical work underneath. Built to rank for "kitchen remodel contractor" and "pool builders near me," not for "construction company."
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Google Ads & Local Services Ads
Local Services Ads where your category is eligible, Search campaigns split by project type, radius targeting around the areas you actually work, and negative keyword lists that keep DIY, jobs, and parts searches off your phone.
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Websites & Landing Pages
Hand-coded contractor sites and single-project landing pages for ad traffic, with a gallery that loads fast on a phone, the license and insurance shown, and an estimate form that qualifies the lead before it reaches you.
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Google Business Profile
Categories read from the companies that already rank in your market, services set per project type, crew and finished-job photos uploaded on a schedule, and a review request flow that keeps reviews arriving steadily.
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Speed to Lead & Follow-up
An automated reply to every estimate request and missed call within minutes, text and email follow-up through the weeks between estimate and decision, and routing to your estimator the moment the homeowner replies.
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Content
Cost guides and project write-ups that answer the questions homeowners search months before they call, each linked to the project page that takes the estimate request.
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Trade
Marketing for General Contractors
General contractors take the widest range of work and get the widest range of calls. The work is pages that name the projects you want, a profile that shows them, and an estimate form that filters out the ones you do not.
How homeowners search
By project and by place: "general contractor near me," "home addition contractor" plus the city, "whole house remodel," "ADU builder," and early on, "how much does an addition cost." Remodeling searches split between calls and forms, so both paths get equal weight on the page. A lot of the traffic on the broad terms is commercial work, handyman jobs, and people looking for employment, which is why the negative keyword lists and the estimate form do as much work as the ads.
What decides the call
Photos of finished projects like theirs, reviews that describe a project rather than a star count, the license number and insurance shown on the page, and whether the estimate visit happens when promised. The homeowner usually meets two or three companies. The one that confirmed the visit by text and showed up on time is the one that wins the comparison.
What we build
- Project-type pages (additions, whole-home remodels, new builds, ADUs, garage and basement conversions) as the foundation of the SEO work, each with a gallery, the license number, and the facts a homeowner checks in plain text: areas served, the project sizes you take, a typical timeline. Citations and service-area pages follow the order in our local SEO guide.
- Local Services Ads where your category is eligible, with the service area and the job types set tightly, because Google no longer credits a lead that was out of area or for work you do not do. Search campaigns split by project type, with shared negative lists for employment, DIY and how-to, parts and supplies, commercial work, and the cities you do not serve.
- A Google Business Profile with categories matched to the companies that rank, services set per project type, the crew mid-job in the photo set (the highest-trust photo category for a service business and the one most companies skip), and a review request sent after every completed job so reviews arrive steadily rather than in one batch.
- Estimate forms on the site and on landing pages for ad traffic that ask the project type, a budget range, the timeline, and the property address, so a bad fit is filtered before it reaches your phone and a good fit arrives with what your estimator needs.
- Speed to lead and follow-up: an instant text back on every request and missed call, a confirmation before the estimate visit, and check-ins through the weeks after it until the homeowner signs or says no.
Trade
Marketing for Kitchen Remodelers
A kitchen is the most looked-at room in the house and the most compared remodel. Homeowners collect ideas for months, then search for a contractor whose gallery looks like the kitchen they have been saving.
How homeowners search
Ideas come from Pinterest, Instagram, and Houzz. The contractor search happens on Google: "kitchen remodel contractor" plus the city, "kitchen remodelers near me," "kitchen renovation cost," "cabinet refacing." The cost searches come first, weeks before the contractor searches, which is why a cost guide on your own site meets the homeowner before any competitor does.
What decides the call
The gallery, first and by a wide margin, then reviews that mention the designer or the project manager by name, a price range somewhere on the site, and a showroom visit or design consultation they can book. Homeowners shortlist on the photos and decide on the estimate visit, so the photos have to be of your work, captioned with what was done, and recent.
What we build
- A kitchen remodeling page with sub-pages for the work inside it (cabinets, countertops, layout changes, full gut renovations) as the core of the SEO work, each carrying a captioned gallery with descriptive alt text, since photos with alt text on the linked site have been observed to help where profile photos alone do not.
- A cost guide and project write-ups from the content program answering "how much does a kitchen remodel cost" for your market and your tiers, each linked to the kitchen page that takes the estimate request.
- A Google Business Profile with two to four new photos a month from real jobs, services set per kitchen project type, and review replies that mention the project so the review thread reads as evidence rather than a thank-you.
- Google Ads on the kitchen terms with a radius around the neighborhoods you work, negatives for cabinet suppliers, DIY, and design software, and ad copy that leads with the signals that move the click: licensed and insured, free estimates, a real review count.
- Estimate forms that ask the kitchen size, the scope, a budget range, and the timeline, followed by an instant reply, a design consultation booking, and follow-up through the weeks the homeowner spends deciding.
Trade
Marketing for Custom Pool Builders
A custom pool is a large, slow decision with a season attached. Homeowners design in winter, build in spring, and spend months between the first search and the contract, while the phone rings with cleaning and repair calls the whole time.
How homeowners search
By pool type and by cost: "pool builders near me," "custom pool cost," "inground pool contractors" plus the city, "gunite vs fiberglass pool," "pool and spa builder." The homeowners who sign in spring started looking in the fall and winter, so a company that starts advertising when the yard thaws is already late. And because "pool" also means cleaning, repair, and supplies, the broad terms bring more wrong calls than right ones until the negatives are in place.
What decides the call
A gallery of finished pools by type, 3D renderings in the proposal, reviews that describe the build (the timeline, the communication, what went wrong and how it was handled), the license and insurance, and financing. The ticket is high and the decision is slow, so the homeowner is choosing a company they will deal with for months. The follow-up after the design meeting matters more than any other step.
What we build
- Pool-type pages (gunite, fiberglass, plunge pools, pool and spa combinations, outdoor living) as the foundation of the SEO work, each with a gallery, a cost range where you are willing to publish one, and the financing options.
- Google Ads with radius targeting around the areas you actually build in, the budget raised before the season opens rather than once the phone is busy, since a campaign cannot spend more than twice its daily budget on any one day, and negative lists for pool cleaning, pool repair, liner replacement, pool supplies, and above-ground pools. What a click costs by vertical is in our breakdown of what Google Ads cost.
- A Google Business Profile with services set per pool type, finished-pool and mid-build photos on a schedule, and a review request timed to the day the pool is filled, when the homeowner is happiest.
- Estimate forms that ask the property address, a budget range, the timeline, and whether there is a design in mind, so a cleaning call or an out-of-area request never reaches your designer, and landing pages per pool type for ad traffic that carry the gallery, the financing, and the form above the fold.
- Follow-up after the design consultation by text and email across the months a pool decision takes, with the rendering and the financing link ready, and a reactivation pass on last year's unsigned quotes before the next season opens.
How We Work
Built for How Contractors Operate
Bad Leads Are a Build Problem
Most contractors do not want more calls; they want fewer bad ones. Negative keyword lists keep jobs, DIY, parts, and the cities you do not serve out of the ad traffic. Local Services Ads get their job types and service area set tightly, because Google no longer credits a lead that was out of area or for work you do not do. The estimate form asks the project type, a budget range, the timeline, and the address, so your estimator only hears from homeowners who fit.
Service Area, Not City Center
Ads are targeted to a radius or the zip codes you actually work, with adjacent metros excluded and the cities you do not serve added as negative keywords, because someone inside your radius can still search for a contractor in the next town over. If you run from a home office with no signage, the Business Profile is set up as a service-area business with the address hidden, which is what Google's policy requires.
A Small Team, No Handoffs
The people who build your campaigns are the people who answer your questions. A small team in Austin, TX handles the SEO, the ads, the site, the profile, and the automations, so every piece is built to work with the others.
Month-to-Month, You Own It
No long-term contracts. The domain, the site, the ad account, and the data are yours from the first day, and every price is published on our pricing page and on each service page.
FAQ
Questions Contractors Ask Us
Yes. This page is written around the three trades we focus on, but the mechanics carry over: project pages, a profile with real photos, an estimate form that qualifies the lead, and follow-up that lasts as long as the decision does. If you run a roofing, bathroom remodeling, landscaping, or custom home building company, tell us the trade and the service area and we will say what we would build first.
Every service is priced on its own page and on our pricing page, month-to-month with no contract. Ad spend is separate. Tell us the trade, the service area, and the projects you want more of, and we will tell you what a budget has to be before it can work, and we will say so if it cannot.
A Houzz profile is worth keeping for the photos and the reviews, and it costs nothing to maintain. Paid leads from Angi, Thumbtack, and similar platforms are typically shared with several contractors at once, so you are paying to race. We do not build a plan around them. The budget goes to the channels where the lead is yours alone: your own project pages, your Business Profile, Local Services Ads, and Search.
Yes, where your category is eligible, which we check before promising anything, since eligibility is by category and license rather than by how local the business is. Verification needs background checks, license and insurance documentation, and a verified Business Profile. Google retired the Google Guaranteed badge in favor of the Google Verified checkmark and stopped crediting out-of-area and wrong-service leads, so the service area and job type setup is the only cost control left. We set it carefully and review the leads with you weekly.
In four places. Negative keyword lists on the ads for jobs, DIY, parts, commercial work, and the cities you do not serve. Local Services Ads job types and service area set tightly. An estimate form that asks the project type, a budget range, the timeline, and the property address. And follow-up that routes only an engaged, fitting homeowner to your estimator. A lead that does not fit still gets a polite automated reply; it just never interrupts a job site.
Usually. The audit tells us whether the site can carry project pages, a gallery that loads fast on a phone, and tracking, or whether a rebuild is the cheaper route. If the site stays, we add the pages, the gallery, and the estimate form to it. If it goes, you keep the domain and we build the new one on it.
Get Started
Tell Us the Trade
and the Service Area.
We will look at your site, your profile, your estimate flow, and the companies ranking around you, then come back with what we would build first and what it costs. No charge for the audit, no contract after it.