How builders get work from Google in 2026

A builder gets work from Google through four doors: the map pack for the town, the ordinary results for the job, the platforms that rank above both, and the search a homeowner makes after a neighbour gives them your name. Each is won by something different, and a firm with one page that says everything wins none of them. This guide is what decides each door and the order we fix them in.

The recommendation now ends in a search

Word of mouth has not gone anywhere, but it has grown a last step. The neighbour says the name, the homeowner types it in that evening, and what comes back decides whether they ring. A site with photos of the last extension and a form: they ring. Nothing, or a dead Facebook page, or a Checkatrade profile with three photos and a 4.2: they ring the second name they were given. This is the cheapest work in the trade to win and the most commonly lost, because the builder never sees it happen.

Winning it takes a site that confirms three things in a scroll: you do this kind of job, you do it near them, and real people say you did it well. The profile has to agree with the site on who you are and where you are. That is all, and it takes about four weeks.

The map pack: the town's work

Search "builders in" and a town from a phone and the map with three firms fills the screen before any website. The three are chosen from the Google Business Profile, and a builder's profile is a service-area business, which changes the set-up: address hidden, service area set to the towns you take, categories for the jobs you want, services listed with from-prices where you use them, photos from real sites, and reviews arriving steadily with the job and the town in them.

Most builder profiles we audit were set up once, years ago, with a home address showing, one category, no services and a photo of the van. Fixing that moves a firm within weeks. What keeps it in the three is reviews, which brings us to the handover routine later in this guide.

The job searches: extensions, lofts, conversions

"Extension builders" with a town, "loft conversion" with a town, "garage conversion" with a town. These are the searches worth the most and they are won by a page about that job in that town: what is involved, what moves the price, planning in one paragraph, three photos of one you did, the quote form. Not a homepage. Not a services page with six bullet points. A page.

They take months. In most towns the page-one firms have been there for years, and a new page needs projects added, reviews mentioning the job, and mentions elsewhere before Google moves it up. This is what a retainer is for, and it is why we say three to six months on every proposal rather than promising thirty days.

The platforms: rented, shared, useful early

Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Rated People rank above most builders for most searches, because they are enormous. A new firm gets its first jobs there and should. But every lead is shared with other firms, the cheapest quote wins, the fee rises with the work, and the profile sends the homeowner to the platform, not to you. The move is to let the platform profile point at your own site, so the homeowner books with you rather than shopping three quotes.

The order we fix things: the profile first, because it is free and moves in weeks. The site second, because the profile points at it and it closes the recommendation. The job pages third, because they take a season. The platforms last, kept but not depended on.

Reviews decide the map once you are in it

The three firms in the map for a town usually have the same categories and services. What separates them is the count, the pace and the content of the reviews. A builder finishing four jobs a month has forty-eight reviews a year waiting to be asked for, and most ask for none. The routine is the final walk-round: the client is pleased, standing in the new room, and the line is short. A card with the link, a text that evening, and a mention of what to say: the job and the town.

What the law allows: asking. What it forbids: paying for reviews, asking only happy clients (gating), and writing them yourself. Incentivised reviews are an offence under UK consumer law since 2025, and Google removes bursts of reviews from the same week.

Photos are the page

Every door above is won faster with real photos. The profile with ten finished jobs outranks the profile with the van. The job page with before-and-after from the same spot outsells the one with a stock photo of a hard hat. The photos are on the builder's phone already; the work is a one-page brief for what to shoot next time, and someone to sort and caption them.

What to do first if you have nothing

1. Claim or fix the Google Business Profile as a service-area business, with categories and services for the jobs you want.
2. Send the last ten finished jobs' photos to someone who will sort them.
3. Get a site with a page per kind of job, a projects page and a quote form that reaches your phone.
4. Start the handover routine for reviews on the next finished job.
5. Point the platform profiles at the site.
6. After the first Search Console data, add one job page or project a month.