Roofers with no website carry a fraction of the reviews. What to do about it this week.
The review gap between roofers with a website and roofers without one is wide. What that number means for your company and the work to start on this week.
A homeowner with a leak after a windstorm searches "roofer near me," sees three listings, and taps the one that looks most real. If your listing has no website and a handful of reviews, you are rarely the one she taps. The numbers in our benchmark data show how wide that gap is.
The number
Across the 102,385 roofing listings we track, 22.6% have no website linked on their Google profile. The roofers with a website carry a median of 21 reviews. The roofers without one carry a median of 3.
That is not a small difference. It is the difference between a listing that looks established and one that looks like it started last month.
A website does not cause reviews on its own. Both are signs of a company that runs its marketing on purpose. But on a purchase as big as a roof, a homeowner compares companies closely, and the listings without a website lose that comparison before it starts.
Why it hits roofers harder than most trades
A plumber can win a call on speed alone. A roofer usually cannot. Roof jobs are large, often involve insurance, and almost always involve a homeowner checking you out before she lets you climb up.
What she looks for:
- Proof you are local. An address or service area, real job photos, towns you work in.
- Proof you are licensed and insured. A license number and carrier on the site.
- Proof other people trusted you. Reviews on Google, and ideally a few on your own site.
- A way to reach you that is not just a phone. A short form or a text option for when she is at work.
Without a site, the only place she can check is your Google profile, and with a few reviews that is not enough. The roofing website essentials guide lists the seven things the site has to do.
What to do this week if you have no website
You do not need a big custom site to close most of this gap. You need a fast, plain one that answers the obvious questions.
- Get a five-page site live. Home, roof replacement, roof repair, storm and insurance work, and contact. Use real photos from your own jobs, not stock images of a perfect house.
- Put your phone number at the top of every page and make it tap to call. Most of your visitors are on a phone.
- List the towns you serve by name. Homeowners and Google both use this to decide whether you are local.
- Add your license and insurance details. This one line ends a lot of hesitation.
- Link the site from your Google Business Profile. This is the step people forget. A site that is not linked does nothing for your listing.
A basic site like this typically costs a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars to build, plus a small monthly hosting fee. One roof replacement pays for it many times over.
What to do this week if you have a site but few reviews
If you already have a website and your review count is still under the median of 13, the site is not the problem. The ask is.
- Ask at the end of every job. The day the crew cleans up and the magnet sweep is done is when homeowners are happiest. Ask in person, then send the link by text that evening.
- Text past customers from the last year. Many will leave a review if you simply ask. Keep the text short and include the direct review link.
- Reply to every review you already have. A short, specific reply shows the next homeowner that someone is paying attention.
The Google reviews guide for roofers has scripts for the ask, the text and the follow-up.
Where the bar sits
For context, a quarter of roofing listings sit at 2 reviews or fewer, three quarters sit at 50 or fewer, and the top tenth start at about 141. Only 14.1% have more than a hundred.
If you are near the bottom, the first goal is the median. Then the 75th percentile. The full breakdown, including your state, is in the benchmark report.
The short version
Roofers without a website carry far fewer reviews than roofers with one, and on a high-ticket job that gap costs calls. If you have no site, get a plain five-page one live and link it from your Google profile this week. If you have a site, start asking for reviews at every cleanup and text last year's customers.
If you want someone to set up and run any one service for you, there is a free 14-day trial, no card needed. Text or call (385) 475-4642.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, roofing companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor