Local SEO
We audited 196 contractor websites. Here is what we found.
Most of the contractor websites we checked are slow on a phone and do not tell Google who they are. That is the short version of what we found after auditing 196 websites between October 13 and October 31, 2026.
We ran the same four checks on every site, and 177 of them finished all four. The other 19 could not complete the speed check, the schema check, or both, so every number below comes from those 177.
How did we audit 196 contractor websites?
We checked each site against four things that decide whether a homeowner on a phone can find you and reach you.
1. Security (HTTPS). Does the site have a working SSL certificate, and does it send visitors to the secure version? 2. Mobile speed. Google's mobile performance score from 0 to 100, the time until the main content appears, total blocking time, and page weight. 3. Schema markup. Does the homepage carry JSON-LD that tells search engines your business name, address, phone, service area, and trade? 4. Indexing. Does Google return pages from the domain at all?
Here is where the 177 completed audits landed.
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | Secure 93%, not forced 6%, not secure 2% |
| Mobile speed | Fast 8%, needs work 71%, slow 21% |
| Schema | Found 18%, found but incomplete 31%, missing 51% |
| Indexed in Google | Indexed 80%, barely indexed 15%, not found 5% |
What did the audit find about schema markup?
Schema is code that hands Google your business name, address, phone, service area, and trade in a format it reads directly. More than eight in ten sites either skipped it or left it half finished.
Half of the sites have no schema at all. Those businesses rely on the words on the page to tell Google where they work and what they do, and Google has to guess the rest. Every site we build at Sun City Marketing ships with this markup already in place.
How fast are contractor websites on a phone?
Speed is where homeowners drop off, and it was the biggest leak in the audit. Only 14 of the 177 sites loaded fast enough on a phone to earn Google's top rating.
The average mobile score was 62.7 out of 100. The median site took 7.5 seconds to show its main content, and the slowest took more than 42 seconds.
The main reason is weight. The median page was about 2.3 MB, and the average was closer to 4.2 MB because a few pages were enormous. Heavy pages usually come from full-size job photos and from site builders that load a lot of extra code. Script blocking was a smaller problem, with a median of 90 milliseconds.
How many contractor websites are secure and indexed?
Security was the strongest result in the audit. Most hosts and site builders now include an SSL certificate by default, and 164 of the 177 sites were fully secure.
The 13 that were not can show a "Not secure" warning in the browser, which is an easy way to lose a homeowner's trust before they read a word. Indexing was also mostly fine: 142 sites were indexed, 27 were barely indexed, and 8 were not found in Google at all.
See how your site compares
We run the same four checks on any contractor website and show you the result for each one, with a screenshot. Request your audit on the website audit page and we will send it to you.
Do most sites have more than one problem?
Yes. These issues rarely show up alone, so we counted how many of the four checks each site failed or got a warning on. The average was 2 of 4.
| Checks failed or warned | Sites |
|---|---|
| None | 5 |
| One | 26 |
| Two | 108 |
| Three | 37 |
| All four | 1 |
The typical pattern is a site that is secure but slow and missing schema. That is two problems on the same page, and both are fixable.
Why do slow pages and missing schema cost contractors calls?
A homeowner with a burst pipe or a dead AC unit in August does not wait. They search on their phone, tap the first few results, and call whoever loads.
Google's mobile page speed research found that the chance a visitor leaves rises by about 90% as load time goes from 1 second to 5 seconds. The median site in our audit takes 7.5 seconds. A lot of those visitors are gone before they ever see a phone number.
Schema is the quieter problem. Without it, Google has to piece together your trade and service area from whatever is written on the page. If you want to show up for jobs in Menifee, Temecula, or Murrieta, you want Google to know that for certain.
What can a contractor fix this week?
Three changes cover most of what we found.
1. Add clean Local SEO Schema Markup. Your JSON-LD should carry your exact business name, address, and phone, your service area, and your specific trade type, such as PlumbingService or HVACBusiness. Read what local SEO schema is in plain terms before you add it. 2. Shrink your job photos. Photos straight off a phone are huge. Convert them to WebP and keep them under 1,200 pixels wide before you upload them. That single change often removes a large share of the page weight. 3. Load nothing extra before the headline. Anything that is not essential should load after the page appears, so your headline and tap-to-call button show up quickly. See why a website is slow for the usual causes.
If you would rather have all three handled in the build, the pricing page lists what each build includes.
What did the audit check on each website?
Four things: HTTPS security, mobile speed (Google's score plus load time, page weight, and blocking time), Local SEO schema markup on the homepage, and whether Google has indexed the site.
How many of the 196 websites passed every check?
Of the 177 audits that finished, 5 passed all four checks. Most failed or got a warning on two.
Why did 19 audits not count?
The speed check, the schema check, or both could not finish for those sites, so we left them out of every number.
Does every Sun City Marketing website include schema?
Yes. Every site we build ships with Local SEO Schema Markup using the business's real details.
About the audit
This benchmark study was conducted independently by Sun City Marketing, a Menifee, California digital agency specializing in high-performance custom HTML web development, local SEO, and technical search optimization for home service contractors throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
For questions regarding dataset methodology or to request a technical review for your service business, visit Sun City Marketing.
Dan
Founder, Sun City Marketing
Dan builds custom websites and marketing systems for contractors and service businesses in Southern California and nationwide. He writes about local SEO, HTML performance, and the practical side of scaling a trades business with automation.