Asked in the US about construction and fit-out contractors, the engines read the Google map pack and Houzz and State licence boards and permit records first. Licensing is by state and sometimes by city, with a classification that limits what you may build, plus the bond and the workers' compensation coverage. Publish cost per square foot by project type, the permit timeline in weeks by city, the schedule for a typical job and the delivery methods you work under.
What US buyers ask the engines about construction and fit-out contractors
The metro is in the sentence, and so is the brand, the licence or the size when the trade has one. Six of the questions the report puts to the four engines for a contractor in the United States:
| Kind | The question, as asked |
|---|---|
| Head term | best general contractor in Austin for a 4,000 square foot custom home |
| Product | which commercial contractors do restaurant build-outs on a 12-week schedule |
| Niche | design build contractor in Denver for an ADU with permit expediting |
| Comparison | general contractor versus construction manager at risk for a $5 million project |
| Comparison | alternatives to the big regional contractors for a single tenant improvement |
| Niche | licensed contractor in Los Angeles for a soft story seismic retrofit |
The US sources the engines read for construction and fit-out contractors
Asked without a country the engines assume the United States, so these are the pages they read by default. For construction and fit-out contractors:
| Source | What it decides |
|---|---|
| The Google map pack and Houzz | the residential questions; Houzz project pages with captions are read closely for the 'who does this style' questions |
| State licence boards and permit records | the CSLB in California, TDLR and city registration in Texas, DBPR in Florida; permit aggregators like BuildZoom and Shovels turn city permit data into a record of what a contractor actually built |
| Industry rankings and directories | the ENR Top 400 and the regional ENR lists, the AGC and ABC member directories, and the Dodge Construction Network project data |
| Bid boards | public bid systems, school and municipal procurement, and SAM.gov; a past public award answers the capacity question |
| Your own project pages | the project type, the square footage, the duration, the cost band and the delivery method, when stated as numbers |
What the engines verify before they name you
Licensing is by state and sometimes by city, with a classification that limits what you may build, plus the bond and the workers' compensation coverage. The engines check the state board and, increasingly, the permit record, which is public in most American cities: a contractor whose permits show the work matching the claim is named with more confidence. State the licence number per state, the classification, the bond and the insurance limits.
The same question, three Americas
The engines answer per metro, from pages that name it. How the questions differ across the country for this trade:
- The Sun Belt growth markets: Austin, Dallas, Phoenix, Nashville, Raleigh: custom homes, ADUs and tenant improvements, with schedule and permit-timeline questions in the sentence.
- California: permit and code questions above all: ADUs, seismic retrofit, Title 24, and the CSLB licence in the question.
- The Northeast and Midwest: renovation and adaptive reuse of older buildings, historic approvals, and winter schedule questions.
Spanish
The trades are largely Spanish-speaking and a share of homeowner questions in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona arrive in Spanish. A Spanish page on the permit process and the cost per square foot is rare and gets quoted.
What to publish in dollars
Publish cost per square foot by project type, the permit timeline in weeks by city, the schedule for a typical job and the delivery methods you work under. American construction cost questions are answered today from national cost guides and from Reddit, neither of which names a contractor.
The names a US buyer already knows
Turner, DPR, Clayco, Suffolk, the ENR-ranked contractors in the region: the names a buyer arrives with, and the ones the report's comparison questions are written against ('X alternatives', 'local versus X'). Whether the engines put them ahead of you, or in your place, is what the report measures, question by question, with the market set to the United States.
What a month of work looks like in the US
The Grow plan's goal for a contractor here: get named in the five project-type-and-metro questions where a cost guide, Houzz or a top-400 contractor is named and you are not. The work starts with The Google map pack and Houzz, then the pages of yours the engines quote, per metro and, where the trade needs it, in Spanish, with a rescan on the same questions at month's end. The plans are priced on the home page.
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Questions
What do the engines check before naming a contractor in the US?
Licensing is by state and sometimes by city, with a classification that limits what you may build, plus the bond and the workers' compensation coverage.
Are these questions asked in Spanish?
The trades are largely Spanish-speaking and a share of homeowner questions in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona arrive in Spanish. A Spanish page on the permit process and the cost per square foot is rare and gets quoted.
What price should be on the page?
Publish cost per square foot by project type, the permit timeline in weeks by city, the schedule for a typical job and the delivery methods you work under. American construction cost questions are answered today from national cost guides and from Reddit, neither of which names a contractor.
See who the engines name in the US
Your website, region and work email. The score appears in about three minutes, and the report is a link you keep.