Reviews & Consumer Behavior
We sent out four surveys to 300 U.S. consumers each, segmented across four age groups, to understand how online reviews influence roofing contractor selection, and what that means for your business.
What We Wanted to Understand
As a digital marketing agency that provides reputation management services, our team wanted to understand how much reviews impact consumer decision-making process when selecting a roofing company. Here are the questions we wanted answered:
- Do consumers routinely check online reviews before selecting a contractor?
- What ratings must a contractor have to even be considered?
- Where do consumers prefer to look for online reviews?
- How much do consumers value online reviews vs. personal recommendations?
Based on Pew Research Data, we already knew at least half of Americans checked online reviews before purchases. What we didn’t know was the weight reviews carry specifically in the roofing contractor selection process.
Our Survey Process
The Questions We Asked
When examining online reviews for a local roofing contractor, do you check more than one source?
If you needed to check reviews for a roofing contractor, which platform would you check first?
Would you consider a roofing contractor with less than 5 stars? What is the lowest rating you’d accept?
Which review star rating would make you feel most comfortable hiring a roofing business?
Gather Reviews From Multiple Sources.
Google examines hundreds of signals to determine how credible a website is. Since any roofer can claim to provide the “best roofing services,” Google looks off-site to establish trustworthiness, and reviews are a primary signal.
Client reviews are one of the most reliable trustworthiness indicators. According to consumer research, approximately 78% of Americans trust online customer reviews as much as personal recommendations (Statista). We designed our surveys to find out exactly where consumers look—and how important review diversity is to them.
Most consumers prefer to consult multiple review sources before choosing a roofing contractor. Only 7.9% claimed to use a single source. Meanwhile, almost 42% said they don’t typically check online reviews at all—indicating a preference for personal recommendations or reliance on Google search rankings.
Women are slightly more likely to check reviews than men, and more likely to check multiple sources. But the more significant gap is generational—younger age groups are increasingly likely to check reviews before selecting a contractor.
The business case for multi-platform review presence is clear. More review listings create additional backlinks to your site and provide validation for the segment of consumers who cross-check multiple sources. You can’t afford to miss over half your audience simply because your review presence is thin.
The charts below reveal where consumers actually go first, and the generational split in platform preference is striking.
Each subsequent generation shows less preference for BBB or Angie’s List over Google Reviews. The 35–44 bracket also shows much higher Yelp usage than older groups. Roofing professionals can use this data to determine where to focus review collection efforts, and where to advertise.
Less Than Perfect Is Still Great.
One of the inevitable struggles with collecting online user feedback is the trickle of negative reviews. Many roofing professionals consider rebranding entirely after a few one-star reviews. If you’ve been hit with unfair criticism, don’t be so quick to shut things down.
People expect a few negative reviews. Even Google expects them.
A broad segment of consumers is willing to accept ratings between 4.0–4.9 stars. Males are especially likely to give sub-5-star contractors a shot. Below four stars, acceptance drops sharply. Let’s see how age factors into these findings.
From age 35 to 64, consumers showed intriguing comfort with sub-perfect ratings. This may reflect growing wariness toward fake reviews commonly associated with perfect scores, or a perceived link between lower ratings and more competitive pricing. Regardless, many consumers are quite willing to try contractors with imperfect scores. Don’t restart your business over a handful of bad reviews. Instead, double down on asking happy clients for feedback.
Key Takeaways For Roofing Companies
Top Lessons on Client Online Reviews
Online reviews play an essential role in local SEO for roofing contractors, they directly influence local map pack rankings and off-site trust signals. Here’s what our surveys tell you about where to focus.
- Google and BBB are the best places to start your review collection. Facebook, Angie’s List, and Yelp are useful but secondary.
- Most consumers will still consider a contractor with less than a 5-star average.
- At least half of consumers are comfortable with less-than-perfect ratings.
- Males are more likely to accept lower ratings than female consumers.
- Younger demographics (35–44) are most likely to check reviews at all.
Rules for Asking for Reviews
If a few negative reviews are dragging down your star count, the fix is more positive reviews, not a rebrand. There’s a right way to ask, and many wrong ones.
- Never offer compensation, promotions, or discounts in exchange for reviews.
- Never solicit reviews from anyone who isn’t a real client.
- Ask within a few days of job completion, while the experience is fresh.
- Explain honestly how reviews make a difference for your business.
- Train your team to ask for feedback at the end of every job.
- Send a follow-up text or email with direct links to your review profiles.
- Experiment to find which approach gets the best response rate.
Ready to Improve Your
Online Reputation?
If you haven’t paid much attention to reviews in the past, it’s never too early to start. Our team at Roofing Webmasters is always happy to enhance your website and reputation management program.
Reach Out to Our AgencyHow Do I Beat Other Roofers Online With SEO? (Podcast)
Does earning front-page rankings for your roofing business seem impossible? You might be closer to breakaway success than you think. In our latest podcast, Jason and Nolen discuss how to set your brand apart from the rest with SEO services for roofers. So if you’ve struggled to make headway with your business online, be sure to listen in!
Helpful Lessons on SEO for Roofers:
- Just completing the SEO basics puts you miles ahead of other roofing contractors.
- New companies should focus on GMB, optimized website design, and collecting reviews!
- It’s almost impossible to rank well without using your free Google My Business listing.
- Organic search efforts should only take a few months to start producing results.
Before You Can Compete
Anybody can jump into the online marketing fray without laying the proper groundwork. The backend pages of Google Search results are lined with roofing contractors that thought their SEO preparations were “good enough.” These companies earn little to no website traffic, and they shake their fists wondering why their haphazard efforts have failed.
There’s a bare minimum that every company must perform to rank for their desired services.
SEO Basics to Start Ranking
- Step #1: Claim Your Google My Business Listing
- Step #2: Establish Your Company Website
- Step #3: Build Citation Sources and Collect Reviews
GMB
Open a GMB Profile
So what does a dedicated roofing company need to do to start earning business online? First, they need to claim and fill out their Google My Business (GMB) profile. A GMB listing allows the search engine to better understand the location and function of your company. Whatever address you use for the GMB account, make sure all your other citation sources match it!
The profile will request many other details of your business. Fill out as much of the information as you can, and check back yearly to make sure your data is still accurate. GMB also allows you to post photos and videos of your business and personnel. Try taking some pictures of your finished roofing projects to post on your account! You can even use existing materials from your Facebook Business to get started.
Website Optimization
Create Your Optimized Website
We can’t stress enough just how important it is to nail your company website! So many businesses put up a cookie-cutter, terribly written website and earn inferior leads as a result. If you want your website to do well, make sure you have it crafted by a professional team that knows what they’re doing. A healthy site relies on an organized collection of service pages, keyword optimization, quality content, simplified navigation, lots of schema coding, and review integration.
No single marketing professional can provide all of these aspects, which is why it’s best to rely on a well-rated team. Few other factors of your online marketing so heavily impact your online lead success! Once you’ve established a well-optimized website, you’ll have the foundation necessary to spring into the rest of the SEO basics.
Citations & Reviews
Create More Listings and Earn Reviews
There’s no greater mark of authenticity than a host of glowing customer recommendations. Client feedback shows trustworthiness, one of the three E-A-T factors that Google analyses when ranking a roofing company brand. But, of course, the only way to pull in reviews is to establish listings for your business. As we’ve already mentioned, your GMB account is a great place to start. In addition, Google Reviews naturally integrate well with local search results, making your business much more visible.
However, the search engine provides better results when reviews come from a variety of sources.
That’s where citation sources come into play. These companies offer additional venues to list your company address and services, not to mention a convenient way to collect reviews. While some shady companies might push you to list dozens of obscure websites, it’s best to start with more established brands. The Better Business Bureau, Yelp, and Angie’s List are a few intelligent places.
Overcoming the Online Competition
We have a saying at the Webmasters, “You don’t have to be perfect. You have to be better than everyone else.” So far, we’ve covered online activities that will keep you in pace with the rest of the successful roofing companies. Now we come to the SEO basics that make your brand stand out as a clear winner.
SEO Strategies for Winners
- Ask for reviews all the time.
- Regularly blog on the company website.
- Create and manage a Facebook Business page.
- Take advantage of customer complaints.
We’ve already talked about how critical reviews are for your business. So why not ask for them consistently, especially after a job is well-done? Our team at Roofing Webmasters gets even more SEO power out of client feedback through a tool called DataPins. It adds geotagged data that shows Google the approximate locations of all job sites and showcases our clients’ roofing projects. While that level of review enhancement is pretty rare, a few other tools out on the market can provide added benefits for all your reviews.
Few roofing companies faithfully add to their company blog, which is why those that do consistently add well-written content are certain to stand out. The best part? You can take the informative material and share them on your social media pages for some added oomph! That’s just one reason to create a Facebook Business page, by the way. The social media platform offers a beautiful place to share information about your business, showcase your latest work, and tactfully address negative customer feedback.
Looking for More Online Leads?
Follow these winning strategies and SEO basics, and you’ll undoubtedly start earning higher rankings for your website. If you’ve been frustrated with organic or paid search, however, our team at Roofing Webmasters would love to help. Check out some resources throughout our website.
How To Show Up On Mapping (Podcast)
Why do my competitors rank in Google Maps listings but not my business? It can be an extremely frustrating situation to find yourself in, especially when your business has more reviews, higher ratings, and more extended history. In addition, with Google’s history of frequent algorithm changes, it can be challenging to put the finger on exactly what’s going wrong with your roofing SEO.
In our podcast, Jason and Nolen explore what it takes to show up in mapping and earn more leads as a roofing contractor. So if you’ve been coveting a featured listing for some time, be sure to listen in.
Look for These Key Points
- Should businesses focus exclusively on gaining Google Reviews?
- What areas of roofing SEO must contractors engage in to earn Local Pack listings?
- How can roofing contractors handle reputation management?
Google Maps Listings and Local Packs
By now, almost any roofing contractor can tell you that ranking #1 on Google means big business for your company. The top ranks of search engine results pages (SERPs) continue to shift with each passing year. The ultimate win for roofing SEO these days is scoring a spot in local packs, a feature of Google Maps listings.
Google Maps, of course, is a satellite and database-powered tool that connects consumers with local services. It features the standard pins on the map and nearby cross streets. In addition, maps listings now include crucial contact and reputation data on each business, including addresses, service type, operating hours, and reviews. That last element is a point of contention in the roofing contractor community. We’ll talk about that in a little bit.
On the other hand, local packs are a unique SERP feature that pulls three of the most relevant entries from Google Maps listings. As their popularity and influence increase, local packs grow more and more competitive each year. As a result, they earn a large percentage of clicks, pulling traffic away from other lower front-page listings. As a result, local packs typically claim second or third place in the front page order, just below Google Guaranteed entries and paid ads.
Reputation Management
Beyond the traditional keyword optimization, Google looks for three essential qualities in a website. These include:
- The expertise of the content creators
- Authoritativeness of the content creators, the content itself, and the website
- Trustworthiness of the company
These E-A-T factors can be traced back to Google’s 2015 Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines and heavily impact the search engine’s ranking of your website (including Maps listings). However, when it comes to proving trustworthiness, few elements influence Google’s (and people’s) judgment more than User Reviews.
Balancing Your Reviews
In the past, Google emphasized the collection of reviews on its platform. The relationship between reviews and list ranking seemed clear: get more five-star reviews and get higher rankings. However, Google now recommends earning reviews across a broader spectrum of sources. Some of these may be from social media platforms (such as Facebook and Instagram). Others come from citation companies, including Yelp and Angie’s List.
Your roofing team probably works hard as it is earning new reviews from clients. Now there’s the thought of collecting them across different platforms. The most important players in this new plan are the people interacting directly with the clients. Simply asking for reviews and offering a reference card will usually do the job. Next, make sure your social media platforms have the reviews call to action optimized and ready to take on the additional traffic.
DataPins
Google also rewards businesses that display reviews within their website. The widget you incorporate could have a significant effect on Google’s perception of your business. One of the review tools that we love at the Roofing Webmasters is DataPins. Our clients can pull reviews from various platforms with this widget and allow customers to leave reviews directly on the website for their chosen medium (Facebook, Google, or Yelp, for example).
Roofing contractors can also use the widget to send invitations to review. Imagine quickly requesting reviews via text messages that include a direct link to your website! Finally, roofing professionals can check into job sites and that geo-location data gets embedded in your website. Essentially, this provides proof to Google that your company performs services in those locations. You can listen to Jason’s take on this capability around 8:10 in the video.
Balanced Roofing SEO Produces Results
We stress the importance of other roofing SEO factors in your company’s Google Maps listings. Reviews alone will not provide the rankings you desire. Google’s examination of your company website also impacts your local SEO rankings. If a business skimps out on professional design, keyword optimization, and other essential activities, they will almost certainly not appear in local packs. With that being said, reviews are crucial to ranking well.
Earn Premium Listings With Roofing Webmasters
Are you tired of getting left out of top ranks or even the front page altogether? Our team at the Roofing Webmasters would love to help! We support numerous contractors with website design, ad campaign management, and SEO for roofers (among many other services). As a result, our clients enjoy premium rankings, higher site traffic, deeper user engagement, and superb lead generation.
Roofing Marketing for Newbs (Podcast)
So you’re a newb when it comes to marketing for roofers—big deal. The reality is that everyone has to start somewhere, and there’s no better time to start than now. Embarking on a new business venture can be both exciting & intimidating. There’s the lure of the unknown and the challenge that comes along. At Roofing Webmasters, this podcast wasn’t created to earn new clients (we have a line out the door) but instead to impart our knowledge of what it takes to become a successful roofing contractor in 2021.
No Money, No Problems
Nolen Walker, the founder of Roofing Webmasters, started from humble beginnings. Like those of you reading this post, he didn’t have the money to invest in big-time marketing right away. So instead, he spent his time mowing lawns & painting curbs to build enough cash to parlay into a long-term investment.
Planting your flag as a digital footprint, albeit a comparatively minuscule one, lays a foundation that you can build on many years later—Google factors in tenure when assigning trust to a particular brand or entity. Claiming a domain name now (even if it shows a dirt cheap website) is still a step in the right direction for prospective roofers. Here’s what you need:
Website
It would help if you had a website and domain name ASAP. Although you can’t expect to succeed on Google organic with a template website, having any website at all is better than not having one. Why? Tenure matters in the eyes of Google. So while you won’t directly benefit from your website today, you will be setting the stage for future endeavors in terms of lead generation.
Remember, you have limited funds, and so you have to make the most of them. You can’t compare yourself to other roofers with massive budgets because that will only discourage you from trying. Even if it is a baby step, the first step can start a meaningful push to lead to sustainable success. Domains usually cost 9.99. Go for a roofing domain name that has a dot com extension.
Google My Business Listing
If you do nothing else with your web presence, make sure you at least claim & optimize your local Google listing. GMB listings account for both your Google My Business profile & Google Maps address. Every business owner in the world can do this free of charge if they have a legitimate business.
Google explains how to claim your business which is the simplest way to establish a web presence with no money. Make sure you add company photos to your profile as you take them. As a newb, you may not have many to start, but your GMB can be continuously improved over and again. First, maps addresses must be verified, which is most commonly done via postcard mail. Once verified, you can rank on Google Maps.
Google Reviews (And Other Reviews)
Once you’ve claimed & optimized your Google listing, you should pursue as many reviews as possible. Even if you have a dirt-cheap website, consumers can find appeal in a GMB listing with several positive reviews. If a prospect searches your brand name, they will see your GMB listing in the knowledge graph on the top right of search results.
Google is not the only platform on which you should generate reviews. You also want to disseminate them to business directories like Angie’s List, BBB, MapQuest, etc. But perhaps more importantly, you want to get them on Facebook, which serves as a social media platform as well as a top business directory.
Social Media
Speaking of Facebook, social media platforms are free to market and present a powerful web entity for roofing newbs with no money. Sure, you can’t advertise on Facebook or Instagram without funds, but you can certainly market yourself on them. Facebook marketing is primarily about establishing a business page that will show up on Google search results.
With Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, you have a chance to generate some organic impressions on the platforms themselves. Unfortunately, Facebook no longer empowers brands to show up on organic feeds as a way to discourage the clickbait that has plagued the social network over the past decade or so. But you can still use it to your advantage, as a newb roofer with no $.
Transitioning to a Higher Level of Marketing
Once you transition from newb to moderately successful roofer, you should take your earnings and re-allocate them towards superior marketing. The first step will be contacting a professional web designer who can replace your old site with a newly customized one coded for SEO.
Since your domain will already have tenure at this point, you can leverage its age to hit the ground rounding with your newly designed website. Yes, that’s right, you keep the domain that you bought for 9.99 some years ago but now energize it with a superior design. Combining tenure with SEO creates a perfect storm of digital promotion that one can enjoy the benefits of for years and decades to come.
Roofing Webmasters Can Help
Remember, this post is not for people who already have a dominant online presence; it is just a reminder to those who want to reevaluate once they gain that position. Roofing Webmasters has been working with roofing contractors for years, and our data supports consistent excellence in roofer internet marketing. We attend to detail, review the latest algorithmic trends, and constantly look for advantages to put our clients over their competitors on Google organic rankings.
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