Win better projects, not just more leads
Citypeak is a construction and contractor marketing agency for general contractors, remodelers, and commercial builders competing in crowded metros. We build the visibility, proof, and estimate pipeline that turn high-value projects into signed contracts.
Where projects stall
What Citypeak builds
Contractor marketing is not home-services marketing
A plumber needs the phone to ring two hundred times a month. A remodeler needs five signed projects. Different businesses, different marketing.
When the average job is worth $20,000 to $100,000, volume stops being the goal. A contractor who books four extra projects a year at healthy margin has had a transformative year. Lead-count dashboards hide that — they reward cheap clicks from homeowners pricing a repair and bury the property manager quietly comparing three general contractors.
Our digital marketing for contractors is built around the projects you actually want: the categories with margin, the ZIP codes worth driving to, and the searches used by people with an approved budget. Then we measure projects, not form fills.
| Category | Avg. CPC | Conv. rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home & home improvement | $8.33 | 8.05% | $90.92 |
| Industrial & commercial | $5.87 | 8.20% | $75.19 |
| All industries | $5.42 | 8.18% | $66.69 |
Medians across 13,474 U.S. search campaigns, April 2025 – March 2026. Source: WordStream 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks. Home improvement carries the second-highest cost per click of any category tracked — which is why project value, not lead count, sets the budget.
Generate better projects, not just more leads
Every contractor has been sold leads. Far fewer have been shown what a lead is actually worth to them.
What a project is worth to you
Move the sliders to your numbers. The result is the most a lead can cost before it stops being profitable.
Compared against the $90.92 category average cost per lead reported by WordStream for 2026.
Why the ceiling matters
The gap between those two bars is your advantage. A contractor whose break-even sits in the hundreds or thousands can outbid every competitor chasing the cheapest click and still make money. Most never realize it, so they cap budgets at a number that keeps them invisible.
Contractor lead generation sold by volume ignores this completely. Knowing your ceiling changes what we target:
- Profitable categories first. Renovations, additions, and tenant improvements get the budget. Punch-list work does not.
- Service areas you'd actually drive to. ZIP-level targeting tied to crew logistics, not a 50-mile blanket.
- Commercial and residential kept apart. Different searches, pages, and budgets, reported separately.
- Qualification before the site visit. Scope, timeline, and budget captured up front, so estimator days aren't spent on tire-kickers.
- High-intent terms over broad ones. Searches naming a project, material, or city convert. Curiosity searches do not.
See our PPC management packages or compare full marketing packages.
Built for your trade, not for contractors in general
A restoration company and a custom home builder share nothing — not the urgency, the decision maker, or the search behavior. Pick the one that fits.
General contractors
Two buyers, two funnels
Most contractor websites are written for a homeowner and then expected to win commercial work too. The two buyers research differently, decide differently, and need different proof.
How residential projects get decided
| Residential | Commercial | |
|---|---|---|
| Decision maker | One or two homeowners | Owner, facility manager, architect, sometimes a board |
| Research window | Weeks to a few months | Months, often a formal bid process |
| Proof that matters | Photos, reviews, nearby projects | Comparable scale, bonding, safety, references |
| First contact | Call or form after shortlisting | After most evaluation is done |
| Primary channel | Local search, maps, paid search | Organic search, project pages, referrals |
6sense's 2025 Buyer Experience Report found first seller contact happens around 61% of the way through a B2B process, and the winning vendor was already on the day-one shortlist 95% of the time. If you aren't visible during research, you aren't in the bid.
Proof is the product
Nobody hands a contractor $60,000 because of a tagline. They hand it over because the work looks right, the reviews hold up, and nothing feels risky.
Project pages that rank
Pages for real projects — scope, materials, location, before and after — give search engines something to rank and buyers something to believe.
A review profile that clears the bar
Standards have risen fast. Volume, recency, and owner responses decide whether you survive the shortlist.
Estimate requests that qualify
Forms capturing project type, timeline, and budget, so estimators walk into the right driveways.
| Buyer expectation | 2026 finding | What it means for a contractor |
|---|---|---|
| They read reviews | 97% read reviews before choosing a local business; 41% always do, up from 29% | Your reviews make the first sales call, managed or not |
| They filter by rating | 31% use only businesses rated 4.5 stars or higher, nearly double the prior year | A 4.2 average removes you before any conversation |
| They want volume | 47% won't consider a business with fewer than 20 reviews | Review generation is infrastructure, not a bonus |
| They ask AI | 45% use tools such as ChatGPT for local recommendations, up from 6% | You have to be legible to AI assistants, not just Google |
Source: BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, a national panel of 1,002 U.S. adults.
Own the cities you actually build in
Contractor search is stubbornly local. Somebody in one suburb searching for a deck builder sees different results than somebody four towns over, and a single "Services" page cannot win both.
Construction SEO is structural: a page for every service you sell, a page for every market you serve, and internal links tying them together so the cluster gains authority instead of competing with itself — on a properly structured local business page.
For contractors in expensive metros this is usually the highest-return work we do. It compounds, it survives a paused ad budget, and it reaches buyers months before they request a bid.
Included at no extra cost
Every Citypeak SEO engagement includes AI visibility work, so your services, service area, credentials, and project history are structured for assistants to read and recommend. We publish a machine-readable company information page for the same reason.
Homeowners are asking AI who to hire
The share of consumers using tools like ChatGPT for local recommendations jumped from 6% to 45% in a single year, while Google's share of review-platform usage fell from 83% to 71%. Most contractor websites are not written in a way an assistant can summarize.
Clear service definitions, consistent business information, real project detail, and structured data are what get a company cited when somebody asks an assistant for a remodeler in their city.
What we run for construction clients
Construction digital marketing from one in-house U.S. team. No outsourcing, no handing your account to whoever is free that week.
Contractor SEO
SEO for contractors: a cluster of service, city, and project pages that ranks for the work you want. SEO packages
Google Ads
Google Ads for contractors, segmented by project type and service area, keeping repair searches out of a remodeling budget. PPC packages
Websites that convert
Fast, mobile-first sites with portfolio galleries, qualification forms, and warranty detail where buyers look. Web design packages
Local search & reviews
Google Business Profile management, service-area setup, and a steady review cadence.
Social & project content
Jobsite progress, finished work, and crew content turned into proof. Social packages
Email & follow-up
Estimate follow-up and past-client reactivation — the second project is cheaper to win. Email packages
How we start
Project audit
Which categories and service areas actually produce margin today.
Competitive read
Who takes the searches you want in your metro, and where the gaps are.
Build
Pages, campaigns, tracking, and the proof your buyers look for.
Weekly management
Optimization with a standing check-in, not a monthly PDF.
Report on projects
Estimates requested, booked, and signed — reported by category.
Why contractors work with us
As a construction marketing agency, Citypeak has run search and paid media for local service businesses since 2018 out of Cary, North Carolina, with an in-house U.S. team and a BBB A+ accreditation. We know what a seasonal pipeline, a crew-capacity ceiling, and a two-month estimate cycle do to a marketing plan.
In-house, U.S. team
No offshore subcontracting on your account.
BBB A+ accredited
Rated on Clutch, Google, Yelp, and BBB.
Weekly check-ins
A standing cadence, not a quarterly review.
AI visibility included
Built into SEO work at no added cost.
Construction marketing questions
Volume versus value. Home services businesses need constant repair calls; contractors need a few large, considered projects. That changes the keywords worth bidding on, the sales cycle, the proof buyers need, and how results get measured. If you also sell recurring service work, see our home services marketing page.
Paid search can produce estimate requests within the first few weeks. Construction SEO is slower — movement on competitive city and service terms takes three to six months, then compounds. Because the sales cycle runs weeks to months, we watch estimate volume and quality first, then signed contracts.
PPC management starts at $495 per month plus ad spend, with SEO, web design, social, and email available separately or bundled. The better question is what a project is worth: if one additional $40,000 project covers a year of fees several times over, budget belongs against project economics. See marketing packages.
Yes. Commercial work means longer research windows, multiple stakeholders, and buyers who evaluate you before making contact — so heavier investment in organic visibility, project detail, and credential content, with paid search used selectively.
Referrals are the best leads you will get and the least controllable. Search visibility gives you a source you can turn up when the schedule gaps. It also catches the referred buyer who searches your name before calling.
Yes. We are headquartered in Cary, with most clients across the Research Triangle, Charlotte, Wilmington, and Asheville, and we work with contractors nationwide — delivered remotely by the same in-house team.
Let's look at your project pipeline
Tell us which projects you want more of and which markets you serve. We'll come back with a straight read on what it would take to win them.
Sources referenced on this page
- WordStream — 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks
- BrightLocal — Local Consumer Review Survey 2026
- Harvard JCHS — Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity
- U.S. Census Bureau — Monthly Construction Spending
- 6sense — B2B Buyer Experience Report
- Google Search Central — Local business structured data
- NAHB Eye on Housing — Residential construction spending
- Construction Dive — Nonresidential spending analysis