Paint, floors, tile and cabinet refinishing

One interior-services page does not answer both searches

The material shows up in a search as often as the trade. Someone with worn oak asks for hardwood refinishing, not for a flooring company. A single interior services page does not answer that.

Exterior and interior work are separate searches. If the site sells both from one page, it competes for both with the same words all year. We read each one in its own window and date the results, so a July check is not mistaken for how you look in January.

What homeowners ask

We type questions like these into Google and ChatGPT for painting, flooring, tile and cabinet work.

• “Who is a good exterior and interior painter in Lake Oswego?”
• “Can you recommend a licensed tile installer near Beaverton for a bathroom?”
• “Which hardwood flooring contractors in Portland have good reviews?”
• “Who does cabinet refinishing in Clackamas County?”
• “Who installs kitchen countertops in Washington County?”

Each one needs its own page.

Where a buyer checks the license and the listings

• Oregon CCB or Washington L&I. An Oregon CCB record names the endorsement, not painting or flooring, so the site has to name the trade. Give the number in text with the state beside it, especially if you work both sides of the river.
• Lead-based paint renovation. If you hold Oregon's lead-based paint renovation license or a Washington RRP firm certification, name it in text next to the contractor number, so a buyer with an older house can see it.
• Houzz. Finish work is sold from photos, and painting has no manufacturer contractor locator to lean on.
• National Wood Flooring Association. Its Find a Professional search is public, lists installers and sand and finish crews, and ranks those with more NWFA training higher.
• BuildZoom. It republishes license records, and for painting and flooring the profile is usually thin because this work rarely pulls a permit, so check that what it does show is right.
• Painting Contractors Association, Portland chapter. Its member directory is built for other members, not homeowners, so it belongs on your own site rather than in your list of places customers find you.
• NKBA Columbia River Chapter. Kitchen and bath work in Portland and southwest Washington. Its homeowner search lists certified designers. For a tile setter or a cabinet installer, that makes it the designer and dealer list, not a place a homeowner looks you up.
• Cambria and Caesarstone. Link your listing on the maker's locator only if you are on it yourself, as a fabricator, dealer or showroom.
• The listings every contractor needs. Google Business Profile, Apple Business, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, Nextdoor, Angi and Thumbtack.

One flooring page, and photos nobody can read

• One flooring page for everything. Hardwood, LVP, carpet and tile on one page with no real detail on any of them. The buyer searching for tile lands on a page about floors.
• Photos with no words. Finished rooms with no caption naming the material or the room, so the page gives Google and ChatGPT no words to match to a search, and the buyer cannot tell your job from a cheap crew's.
• The best job buried. Cabinet refinishing as one bullet under interior painting, or tile as a line under flooring, when it is a separate job with its own buyers and its own searches.
• A gallery with no map. Good photos, no service-area page and no town on any project. Nobody can tell whether you work in their city.

Write one page per material, then caption the photos

Build a page for each material or finish you sell: exterior painting, interior painting, cabinet refinishing, hardwood installation and refinishing, LVP and laminate, carpet, tile, countertops. On each page, say how you do that job, in your own words. That text is what Google and ChatGPT have to go on when someone asks about that material in their town.

Then caption the in-progress photos you already take. The caption is the part Google and ChatGPT can read, and it is where the words a buyer searched for belong.

If you hold Certified Tile Installer through the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation, or the company holds NTCA Five Star Contractor, name it in text beside the CCB or L&I number, not in place of it.

How the report reads for finish work

• Who you are. The CCB or L&I record and the endorsement or registration it names, whether the site names the trade in text beside the number with the state, and any Oregon lead-based paint renovation license or Washington RRP firm certification you hold.
• Site basics. Whether material pages and project captions read as text for Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, rather than only inside image galleries, and how the portfolio loads on a phone.
• Pages for the jobs people search. A page per material and finish you sell, and town pages only where you work.
• Google Business Profile. A primary category that matches your main trade, services listed by material, and photos of real jobs.
• Map results. Where you show for painter, flooring or tile searches in the towns you serve.
• Search results. Which pages come up for jobs such as cabinet refinishing or hardwood refinishing in your towns, and who holds the first page.
• AI answers. Whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview name you when asked about a specific material in a specific town.
• Reviews. Count, recency and spread across Google, Yelp, Houzz and Nextdoor, and whether reviews name the material and the room.
• Listings, associations and brands. The same name, phone and service area everywhere, with the license state shown where a profile asks for it, plus PCA, NWFA, NKBA or any countertop fabricator program that fits your work, and a Houzz profile with named projects.
• Phone and estimate form. Whether the estimate form asks interior or exterior, rooms or square footage, material, city, whether the home was built before 1978, and whether color help is wanted.

We test from one location on one day, and the report says which, so nobody reads a single check as the whole county.