Kitchen remodels, additions and ADUs

Process pages, not only the finished rooms

In those months, the pages that come up answer process, cost range and timeline questions. A gallery of finished rooms shows how a job ended, not how it ran.

Say in text what size of project you take on and where each project was. A search that names a kitchen and Lake Oswego needs a page that names both.

What homeowners ask

We type questions like these into Google and ChatGPT for a remodeler.

• “Who should I hire to remodel my kitchen in Beaverton?”
• “Can you recommend a licensed bathroom remodeler near Lake Oswego?”
• “Who is a good general contractor for a whole-home remodel in Portland?”
• “Who builds ADUs in Milwaukie?”
• “Which home addition contractors do people recommend in Vancouver, Washington?”

A site that says kitchen and bath remodeling in Portland and stops there answers part of one of them.

Where a homeowner checks the license and the listings

Start with the license record and the listings that show your name, phone, and service area. Then add the groups that other remodelers actually use.

• Oregon CCB and Washington L&I. A homeowner who looks you up should find the same business name on the record that is on the site. A remodeler who works both sides of the river should show both numbers, CCB for Oregon work and L&I for Clark County.
• The listings every contractor needs. Google Business Profile, Apple Business, Bing Places, Yelp and Facebook, with the same name, phone, website and service area on every one. Angi, Thumbtack and BBB are paid channels, worth it or not depending on the size of job you want.
• BuildZoom. It republishes CCB license data, which most directories do not. The permit history it shows is built from public records and is often incomplete, so check what it says about you.
• Houzz. If you keep a profile there, the projects and captions should match the ones on your site.
• HBA and NARI Pacific NW. The HBA's member directory is public. A NARI award, or a job on the Portland Remodeled Homes Tour, is proof a homeowner can look at before calling, so link to it from the site.
• Building Industry Association of Clark County. The Washington-side counterpart to the HBA, with its own member directory.
• GuildQuality. If you subscribe, link your survey results from the site.
• NKBA and countertop locators. If you hold an NKBA designation, put it on the site. A Cambria or Caesarstone listing belongs on the site only if you are on that maker's locator yourself, which usually means you fabricate the stone rather than subbing it out.

A missing listing is less confusing than a wrong one. A directory carrying your old phone number makes you look like two businesses.

No CCB number on the kitchen photos, and Portland as the whole map

• Beautiful photos, no license number. The CCB number has to be on the website. A homeowner looking at the kitchen photos should not have to hunt the footer for it.
• Portland as the whole service area. One word stands in for Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie and Camas, so a search that names any of them has nothing on the page to match.
• No line between a remodel and a repair. A full design-build kitchen and a door rehang sit on the same services list. The buyer cannot tell what size of job you want, and neither can Google.
• Testimonials with nobody behind them. No first name, no neighborhood, no project type.
• Somebody else's houses. Every gallery shot traces back to two or three builder subdivisions and the contact page is aimed at builders, not homeowners. The site reads as a production sub, not a remodeler who takes a homeowner's call.

Proof a homeowner can check and Google can read

Show the middle of the job, not only the end: before-and-after pairs from the same angle, a few in-progress shots of framing or rough-in, and a caption that says what the job was and roughly where. That caption is text Google and ChatGPT can read.

Put the process on the page in your own words, stage by stage, and say who pulls which permits. People ask how long a whole-home remodel takes and what happens in what order. A page that answers in your words is what that search can land on. Most remodeler sites still answer it on the phone.

Put years in business and the license number next to the portfolio, not only in the footer. In Oregon, do not stop at licensed, bonded and insured. If you are a residential general contractor doing full remodels, say so.

How the report reads for a remodeler

• Who you are. The CCB record, and the L&I record if you work in Clark County: the business name on each, whether it is the name on the site, and whether the site shows both numbers.
• Site basics. Whether project pages read as text for Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and whether project descriptions live in the page itself rather than only inside a gallery script.
• Pages for the jobs people search. A page each for kitchens, baths, additions and ADUs, whole-home work and basements where you do them, and town pages only where you really work.
• Google Business Profile. The primary category, the listed services and service area, and whether the photos are your own jobs.
• Map results. Where you show for kitchen remodel and general contractor searches in the towns you name.
• Search results. Which of your pages come up for your name and your main jobs, and which remodelers hold the first page instead.
• AI answers. Whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overview name you for questions like the ones above, recorded as what came back.
• Reviews. Count, recency and spread across Google, Yelp, Houzz and GuildQuality if you use it, and whether reviews mention the project.
• Listings, associations and brands. The same name, phone, website and address across the directories above, including BuildZoom's copy of your CCB record, plus HBA, NARI or the BIA of Clark County, GuildQuality, and any product programs that fit your work.
• Phone and estimate form. Whether the estimate form asks project type, budget range, timeline and city, and whether tap to call works on a phone.

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