If you are searching for how to market a roofing business yourself, the order matters more than the effort. Six things are worth doing, and starting with the last one is how most roofing companies waste a year. Website, then getting found on Google, then following up on estimates, then tracking, then paid search, then paid social.
Roofing is really two businesses. Half your calls are an emergency somebody is standing under. Half are a job a homeowner has been putting off since the last time they looked up.
Both are won the same way, and it starts with a number worth sitting with.
What this post covers
- What 27 local roofing websites score on Google’s speed test
- How many reviews it takes to show up on the map around here
- Why the insurance wait decides who wins the estimate
- How to read your traffic when the weather keeps lying to you
- Where Google Ads fits, and why it needs no extra tool
- Where social ads fit, and what runs them
1. Website
On 31 August 2026 we ran Google’s free speed test on the websites of 27 established roofing companies around Bucks County. The middle score was 51 out of 100.
Not one hit 90, which is the score Google calls good. Three more sites never even loaded for the test.
Loading time is the worse number. Google says a page should show up in 2.5 seconds. Of the 27 sites, 26 took longer than that, and the middle one took 10.7 seconds.
That is your competition. A homeowner watching a stain spread across the ceiling is not waiting eleven seconds for your photo to load. They hit back and call the next name on the list.
Beating that is not hard. A phone number you can tap on every page, your service area spelled out, your PA registration and insurance easy to find, and your job photos shrunk down before you upload them instead of going straight off the phone camera.
That last one is usually the whole problem. A photo straight off a phone is several megabytes, and a page full of them is why a site takes eleven seconds to show up.
Wix and WordPress both handle a site like this without a developer. Wix is quicker to start from nothing. WordPress does more once you learn it, and it is where most of those slow sites live.
2. SEO and AI search visibility
Reviews are the scoreboard, and anyone can see the score. We looked at 77 roofing companies listed around Doylestown, Newtown, Warminster, Levittown and Quakertown.
The middle company had 80 reviews. Thirty were past 100, and twenty one were under 25.
If you are under 25, no amount of website work puts you in the top three on the map. Google is looking at the same gap your customer is looking at.
Fixing it is a habit, not a campaign. Ask on the day the crew cleans up and the driveway is spotless, because that is the happiest that customer will ever be with you.
Reviews do a second job in roofing that they do not do in other trades. Everybody around here has heard about the crew that showed up after a hail storm and could not be reached by spring. Years of steady local reviews prove you are not that, and no ad can prove it for you.
The rest is basic upkeep, and it feeds both the map and the AI answers people now get instead of search results, because both read the same information. Fill in your Google Business Profile completely. A real service area instead of a fifty mile fantasy, current hours, your registration, and photos of jobs you actually did.
Semrush is the tool here. The free version shows which roofing searches you already turn up for and which ones a competitor has quietly taken.
3. CRM
A CRM is just a list of everyone who asked you for a price and what you owe them next. Roofing loses more money here than on lost bids, and it is not close.
Nobody buys a roof the day you quote it. They get three estimates, and on storm damage they are also waiting on an adjuster who works on his schedule, not yours.
That wait is where jobs disappear. Three weeks go by, the homeowner cannot remember which quote was yours, and the guy who called on a Tuesday gets the job. Storm weeks are worse, because twenty calls come in over three days and half never make it off the clipboard.
So log every estimate the same day, put a callback date on each one, and keep the people waiting on insurance separate from the people ready to book. Those two need completely different phone calls, and mixing them up is how you annoy one and lose the other.
HubSpot’s free plan or Zoho CRM will both carry a small roofing company at no cost to start.
4. Analytics
Your website numbers lie to you in roofing more than in any other trade, because the weather moves them. A huge week in July means a storm came through. It does not mean anything you did worked.
So compare fair to fair. A normal month against a normal month, a storm week against last year’s storm week.
Judge an April change against a May hail storm and you will learn the wrong lesson, then keep paying for it.
You only need three answers. Which pages people visit, how many of those visits turn into a phone call, and which searches already bring you traffic before you pay for more of the same.
Google Analytics and Search Console are free and cover all three. Look once a week, not once a day.
5. Google Ads
Once your site loads fast and somebody answers the phone, Google Ads buys you the calls that cannot wait. A live leak, shingles gone after a wind storm, a stain that was not there yesterday.
Start with Local Services Ads. They sit above the regular ads, they are built for trades like yours, and you pay per customer who contacts you instead of per click.
This is the one step on this list where you do not need another tool. It all runs inside Google, and anyone selling you a layer on top of it is adding cost, not calls.
Two things decide whether it works. Start the background check now, because approval takes a while and it will not hurry up for your storm season. And judge it on jobs booked, not clicks, because roofing clicks are some of the priciest there are and a slow page wastes every one you buy.
6. Social media advertising
Facebook and Instagram ads come last because they create interest instead of catching it. Nobody is scrolling Facebook while water runs down a wall.
Where they earn their keep is the roof somebody has been putting off. A clean photo of a finished job, shot from the street on a bright day, on a street people know, sells better than anything you could write.
That is roofing’s advantage over every other trade on this list. Your finished work is out in the open, and the neighbor two doors down has already noticed it. Post real jobs for a month before you spend a dollar boosting any of them.
Meta Business Suite is the free tool from Facebook itself, and it runs both Facebook and Instagram from one place.
What to do this week
Six things, one per channel, in order.
- Search “Google PageSpeed Insights,” put your own address in, and run it on mobile. Around 51 means you are average for this county, and average here is slow.
- Count your Google reviews. Under 25 and people cannot find you, so ask your next five customers on the day the crew finishes.
- Open a free HubSpot or Zoho account and put every open estimate in it today, each with a callback date and a note on who is waiting for an adjuster.
- Check that Analytics and Search Console are installed, then compare last month to the same month last year instead of to the storm week.
- Start the Local Services Ads background check now, before you need it.
- Photograph your next finished roof from the street, name the town in the caption, and post it.
That is a lot to run off a ladder, especially the week after a storm when every call is a leak. If it needs a team instead of a Sunday night, see where you’re losing leads for a plain read on what is and is not working, or see how roofing contractors market with Harvest.
Frequently asked questions
How fast do most roofing websites load on a phone?
Slower than almost anybody thinks. We ran Google’s free speed test on 27 established Bucks County roofing companies on 31 August 2026. The middle score was 51 out of 100, not one reached the 90 that Google calls good, and 26 of the 27 took longer than Google’s 2.5 second target to show their page. The middle one took 10.7 seconds.
How many Google reviews does a roofer need to compete in Bucks County?
More than most have. Across 77 roofing companies listed around Doylestown, Newtown, Warminster, Levittown and Quakertown, the middle company had 80 reviews and 30 of them were past 100. If you are under 25, and 21 of those companies are, you are not showing up where the work is.
Why does follow up matter more in roofing than in other trades?
Because the homeowner is usually not deciding alone. A new roof means three estimates and often an insurance adjuster, so weeks go by between your visit and any signature. The contractor still checking in politely in week three is usually the one who gets the job.
How do I compete with out of town storm chasers?
By proving you were here before the storm and will be here after it. Years of local reviews with town names in them, your PA registration on every page, and photos of jobs on streets people know do work no ad can do.
Should a roofer run Google Ads or Facebook ads first?
Google Ads first. Somebody watching a stain spread across the ceiling is searching right now, and Local Services Ads put you in front of that call. Facebook and Instagram come second, for the roof somebody has been putting off and a photo of a finished job three streets away. Book a free 15 minute strategy call to talk through the order for your business.
A middle score of 51 and a 10.7 second load time is not a market somebody has already won. It is a market nobody has bothered with.
That means the roofing company that fixes its website, gets its review count up, and calls people back on a schedule wins on effort instead of on budget. If you would rather have the local SEO and web design side handled for you, along with Google Ads and Meta Ads, contact Harvest Digital Marketing for a plain look at what makes sense next.
