It all started with this question during one of AltCMO’s weekly Innovation Meetings: “Do the ‘big guys’ in Construction care about SEO?”
If you ask most people in Construction, they’ll tell you the industry is built on word-of-mouth, relationships, and low bids. A construction company’s website is usually a secondary source for business development and is rarely seen as a lead generation tool like in other industries.
Having marketed construction companies for two decades, my fellow CMOs at AltCMO and I understand the power of a website for leads, referrals, and talent acquisition. Early in my career, construction executives often said, “We don’t sell buildings on our website.” I’d typically respond, “Agreed, but you lose opportunities because of your website.” It usually didn’t take long after a website redesign or rebrand for those same executives to tell me they were getting new business and better applicants from their website.
Understanding the importance of a website to construction companies has traditionally been more experience-based than data-driven. We wanted to change that. Through our research, we established industry benchmarks for construction SEO.
We decided to review the websites of the industry’s biggest players, companies listed in ENR’s Top 400 Contractors. Next came the challenge of analyzing 400 websites effectively, efficiently, and fairly. Even a quick five-minute assessment per site would take over 30 hours. Dividing the research among multiple people could introduce bias, so we needed a more objective approach.
We settled on five key quantitative metrics for SEO: domain authority, backlinks, spam score, desktop page speed, and mobile page speed.
Without giving away all the findings in our free report (which doesn’t require sharing your name or email), here’s a glimpse of the benchmarks we uncovered analyzing ENR’s 2024 list of construction companies.
Domain Authority
Developed by Moz in 2004, Domain Authority predicts how well a website will likely rank on search engines. Scores range from 1 to 100, with higher numbers indicating greater authority. Unsurprisingly, the top 20 companies in the ENR 400 had an average Domain Authority of nearly 52. However, that’s not an ideal comparison for most construction companies because those construction companies are enormous.
Across all 400 companies, the average and median Domain Authority scores were both 33. Notably, 309 companies scored between 20 and 39, establishing 33 as a solid benchmark.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites that point to yours. They are a significant factor in search rankings and Domain Authority. Major contractors benefit from widespread media coverage, public profiles, and active community involvement, which contribute to their high backlink counts. For example, Fluor had over 300,000 backlinks.
However, the average number of backlinks across the ENR 400 was 14,837, heavily skewed by the large outliers. The median number of backlinks was 1,008, a more practical benchmark.
Spam Score
Not all backlinks are beneficial. Links from low-quality or suspicious websites can harm SEO. The tool we used assigned spam scores from 1 to 100, with lower numbers being better. While one construction company shockingly scored 71, the vast majority performed well.
The average spam score was just 2, with 83% of companies scoring under 10. Less than 2% had spam scores above 40. A score of 2 is a reliable benchmark for spam scores.
Desktop Page Speed
User experience is a significant factor in search rankings, making page speed critical. We measured desktop performance using Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool. Overall, the results were generally positive, with an average score of 73 and a median of 75.
Eight companies earned a perfect score of 100, while a few scored below 30. The benchmark for desktop speed is 75.
Mobile Page Speed
Mobile performance was less impressive. Mobile accounts for 40-60% of B2B web traffic, meaning a poor experience can deter prospective clients and employees. While five companies achieved a perfect mobile speed score, the average and median both dropped to 56.
Only 69% of companies scored over 50. Our benchmark for mobile page speed is 56, though we hope to see this rise in the future.
Construction SEO Benchmarks Recap
| Metric | Benchmark |
|---|---|
| Domain Authority | 33 |
| Backlinks | 1,008 |
| Spam Score | 2 |
| Desktop Page Speed | 73 |
| Mobile Page Speed | 56 |
Our full report offers more detailed insights into how construction companies perform online and actionable recommendations to help your company improve its SEO. Ready to see how your website measures up?
