Local Competitor Research Every Trade Should Do Before Hiring an Agency

Before you spend a dollar on marketing, spend an hour understanding the five guys bidding against you. Most contractors I've talked to can name one or two local competitors. When I walk through what their competition is actually doing — pricing, reviews, website, Google ranking — it's almost always news. That gap is costing them jobs they don't even know they're losing.

When I was in trade sales, my boss used to make me do this before every big commercial bid. Sit down, look up who else we were quoting against, and understand their angle. It took 30 minutes and it won us jobs. The same process works to shape your marketing strategy, not just individual bids.

Below is the free version of the research I'd do. If you want the deeper version delivered as a PDF, that's the Local Market Briefing I sell. But you can do the basics yourself in about an hour.

Step 1: Find your competitors

Open an incognito browser window (important — Google personalizes results for your search history, and you want to see what a customer sees). Google the main search term you want to win. For sealcoating in Kent, that's "sealcoating Kent WA" or "parking lot sealcoating Kent." For pressure washing in Auburn, "pressure washing Auburn WA."

Write down:

• The three businesses in the Google map pack (top section with the map)
• The first 5-7 organic results (below the map pack)
• Any ads at the top of the page (those are competitors spending money on this keyword)

Now repeat with 2-3 adjacent searches — variations on what customers might type. You'll see some overlap. The businesses that keep showing up across multiple searches are your real competitors. Pick the top 5.

Step 2: Check their Google Business Profile

For each of the 5 competitors, click through to their Google profile. Document:

• Review count and average rating. This is the single biggest local-SEO ranking factor. If the top competitor has 150 reviews at 4.8 stars and you have 8 reviews, you have a real gap to close.
• Primary category. What did they pick? Copy the same approach if it makes sense.
• How many photos they have. Some contractors have 200+ photos, some have 5. Active profiles win.
• When they last posted. Look for the "Updates" or "Posts" section. If they haven't posted in 6 months, that's a weakness.
• Response to reviews. Do they reply? Are the replies professional? The ones who respond to bad reviews look more trustworthy.

One trick: when a competitor has 4.3 stars, read the 1-star reviews first. They tell you what customers hated. If you can avoid whatever the complaint is, that's a positioning angle you can own ("We're the [trade] that actually shows up on time").

Step 3: Visit their website

Open each competitor's website. Look for:

• Does it work on your phone? Load it on mobile, see how it feels. Most contractor websites are terrible on mobile. That's an opening.
• Is the phone number visible? If not, customers probably bounce.
• Is the service area clear? Vague service areas suggest they'll travel anywhere — or that they don't actually work near you.
• Do they list pricing? Most don't. The ones who do are confident. The ones who hide it are either high-priced or hoping to quote on a case-by-case basis.
• How old does it look? A site that feels dated (old design patterns, stock photos from 2015) suggests a contractor who isn't actively marketing — and who you can out-market.
• Do they have a gallery or portfolio? If yes, how recent is the work shown? Dated photos suggest the business has slowed down.

At the end of this step, you should know which competitors have strong web presence and which don't. The weak ones are where you can win; the strong ones are what you're aiming for.

Step 4: Find their pricing (if it's out there)

Most trades businesses don't post prices. Some do. Where to look:

• Their website pricing page (if it exists)
• Their Google reviews. Customers mention dollar amounts — "Paid $2,400 for sealcoating a lot this size" is gold.
• Facebook reviews. Same deal.
• Nextdoor. Neighbors post "I paid $X for [service]" constantly.
• Yelp. Less active than Google but still useful for pricing mentions.
• Reddit. Search "[your city] [trade] cost" on r/homeowners, r/[yourcity], etc. Real people share real numbers there.

For trades without posted prices, triangulate from job photos and review mentions. If you see "5,000 sq ft lot, full reseal, $4,800" mentioned in a review, that's a data point. Collect 5-10 data points across competitors and you'll have a solid sense of market pricing.

Step 5: Identify weak spots + positioning angles

Now you have:

• 5 competitors with review counts and star ratings
• What their websites do well and poorly
• A rough sense of their pricing
• Their common customer complaints (from the 1-star reviews)

Put it together. Look for patterns. Common weak spots I see:

• Nobody has good photos. If all five competitors have generic stock photos, a gallery of real work is an instant differentiator.
• Slow response times. If reviews mention "took three weeks to get back to me," being fast is a positioning angle.
• Nobody posts pricing. If all five hide pricing, posting a starting price or "from $X" on your website stands out.
• Nobody has reviews on Google in the last year. Active review collection beats stale profiles, even if they have more total reviews.
• Everyone uses the same boring copy. "Quality service you can trust" is everywhere. Writing like a human is a differentiator.

Pick 2-3 weak spots where you can genuinely be better. Those become your positioning. Write them into your website copy, your GBP description, and your cold outreach. Stop trying to be better at everything; be better at the specific things your competition is bad at.

What to do with this when you hire help

The reason to do this before hiring an agency: it shifts the conversation from "here's our generic marketing package" to "here's what specifically I need based on what my competition is doing." If the agency can't respond to specific competitor intel, they're selling templates. If they can, they're worth paying.

When I meet with a prospective client, I ask them what they already know about their competition. The answer tells me how seriously to take the engagement. Contractors who've done the research are going to get more out of hiring someone because they can direct the work. Contractors who haven't will end up with generic deliverables that don't move the needle.

How long does this take?

First time: 90-120 minutes if you're thorough. After that, 30-60 minutes to refresh once or twice a year.

The deeper version — pulling in citation audits, backlink profiles, ad spend estimates, and visual positioning maps — is what I do in a Local Market Briefing. That's a full PDF delivered in 3-5 business days for $495. But honestly, for most small trades businesses, the hour above is 80% of what you need.

Keep reading

• Google Business Profile for Contractors: The One-Day Setup Guide
• Flat Fee vs. Monthly Retainer: What Trades Actually Need From a Marketing Partner
• Why Your Contractor Website Isn't Booking Jobs (And 5 Fixes That Matter)