An analysis of 1543 trade contractor websites across Utah, from Salt Lake City's competitive metro market to the smaller cities along the Wasatch Front.
“Salt Lake City contractors average 1,115 Google reviews — 16x more than West Valley City businesses just 15 minutes away.”
Salt Lake City contractors average 1,115 Google reviews. Draper: 260. Lehi: 347. Then drive 15 minutes south to West Valley City and the average drops to 39. Orem: 60. Logan: 70.
This isn't just a popularity contest. Google's local algorithm heavily weights review count and velocity. A contractor with 1,115 reviews dominates the Local Pack for every 'near me' search in the Salt Lake metro — pulling jobs from contractors two cities away who have better ratings but fewer reviews.
Draper leads Utah with 61.9% schema markup adoption, followed by Sandy at 62%. These are affluent South Valley suburbs with higher marketing budgets and access to Salt Lake's agency ecosystem.
At the bottom: Provo at 43.9% and West Valley City at 35.9%. Provo's lower number is surprising — it's a tech hub, home to BYU and Silicon Slopes. But many Provo contractors are smaller operations serving Utah County, not the kind of businesses that hire SEO agencies.
Utah HVAC contractors average 594 Google reviews — more than 6x the state's landscaping companies (73 reviews) and nearly 7x roofers (88 reviews). Construction companies trail at just 36 average reviews.
The explanation is straightforward: HVAC is an emergency service. When your furnace dies in a Utah January, you Google, you read reviews, you call. That urgency creates a review flywheel that landscapers — who rely more on neighborhood word-of-mouth — simply don't experience.
Only 3.9% of Utah contractor websites have Open Graph tags. St. George leads at 7.5% — still abysmal. Taylorsville and Draper are at 0% and 0.9% respectively.
In a state where Nextdoor and Facebook community groups drive contractor referrals, this means 96% of shared links show up as bare URLs with no company name, no logo, no preview. Every share is a wasted referral opportunity.
Website health metrics across Utah's major contractor markets, from the Salt Lake metro to St. George.
| City | Total | Schema % | Sitemap % | Viewport % | SSL % | OG Tags % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ogden | 161 | 51.6% | 60.9% | 73.9% | 88.2% | 3.1% |
| Riverton | 142 | 54.9% | 56.3% | 67.6% | 82.4% | 4.9% |
| St. George | 133 | 55.6% | 57.9% | 70.7% | 77.4% | 7.5% |
| Provo | 123 | 43.9% | 58.5% | 67.5% | 78.9% | 6.5% |
| Logan | 122 | 52.5% | 58.2% | 65.6% | 82% | 4.9% |
| Layton | 114 | 51.8% | 63.2% | 71.1% | 82.5% | 5.3% |
| Draper | 113 | 61.9% | 70.8% | 81.4% | 91.2% | 0.9% |
| Murray | 101 | 52.5% | 59.4% | 69.3% | 83.2% | 6.9% |
| Lehi | 100 | 49% | 58% | 73% | 80% | 4% |
| West Jordan | 99 | 49.5% | 58.6% | 68.7% | 78.8% | 2% |
| West Valley City | 78 | 35.9% | 46.2% | 57.7% | 64.1% | 6.4% |
| Sandy | 71 | 62% | 70.4% | 78.9% | 88.7% | 5.6% |
| Orem | 70 | 42.9% | 48.6% | 58.6% | 70% | 5.7% |
| Taylorsville | 51 | 51% | 56.9% | 66.7% | 74.5% | 0% |
| Salt Lake City | 41 | 56.1% | 61% | 73.2% | 90.2% | 4.9% |
| South Jordan | 23 | 43.5% | 39.1% | 47.8% | 87% | 0% |
| Test City | 1 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
How Utah's four major trade categories compare on web fundamentals.
| Category | Total | Schema % | Sitemap % | OG Tags % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction & General Contractors | 605 | 49.3% | 59.2% | 4.5% |
| Landscaping & Lawn Care | 364 | 49.7% | 58.2% | 3.6% |
| HVAC Services | 311 | 57.9% | 64.3% | 6.4% |
| Roofing | 263 | 51.3% | 52.9% | 4.2% |
We analyzed 1543 trade contractor websites across Utah sourced from Google Business Profiles. Each website was audited for SSL certificates, XML sitemaps, robots.txt files, viewport meta tags, Open Graph tags, and Schema.org structured data markup. 1284 sites had full technical audits completed. Data collected January–February 2026.
“When someone shares your church on Facebook, 93% of the time it shows a generic link with no preview image.”
“Fort Collins HVAC companies are nearly twice as likely to be found on Google as their Pueblo counterparts.”
“Businesses with 500+ Google reviews are 24% more likely to have schema markup than businesses with under 25 reviews — but OG tags remain near-zero across all tiers.”
“Boise contractors average 454 Google reviews but only 31 are listed — while Meridian has 145 contractors averaging just 275 reviews each.”
“45% of local businesses are invisible to Google's rich results — the enhanced listings with stars, hours, and contact info that get 58% more clicks.”
“LDS church websites have 89% schema markup adoption — more than triple the rate of Baptist churches in the same four states.”
“Wyoming roofers average just 19 Google reviews while Nebraska roofers average 121 — a 6x gap that directly impacts who shows up in local search.”
“Across 8 western states and 6,673 trade businesses, only 3.5% are prepared for social media sharing.”
“One-third of Wyoming contractors are invisible to Google's rich results, and nearly half don't have SSL.”
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