Concreters
Local SEO for concreters.
A twenty to thirty-five percent gross margin does not survive many wasted quotes. For this trade the useful goal is fewer, better enquiries, which is the opposite of what most search advice assumes.
- $6,400
- average concrete driveway, 2026
- $2,400 to $6,000
- typical two-car driveway, 400 to 500 sq ft
- 20 to 35%
- gross margin most concreters target
- $125 to $180
- ready-mix per cubic yard delivered, 2026
The enquiry that costs you money
Thursday, 4pm
Forty minutes there and back, twenty minutes measuring, an hour that evening working out the fall and the reo. Then nothing, because he had three quotes and picked the one two thousand under yours, and you already knew that at the gate.
Five things on a page that filter before you drive anywhere
Every one of these loses you enquiries. That is the intended effect.
A minimum job size, stated
If you do not do jobs under a certain size, say so. The enquiry you do not receive is worth more than the polite decline you have to write, and far more than the site visit you make before realising.
A price range per square metre or square foot
Concrete has a genuinely wide range depending on finish, access and prep. Publishing plain, exposed aggregate and decorative separately does more filtering than any other single change available to you.
What is and is not included
Excavation, removal of the old slab, reinforcement, drainage, permits. Most of the gap between your quote and the cheap one is here, and the page is where you get to explain it before the comparison happens.
Photographs of finishes, named
Exposed aggregate, honed, stencilled, plain broom. Customers do not know the words and choose from pictures. Naming the finish under each photo teaches them the vocabulary they then search with.
Access requirements, honestly
Whether you can get a truck in changes the price and sometimes the feasibility. Asking about access on the enquiry form saves the visit that discovers it.
The searches split by finish, and the money is in the finishes
Plain concrete is a commodity bid against every concreter in the market. Decorative finishes are a specification, and specifications have fewer bidders.
| Search type | What they type | Where their head is at | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decorative finish | exposed aggregate driveway, polished concrete floor, stencilled concrete | Chose a look, wants someone who does it well. Least price driven. | Highest |
| Structural and commercial | concrete slab for shed, house slab, warehouse floor, footings | Specification driven, repeat buyer, often a builder. | High |
| Repair and resurfacing | concrete resurfacing, cracked driveway repair, concrete crack filling | Smaller job, urgent, and almost nobody competes for it. | High |
| Generic driveway | concrete driveway cost, concreters near me, driveway quote | Collecting three quotes on price. The most contested search in the trade. | Medium |
What one wasted quote actually costs
Take an average driveway at $6,400 and a 27% gross margin, which is the middle of the published band. Assumptions stated so you can put your own in.
| Average driveway job | $6,400 |
|---|---|
| Gross margin at 27% | about $1,730 |
| Half a day spent quoting a job you do not win | roughly $400 to $600 of capacity |
| Wasted quotes that erase one job's margin | three or four |
Three bad quotes cost you a good job.
This is why volume is the wrong target for a concreter. A page that produces eight enquiries a month of which five are serious beats one producing twenty of which five are serious, because the fifteen you decline were paid for in driving, measuring and quoting time you cannot bill.
The quoting cost is an illustration built from stated assumptions, not a measured figure. Margin band and job value are 2026 market data.
You will rank for the price searches whether you want to or not
Concrete driveway cost is one of the highest volume searches in the trade, and if your site is any good it will start appearing for it. That traffic is not qualified and most of it will never buy from anybody at your price.
The move is not to avoid the search. It is to answer it honestly on a page that also explains why the cheap quote is cheap: no reinforcement, no proper prep, a thinner pour, no drainage. That page does two jobs. It captures the search, and it educates the small fraction of those readers who were going to be real customers into understanding what they are comparing.
The alternative, which most concreting sites choose, is to say nothing about price at all. That does not stop the price shoppers ringing. It just means they ring, ask, and hang up, and you have paid for the call with your time rather than filtering it with a paragraph.
What concreters ask us
Should I put prices on my website?
A range per square metre, by finish, yes. Concrete has a wide legitimate range and publishing it filters out the people shopping purely on price before they take half a day of your time.
Which is worth more, driveways or decorative work?
Decorative, in almost every case. Exposed aggregate and polished finishes are chosen on the look rather than the price, have fewer competitors bidding, and the customer who wants a specific finish has already decided to spend more.
Is concrete resurfacing worth a page?
Yes, and it is usually neglected. It passes the test for a page of its own: a smaller job with an urgent customer and very little competition, and it frequently turns into a full replacement quote once you are on site.
Should I chase builder work through search?
Search is a poor channel for builder relationships, which are built in person. What search does is make you findable when a builder you met once goes looking for your number, and that is worth having.
How many enquiries should I expect?
Fewer than a plumber and worth far more each. For this trade the number worth watching is how many enquiries turn into site visits and how many of those turn into jobs, not the total.
Local SEO for nearby trades
What a customer is worth, and which searches actually convert, change by trade. These are the closest neighbours to this one.
Find out which concreting searches you are missing.
The free audit shows which finishes and job types you appear for in your area, which ones your competitors hold, and where the decorative work is going.