Plenty of Utah general contractors do both commercial and residential work, and almost all of them run one website that tries to speak to both. It is the most common structural mistake we see, and it quietly costs work on both sides.
They are not the same buyer
A homeowner planning an addition is spending their own money, deciding with a spouse, and choosing largely on trust and finished photographs. A property manager fitting out a suite in a Sandy office park is spending someone else’s money, deciding with a committee, and choosing on schedule certainty, insurance limits and whether you have done that building type before.
Those two people want to read completely different things. Put them on the same page and you write something vague enough to be useless to both.
They search differently
Residential search is emotional and descriptive. “Home addition contractor near me.” “Basement finishing Draper cost.” “Kitchen remodel contractor Salt Lake City.”
Commercial search is technical and specific. “Tenant improvement contractor Utah.” “Commercial general contractor Salt Lake City.” “Office build out contractor Lehi.” Often it includes a qualification: bonded, licensed, a square footage, a building class.
You cannot rank one page for both sets. The language is different, the intent is different, and Google is good at telling them apart.
The fix is structural, not cosmetic
Split the site into two tracks from the navigation down:
- A residential track with project-type pages, cost ranges, finished-home galleries and a homeowner-facing inquiry form
- A commercial track with building-type pages, bonding and insurance details, project schedules, references and a form that asks for square footage and timeline
Each track needs its own case studies. A beautifully finished basement does not reassure a property manager, and a completed warehouse fit-out does not sell a kitchen remodel.
Commercial work needs proof a homeowner does not care about
On the commercial side, put the boring things on the page: bonding capacity, insurance limits, license numbers, safety record, years operating, the largest project you have delivered. A commercial buyer is de-risking a decision they will have to defend internally. Those details are the decision.
On the residential side, none of that moves anyone. Photographs, timelines, cost ranges and a clear process do.
Budget them separately
The two tracks also perform differently in paid search. Commercial keywords are lower volume, higher value and less competitive. Residential keywords are higher volume, cheaper per click and far more competitive.
Run them as one campaign and the residential side will consume the budget because it generates more clicks. Split them and you can decide deliberately how much of your money goes after each, based on which produces work you actually want.
What this does not fix
Splitting the site will not make you competitive for commercial work you have never done. If you have completed two small tenant improvements, a commercial track will not win you a ground-up build, and we would not build you a page claiming otherwise.
What it will do is stop the work you can win from being buried under work you cannot.
What the split actually looks like
Splitting does not mean two websites. Two sites means two lots of hosting, two lots of maintenance, and authority divided in half. For almost every contractor it is the wrong answer.
What works is one site with two clearly separated paths, from the homepage down:
- A decision point above the fold — commercial here, residential there — rather than a blended message that serves neither
- Separate service pages under each, written in that buyer's language
- Separate project galleries, because a homeowner looking at a warehouse fit-out learns nothing
- Separate proof: references and insurance limits on one side, reviews and finish photography on the other
- Separate contact routes, because a facilities manager sending an RFP and a homeowner wanting a quote need different forms
The homepage is where it usually goes wrong
Most contractors solve this at the service-page level and leave the homepage speaking to everyone. That is the page taking the brand searches and the referrals, and it is the one asking both audiences to work out whether they are in the right place.
A homepage that names both audiences in the first screen and routes them immediately outperforms one that describes the company. The visitor is not there to learn about you; they are checking they are in the right place.
What changes in the inquiry form
A residential inquiry needs almost nothing — name, phone, a line about the job. Ask more and you lose completions.
A commercial inquiry is the opposite. Property type, size, timescale, whether it is going out to bid, and whether insurance documents are needed. That buyer is not deterred by questions, and answering them upfront saves two rounds of email.
Running one form for both means either interrogating a homeowner or under-qualifying a commercial lead. It is the clearest single symptom of the underlying problem.
Where to start
Look at your last twenty inquiries and sort them into commercial and residential. If the split is anything other than heavily one-sided, your site is probably costing you work on the lighter side simply by not addressing it.
Call and we will look at what you have now and tell you whether splitting it is worth the effort in your market. That analysis is free, and if the answer is no, we will tell you that too.