AI Visibility Research
83% of roofing companies are invisible to AI. Roofing queries involve significant cost — AI is cautious about recommending roofers without verified credentials, published pricing, and strong directory presence on platforms like Checkatrade and MyBuilder.
Check your business83%
Invisible to ChatGPT
roofing companies
Thousands
Businesses analysed
17%
AI-visible
Can be found by AI assistants
2-4 weeks
Time to fix
With structured data + directories
The test
ChatGPT recommends Checkatrade and NFRC directory for roofing queries. Only 17% cite individual roofer websites — those with certification, pricing, and project documentation.
Each AI system uses different data sources and citation patterns.
Source: Bing index
ChatGPT recommends Checkatrade and NFRC directory for roofing queries. Only 17% cite individual roofer websites — those with certification, pricing, and project documentation.
Source: Live web crawl
Perplexity cites roofers 25% of the time, usually from Checkatrade profiles or MyBuilder project pages.
Source: Google index + Maps
Google AI Overviews for roofing queries pull from Checkatrade, MyBuilder, and comparison articles about roofing costs.
Roofers businesses face specific challenges that prevent AI assistants from finding and recommending them.
Roofing is a high-cost trade where consumers fear cowboys — AI reflects this caution by defaulting to verified directories rather than individual roofer websites.
Most roofer websites show before/after photos with no text descriptions, pricing, or material specifications.
Certification (NFRC, CompetentRoofer, TrustMark) is rarely structured in schema — AI cannot verify qualifications from a logo image.
Service pages don't differentiate between emergency repairs, full re-roofs, flat roofing, and fascias/soffits.
What the visible businesses do differently
NFRC or CompetentRoofer membership in schema • Service-specific pricing: emergency leak repair, ridge tile re-bedding, full re-roof per sqm, flat roof replacement • Checkatrade and MyBuilder profiles with project photos and detailed reviews • Material specification pages: slate vs tile vs felt vs rubber EPDM with pros/cons and pricing per sqm
Schema types that matter: RoofingContractor, HomeAndConstructionBusiness, LocalBusiness, Service
National Federation of Roofing Contractors membership is the industry gold standard. Add your membership number to HomeAndConstructionBusiness schema.
Emergency repair (from £150), ridge tiles (from £300), full re-roof (from £5,000), flat roof (from £1,500). Include per-sqm rates for common materials.
These are the directories AI trusts for roofing recommendations. Upload project photos with descriptions for each completed job.
Pages comparing slate vs tile vs felt vs EPDM rubber — cost, lifespan, maintenance. This genuinely helpful content is what AI extracts for 'best roofing material' queries.
Document completed projects with before/after photos, materials used, cost breakdown, and timeline. Add alt text to every image describing the work.
Only about 17% of roofing companies are visible to ChatGPT. The rest are invisible because they lack the structured data, directory presence, and content that AI assistants need to make recommendations. Our research shows that ChatGPT relies on Bing's index for 87% of its citations.
Most roofing companies can achieve basic AI visibility within 2-4 weeks by adding structured data, claiming key directories, and submitting to Bing Webmaster Tools. Full optimisation (including review building and content creation) typically takes 2-3 months to show results.
Not directly. ChatGPT uses Bing's index, not Google's. However, the factors that help you rank on Google (structured data, quality content, reviews) also help on Bing. Our data shows that 87% of ChatGPT citations match Bing's top 10 results, while only 56% match Google's top 10.
It depends on the query. Google AI Overviews are strongest for local searches backed by Google Maps data. Perplexity crawls the web daily and often finds more niche results. ChatGPT relies on Bing's index and favours well-known directories.
roofing companies should use RoofingContractor, HomeAndConstructionBusiness, LocalBusiness, Service schema types. The most impactful is adding your business details (name, address, phone, hours, services) in structured data that AI can read programmatically.
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