Johnson City, TN - 1-FIND SERVICES has released the 2026 Tri-Cities Home Services Digital Visibility Study, a systematic audit of 75 home services contractors operating across Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol, Tennessee. The study evaluated each company across two independent dimensions - website technical health and Google Business Profile quality - and combined those scores into a single Combined Visibility Score (CVS) for each entry. The full report is available at 1-find.agency/research/2026-tri-cities-home-services-visibility-study/.
The study's most direct finding: 15 of the 75 audited companies, or 20 percent, carried at least one critical risk flag capable of materially suppressing search visibility regardless of other optimization work. Ten companies had robots.txt configurations that blocked all search engine crawlers from their websites. Two had noindex directives active on their homepages. Three were serving pages over HTTP rather than HTTPS. These are not subtle technical disadvantages - they are configurations that can prevent a website from appearing in search results entirely.
"The robots.txt finding was the one that surprised me most. These businesses have Google profiles, reviews, and active websites - they've clearly invested in their online presence. But if the robots file is blocking crawlers, that investment isn't doing what they think it is. It's usually a leftover from a site build that nobody caught. Five minutes to fix, but you have to know it's there."
- Casey Carmical, Owner, 1-FIND SERVICES
Across all 75 entries, the average Combined Visibility Score was 72.0 out of 100. No company in the sample scored 90 or above. Eleven entries scored 80 or higher; among them were Hometown Plumbing, Electrical & HVAC of Kingsport and Steve Huff Plumbing, Heating & Air, which posted the study's top scores at 89.8 and 85.4 respectively. Both companies achieved perfect or near-perfect Google Business Profile scores and maintained website health scores well above the sample average.
The study also found a consistent structural gap between GBP quality and website quality across all five trade categories. The average GBP Health Score was 82.8 out of 100; the average Website Health Score was 65.8 - a 17-point gap that held across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and tree service alike.
"Local contractors have gotten good at managing their Google profiles, and that shows in the data. The gap is on the website side. A strong profile sends someone to your site, and if that site is slow, missing structured data, or has a configuration error, you've lost the handoff. That's the pattern we see over and over in this market."
- Casey Carmical, Owner, 1-FIND SERVICES
Plumbing companies posted the strongest average CVS at 74.2 and led all five categories in average Google review count at 602 per profile. Tree service companies recorded the lowest average CVS at 67.7 and were the only trade category in which no company scored 80 or above. Review volume varied sharply across trades - roofing companies averaged just 77 reviews per profile compared to 602 for plumbing - while star ratings were nearly identical across all five categories at an average of 4.81, leaving review count as the primary differentiator among otherwise similar profiles.
The full study includes an industry-by-industry comparison, city-level analysis across Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol, a detailed methodology section, and a limitations disclosure. It is available as a no-cost download at 1-find.agency/research/2026-tri-cities-home-services-visibility-study/.
About 1-FIND SERVICES
Johnson City digital marketing agency 1-FIND SERVICES is a Tennessee-based agency serving small and mid-size businesses throughout the Tri-Cities region. The agency specializes in local SEO, web design, Google Business Profile optimization, and Google Ads management. Every client works directly with the owner - no outsourcing. 1-FIND SERVICES holds a TechBehemoths Award and is a member of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at https://1-find.agency/.
Email: contact@1-find.agency
Media Contact
Name
1-FIND SERVICES
Contact name
Casey Carmical
Contact phone
423-930-8134
City
Johnson Cty
State
TN
Zip
37615
Country
United States
Url
https://1-find.agency/
COMTEX_482683129/2888/2026-06-02T13:21:56
