Building Supply Websites Win on Long, Specific Searches
A third of the Google keywords the typical building materials and supplies website ranks for are five words or longer, versus about a quarter for other websites. These sites also rank for more keywords overall.
Building supply websites get found through long, specific product searches more than most sites, and they rank for more keywords overall. The catch is that fewer of those keywords reach page one, so product pages are close but not quite winning.
Nobody searches “wood.” They search “pressure treated 2×6 lumber 16 ft” or “concrete pavers for patio near me.” Diib’s data shows building materials suppliers get found through exactly these long, specific searches.
SEO pros call these “long-tail” keywords: longer phrases that fewer people search for, but that usually signal someone who knows exactly what they want.
What the data shows
Diib looked at the US Google keywords that websites with connected keyword tracking ranked for between April and September 2026. It included sites ranking for at least 20 keywords:
- For the median building materials and supplies website (446 sites), 33% of ranking keywords were five words or longer, versus 27% for about 10,300 websites in other industries.
- These sites also ranked for more searches overall: about 110 keywords for the median site, versus about 80 elsewhere.
- But fewer of those keywords reached page one: 31%, versus 34% for other websites.
What this does and doesn’t tell you
This is aggregated Diib keyword data. It shows which searches a site appears for, not how much traffic or how many sales they bring, and search volumes are estimates.
The pattern makes sense. Building supply catalogs are full of sizes, grades, colors and brands, and each product page can match a very specific search. The opportunity is in the gap. These sites cast a wide net but land on page one a little less often than average, so their specific product pages are showing up, just not high enough.