When organizing portfolio case studies for a roofing contractor, categorizing by roof type (steep slope vs. low slope) is often clearer and more useful than categorizing by building use (commercial, residential, multifamily, industrial). Roof type maps directly to the technical scope of work and the materials involved, whereas building-use categories can overlap in confusing ways and may not reflect how customers actually think about their problem.
During a website review for [1] (sbswi.com), the team evaluated the existing case study taxonomy: Commercial, Residential, Multifamily, Industrial. Several problems surfaced:
Brandon Aman (client) proposed simplifying to just "Steep Slope" and "Low Slope" as the primary organizing principle.
| Criterion | Building-Use Categories | Roof-Type Categories |
|---|---|---|
| Technical clarity | Low — a "commercial" building can be either flat or pitched | High — directly describes the work |
| Customer relevance | Moderate — customers identify with their building type | High — customers often know their roof type |
| SEO value | Moderate | Moderate (can be enhanced with service-specific pages) |
| Portfolio flexibility | Rigid — thin categories look empty | Flexible — most projects fit cleanly into one of two buckets |
| Avoids overlap | No — apartments, multifamily, and residential blur together | Yes — steep/low slope is mutually exclusive |
This pattern applies broadly to any trade contractor building a portfolio website:
The underlying principle: organize by what you did, not where you did it, especially when the "where" categories are ambiguous or unevenly populated.