What we found on empiretoday.com
Everyone knows Empire Today. The jingle is burned into the brains of anyone who watched daytime TV in the last three decades. 800-588-2300. Empire. Today. And according to Ahrefs, the domain pulls 85.2K monthly organic visitors with a traffic value of $211.9K. But the TV advertising spend that built this brand is almost certainly orders of magnitude larger than that organic value.
So we ran three of their product pages through our standard teardown protocol. And the gap between the brand investment and the website infrastructure is, candidly, one of the largest we've measured.
The pages we tore down:
- /carpet — their carpet flooring page (9.2K monthly organic visitors, 11% traffic share)
- /vinyl/vinyl-plank-flooring — vinyl plank products (4.4K monthly organic visitors, 5% traffic share)
- /tile — tile flooring (2.6K monthly organic visitors, 3% traffic share)
"In 2024, 54% of U.S. homeowners undertook home renovation projects."
— Houzz Inc. (2025)
Performance: 16 out of 100
The carpet page scored 16 out of 100 on mobile performance. That's among the lowest scores in this entire nine-company teardown series. And the reason it scores so low isn't just speed — it's stability.
CLS of 0.437. Cumulative Layout Shift. Google considers anything above 0.025 "poor." Empire Today's carpet page is 17.5 times that threshold. What that means in practice: as the page loads, content visibly jumps. Images shift. Text blocks relocate. The thing you were about to tap moves before your finger lands. For a page selling flooring — a product where homeowners need to browse, compare, and visualize — a layout that rearranges itself while you're looking at it undermines the browsing experience at a fundamental level.
LCP of 9.0 seconds. FCP of 4.2 seconds. TBT of 1,786ms. Speed Index of 9.6 seconds.
Vinyl plank page (/vinyl/vinyl-plank-flooring): Performance score 25/100. LCP of 9.8 seconds. CLS of 0.158 — better than carpet but still six times the "good" threshold. TBT of 1,650ms. Five phone numbers listed on this page. Accessibility of 85/100.
Tile page (/tile): Performance score 24/100. LCP of 10.9 seconds. CLS of 0.387 — nearly as bad as the carpet page. TBT of 626ms (the lowest TBT of the three). Accessibility of 88/100.
Compounding effect
"Conversion rates drop approximately 12% for each additional second of page load time."
— Google / Deloitte (2020)
The CLS problem is consistent across all three pages. The carpet page: 0.437. The tile page: 0.387. The vinyl page: 0.158. That suggests a sitewide template issue — likely images loading without explicit dimensions, or ad/promotional elements injecting into the layout after initial render. It's a fixable problem, but it's been live long enough that our March 2026 data captured it across every page we tested.
Forms and lead capture: lightweight but fragmented
Compared to CertaPro's 57-field form or PulteGroup's 20-field account registration, Empire Today's forms are refreshingly simple. The carpet page carries five form elements: a 4-field flooring type selector (three checkboxes + a dropdown), two email-only newsletter signups, a 2-field email + zip code form, and a standalone zip code search.
And honestly, the simplicity is intentional. Empire Today's conversion model is phone-first. The number 800-588-2300 dominates the page. "Schedule In-Home Appointment" and "Call Now" are the primary CTAs. The forms that exist are lightweight lead-capture for email nurturing, not full quote requests. If you want a price, you call. The website is a brochure that funnels you to the phone.
But there's a catch. The carpet page alone has four different phone numbers: (866) 724-9426, (833) 998-3032, (800) 588-2300, and (888) 588-2395. The vinyl page has five. Which one do you call? The 800-588-2300 is the branded jingle number, but the page also shows three other numbers without explaining what each one connects to. That's not multiple conversion paths — that's confusion dressed up as accessibility.
"22% of US online shoppers abandoned an order in the past quarter solely due to a too long or complicated checkout process."
— Baymard Institute (2024)
And there's no callback form. No "schedule a call" with a time picker. No "text us" option. For a company whose entire business model depends on in-home appointments, the path from "I'm interested" to "someone shows up at my door" requires picking up the phone and calling one of four numbers. In 2026, that's leaving a lot of leads on the table — especially younger homeowners who prefer texting or form submissions to phone calls.
Trust signals: badges yes, reviews no
Empire Today's trust signal setup is the mirror opposite of what we saw with Trex and CertaPro. Where those brands had zero badges, Empire Today has BBB badges and trust badges on every page we tested. Carpet, vinyl, tile — all three show BBB and trust badge indicators.
A correction from our initial scraper data: our automated tool reported zero Google Reviews widgets. But Chrome browser verification found review elements and star ratings rendered via JavaScript on the product pages. So Empire Today does have some form of review or rating content on the pages that the scraper missed because it renders after the initial page load. The BBB badges and trust badges remain the strongest and most visible trust signals on the site.
So the trust signal stack is a combination of institutional (BBB, badges) and social proof (review/rating elements that load via JavaScript). The homeowner sees BBB accreditation, industry badges, and some review content. The gap isn't "zero social proof" as we initially reported. The gap is that the review content loads after the page paint, which means homeowners on slow connections may not see it, and search engines may not index it as reliably as they would a server-rendered review widget.
Comparison
"97% of consumers read reviews when browsing for businesses online. 41% 'always' read reviews, up from 29% in 2025."
— BrightLocal (2026)
The schema markup is actually decent. The carpet page carries WebSite, WebPage, DataFeedItem, ItemList, and FAQPage schemas. The tile page has the same stack. The vinyl page has BreadcrumbList instead of FAQPage but otherwise matches. That's five schema types per page — more than most contractors we audit. Empire Today's development team is investing in structured data, even if the front-end performance isn't keeping up.
What Empire Today does well
The TV jingle does more work than most marketing agencies could accomplish in a year. But beyond brand recognition, Empire Today executes on some things worth noting.
Content depth on product pages. The carpet page has 3,200 words. The vinyl plank page has 3,652. The tile page has 3,315. Those aren't thin product listings. They include FAQ content, product descriptions, installation details, and comparison information. And the carpet and tile pages carry FAQPage schema, which means Google can pull FAQ snippets into search results.
Consistent BBB and trust badge presence. Every page we tested shows BBB accreditation and trust badges. That's something most national brands in this teardown series don't manage. The consistency matters — a homeowner browsing from carpet to tile to vinyl never encounters a page where the badges disappear.
Phone in navigation, CTA in navigation. Both the phone number and the "Schedule In-Home Appointment" CTA appear in the nav on every page. That's a conversion-focused nav design. The homeowner doesn't have to scroll to find how to take action.
Dense internal linking. The carpet page has 165 internal links. The vinyl page has 201. The tile page has 166. Cross-links between product types, installation guides, and location pages create a web that keeps homeowners moving through the site and gives Google clear crawl paths.
"In 2024, 90% of U.S. homeowners renovating their homes hired professional help."
— Houzz Inc. (2025)
What the gaps mean for local flooring contractors
Empire Today spends millions on TV ads driving people to a website that scores 16/100 on its highest-traffic product page. If you're a local flooring contractor competing in their markets, that gap between ad spend and website quality is your opening.
Fix the CLS problem they can't seem to fix. Empire Today's pages shift layout by 0.158 to 0.437. Your product pages should have a CLS of 0.000. Set explicit width and height on every image. Don't inject promotional banners after page load. Don't let ads reflow the layout. A homeowner comparing carpet samples on your site should be able to scroll without the content jumping. That's a basic experience Empire Today isn't delivering.
Add the reviews widget they're missing. Empire has BBB badges but no Google Reviews. You can have both. Your Google review widget with star rating, review count, and a link to read more reviews gives homeowners the social proof that Empire's institutional badges don't. 97% of consumers read reviews when browsing for businesses (BrightLocal 2026). Put them where the homeowner is already looking.
One phone number. Not four. Empire's carpet page lists four different phone numbers. Your site should have one. Put it in the header, make it 24pt or larger, and make it a click-to-call link. Clarity beats options. A homeowner shouldn't have to decide which number to dial.
Add a callback form. Empire's entire conversion path is "call us." Add a "Request a Callback" form with name, phone, and preferred time. You've just created a conversion option that a company with decades of TV advertising doesn't offer. And you've captured the lead even if they're not ready to call right now.
"48% of customers say that if a site does not work well on mobile, it signals the company does not care about their business."
— Google Consumer Insights (2018)
The positioning angle is straightforward. Empire Today is a known brand. But known doesn't mean trusted online. 48% of customers say a poorly performing mobile site signals that the company doesn't care about their business (Google 2018). A site that scores 16/100 and shifts layout while you're browsing carpet samples sends exactly that signal. Your site doesn't need a TV jingle. It needs to load fast, stay stable, show reviews, and make the next step obvious. That's a lower bar than Empire Today is currently clearing.
Frequently asked questions
What is Empire Today's website performance score?
The carpet page scored 16/100 on Google PageSpeed Insights (mobile) as of March 29, 2026, with an LCP of 9.0 seconds and a CLS of 0.437. The vinyl plank page scored 25/100 with a CLS of 0.158. The tile page scored 24/100 with a CLS of 0.387. The dominant issue across all pages is layout instability — content visibly shifting as the page loads.
How many form fields does Empire Today's website have?
Empire Today uses lightweight forms: a 4-field flooring type selector (three checkboxes + dropdown), email-only newsletter signups, and a 2-field email + zip code form. The primary conversion path is phone-based — the 800-588-2300 number and "Schedule In-Home Appointment" CTA dominate the page. The carpet page alone lists four different phone numbers.
Can a local flooring contractor compete with Empire Today online?
Yes. Empire Today has decades of brand recognition from TV advertising, but their website scores 16-25/100 on performance with CLS values up to 0.437. They show BBB badges but no Google Reviews. A local flooring contractor with a fast, stable site (85+ performance, CLS of 0.000), visible Google reviews, one clear phone number, and a callback request form delivers a better digital experience than a company spending millions on TV ads to drive traffic to a 16-score website.
How much organic traffic does empiretoday.com get?
According to Ahrefs data from our March 2026 collection, empiretoday.com receives approximately 85.2K monthly organic visitors with an estimated traffic value of $211.9K. The carpet page accounts for 9.2K (11% share), vinyl plank for 4.4K (5%), and tile for 2.6K (3%).
