SEO for plumbers
SEO for plumbers. I know what you’re actually selling.
Getting your plumbing company found on Google when somebody nearby needs the job doing. I spent 15 years in the trade before this, so we can skip the part where I learn what a gasfitter does.
In short
What is SEO for a plumbing company?
It means being one of the handful of plumbing companies Google puts in front of somebody who has just searched for a plumber near them. Those spots in the map and the listings under the ads are not for sale, and unlike advertising they carry on bringing calls in after you stop paying for the work.
The problem
One page called Services will never rank for anything.
Most plumbing websites have a home page, an about page, and one page listing everything the company does. Google has nothing to work with. A page trying to be about emergency call-outs, bathrooms, boilers and drainage at the same time is properly about none of them.
Split them out and each one can go and win its own searches. That is most of the job, and it is also why the work starts with your site rather than with anything clever.
Which pages you need depends entirely on what you do and what you want more of. That is the first conversation, not a template I hand you.
What the work covers
Where a plumbing company actually gets found.
- A page for every job you want
- One page listing everything you do will win nothing. Each service worth having needs its own page: emergency call-outs, bathroom work, boiler installation, boiler servicing, drainage. If you do it and you want more of it, it needs a page.
- Your Google Business Profile
- The map listing. Plumbing profiles are usually set up once and abandoned: no services listed, no job photos, opening hours that say closed when you actually turn out. Whoever has filled theirs in properly is taking calls you never hear about.
- The places you actually cover
- People search with a suburb or a town in mind. Your site has to name the places you will drive to, honestly. Not forty towns you have never worked in, which is a good way to rank for nothing.
- Reviews, and getting asked for them
- Plumbing is a trade people are nervous about hiring, so reviews carry more weight than in most industries. The hard part is not getting good ones, it is remembering to ask when the customer is stood there happy. Worth building into how you finish a job.
The same four apply to any trade. What changes for a plumbing company is which jobs are worth their own page and which searches are worth chasing, and that is worked out with you rather than assumed.
Local SEO for plumbers
Three results in the map. That is what you are fighting for.
Somebody types plumber near me and Google shows a map with three businesses on it. Almost nobody expands that list. Local SEO is the work of being one of the three, and for a plumbing company it matters more than anything else on this page.
- How close you are to the person searching
- You cannot change this one, which is exactly why it matters. A plumber in the next suburb starts ahead of you for that suburb. It is the honest reason a single location will not own an entire city, and the reason the areas you name have to be ones you would genuinely drive to.
- How well your profile matches what they asked
- Somebody types emergency plumber and Google looks for a profile that says emergency plumbing. Most plumbing profiles list one category and nothing else, so every job beyond the obvious one goes to whoever bothered to fill theirs in.
- How well known and well reviewed you are
- Reviews, how recent they are, and whether the rest of the web agrees you exist. A plumbing company with sixty reviews going back years is hard to shift, which cuts both ways: slow to build, hard for the next arrival to undo.
Two of those three you can do something about this month. That is unusual in search work, and it is why a plumbing company’s Google Business Profile is the first thing I go near.
Two kinds of customer
The emergency and the one planning a bathroom.
Somebody standing in a flooded laundry wants a phone number and nothing else. They will not read your about page, they will not compare three quotes, and if the site takes five seconds to load they are gone to whoever is next.
Somebody pricing up a bathroom for next winter is the opposite. They will read everything, look at your previous work, and take a fortnight to decide. They want reassurance, not a phone number in red.
Those two need different pages, written differently. Most plumbing sites are built entirely for one and lose the other without ever knowing.
Couldn't recommend Stu more. Goes above and beyond to get the results, is upfront and explains everything he does. Is the only advertising company I have worked with who genuinely cares about your results.
What it costs
Same rates as every other trade.
Nobody pays a plumbing surcharge here. Choose what you are comfortable spending each month and I will tell you straight what can be done inside it.
Most local trade businesses start around $600 to $750 a month. A bigger budget covers more ground, and covers it faster.
- Getting found on Google$750
A month
$750 + GST
NZD. Month to month, no lock-in. AEO is included at no extra cost.
Get an exact quoteThis is an estimate. Tell me about your business and I will give you an exact figure in writing.
The honest bit
If you need work this week, this is the wrong thing to buy.
Search work takes months to arrive. If the diary is empty right now then Google Ads is the honest answer for that gap. I would rather point you there than bill you monthly for something that arrives too late to help.
It is also worth nothing if your website gives people no reason to ring once they land on it. That comes first, every time.
Questions
Things plumbers ask me.
How long does plumbing SEO take to work?
The map listing can move within weeks, which is often where a plumbing company sees the first calls. Service pages competing against established firms take several months of steady work. If somebody promises you the top spot for emergency plumbing by next month, they are describing something they cannot do.
Can you guarantee I will be the top plumber on Google?
No. Those places are not for sale, by me or anyone. What I will do is tell you honestly where you currently sit against the other plumbing firms in your area, what it would realistically take to close that gap, and whether it is worth the money in the first place.
What is local SEO for plumbers?
It is the work of getting your plumbing company into the Google Maps results and the listings that show when somebody nearby searches for a plumber. It leans on your Google Business Profile, your reviews and pages naming the areas you cover, rather than on competing nationally.
Is local SEO different to normal SEO for a plumber?
For a plumbing company, almost none. You are a local business and nobody is ringing a plumber two cities away, so the local side is effectively the whole job. That is not true of every business, but it is true of yours, which is why the work starts with the map listing and the areas you cover.
I am a one-man band. Is this worth it for me?
Often more than it is for a bigger firm, because you only need a handful of extra jobs a month for it to pay for itself, and you are usually up against other small operators rather than national companies. The honest test is whether you can take on more work at all.
What if I only want certain types of job?
That is the point of doing it properly. If you want bathroom work and not blocked drains at eleven at night, we build for the first and leave the second alone. More calls is easy. More of the right calls is the job.
Do I need this if I already run Google Ads?
Most plumbing companies I work with end up doing both, and for good reason: ads cover you now, this covers you later. The usual pattern is ads carrying the diary for the first few months, then coming back once the map listing and the service pages start pulling their weight.
Is there a contract?
Nothing to sign. You can call it off at the end of any month. The trade is full of people tied into things they regret, and I would rather keep you because the work shows.
Let’s talk
Want to know where your plumbing business actually stands?
Send me the address and the suburbs you work in. I will tell you which plumbing firms are currently ahead of you locally and what it would take to get past them.