SEO for Plumbers: 7 Easy Tips to Help Customers Find You Online

When a potential customer needs a plumbing service, they’re likely going to search Google or Bing and contact one of the first few options they see. If your plumbing business isn’t one of them, you may be missing out on a lot of work.

The way to get your business listed at the top of Google’s search results page is through SEO (or search engine optimization). 

In this article, we’ll break down what you need to know about SEO into easy to follow steps you can start doing yourself. And if you want to go even further and hire an SEO professional, we’ve provided a list of SEO companies who specialize in the plumbing industry.

To claim your Google Business Profile, type in your business name on Google Business Profile Manager, and follow the prompts.

Complete your profile by:

• Selecting your business category (Plumber, Heating contractor, Gas installation, etc.)
• Set your service area
• Add your contact information (website, phone number, email address)
• Add your business information (working hours, plumbing services, images)

Once you’ve set up your Google Business Profile, your plumbing business will appear on Google Maps and search results when prospective customers search for local plumbers in your service area.

Pro Tip: Claim your free Bing Places for Business listing to appear on Bing search results and Bing Maps.

Claiming your Google Business Profile is an example of a local SEO strategy to help your business attract potential plumbing customers in your service area.

You can use your Google profile to share your business’s contact information, hours of operations, and plumbing service offerings, and to collect and respond to customer reviews.

To claim your Bing Places for Business Listing click “New User” on the Bing Places homepage and follow the prompts. 

Similar to your Google Business profile, your Bing business listing helps you appear on Bing search results and Bing Maps. You can also use your listing to share important information about your plumbing business, like your phone number, website, and working hours.

This is why you need to deliver fantastic work, provide exceptional customer service, and have a process in place for getting those excellent reviews you know you deserve.

Pro Tip: Use Jobber’s NiceJob integration to automate your customer review process and get more great reviews to build your online reputation and improve your SEO ranking.

READ MORE: How to Ask For a Review [With Free Templates]

2. Create web pages specific to your service 

Create individual web pages specific to each service your plumbing business offers, like leak repair, toilet repair, or drain cleaning. This helps your website appear when someone searches online for that service.

Go Green Plumbing has a services page on their website where visitors can click on the specific service they’re looking for and be brought to a page to learn more.

3. Include the locations you serve

Including your service locations helps Google rank your business when potential customers are using local keywords like “plumbers near me”.

If you only serve one area, simply add your location to content on your home page, service pages, and contact page.

Here’s how Guest Plumbing includes their location to their service pages:

If you serve multiple areas, you may consider adding a service area page to your website and listing all of your locations.

Impetus Plumbing uses an interactive map for customers to easily determine whether they cover their location.

4. Show your expertise with an about page

Your website’s about page is one of the ways you can show Google your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Also known as E-A-T, Google considers these qualities as a factor when determining how high or low your website should rank on their search results page.

Here are a few ways to show your expertise on your about page:

• Share your plumbing certifications and accreditations
• Talk about how long you’ve been a plumber and how your business started
• Add reviews or testimonials from past customers

5. Start your own plumbing blog

Adding a plumbing blog to your website shows potential customers (and search engines) that you’re a trusted industry expert—and it improves your search rankings.

You can write and publish your own blog posts, hire a freelancer or agency, or even try Chat GPT to help your plumbing company with content creation. 

To find topic ideas, start by writing and answering a list of the most common questions customers ask, like:

• What should I do when my pipes freeze?
• Why does my water take so long to heat?
• Why does the toilet keep running?
• Is it safe to use chemical drain cleaners?

Don’t forget to share your published content through your social media profiles, or in email campaigns.

Pro Tip: Check out other plumbing blogs to find topic or content ideas to write about in your blog.

6. Optimize titles, descriptions, URL’s, and headers

Improve the following elements on all of your web pages to appear higher on the search results and attract more visitors to your website. Usually, you can find these technical SEO elements in your website builder. If you’re not familiar with them, reach out to your web builder for support.

• Include a title tag and meta description for each of your web pages.

• Use a clean and simple URL structure that makes it easy for search engines to identify what the page is about.

• Add a page header for every page that includes your target keyword

Remember, SEO is a long-term marketing strategy, which means it can take a while to see your plumbing business to see results.

But combined with other marketing strategies (like plumbing ads) SEO is the best way to help new customers find your business online and get more plumbing leads.

Use this guide as a starting point to improve your SEO strategy and watch your business start climbing Google’s search results.

Originally published in April 2022. Last updated on July 11th, 2023.