Leads are the lifeblood of your plumbing company. More leads translates into more customers, and more customers translates into more revenue.
But how can you generate leads while also keeping up with all the tasks required to keep your plumbing business running smoothly?
Enter SEO for plumbers.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) helps you consistently generate leads even while you still perform all the tasks associated with your plumbing business.
In this guide, we’ll explain what plumber SEO is, why it matters, and how you can implement it in your business.
What Is SEO For Plumbers?
Plumber SEO is the practice of optimising your plumbing website for higher search engine rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs).
This is done by using a combination of keyword research, content development, link building and more. By optimising your site with SEO for plumbers, you can increase the visibility of your website and attract more potential customers to your business.
Does SEO for plumbers matter?
You might be wondering whether you really need to worry about SEO for plumbers. After all, you’ve got plenty of other things to think about while running your plumbing company. You’ve got jobs to do and employees to manage and dozens of other tasks. But the truth is, SEO for plumbers can have a major impact on your business.
Having an optimised website makes it much easier for potential customers to find you. When someone searches for “plumber near me” or “plumbing services in my area”, they are more likely to find your business if your website is properly optimised. This increased visibility in the search rankings can help you to attract more customers and grow your business.
SEO brings in more organic search traffic, which translates into more leads and more customers. If you want to stay in front of your competition, it’s essential that you optimise your website.
How to do plumber SEO for your plumbing business
If you know what you are doing, you can optimise your online presence. It should be noted that it does take a significant amount of work and knowledge to do it correctly. If you don’t have the time or resources to do it on your own, hiring an agency might be the smart move.
That said, follow these SEO for plumbers steps if you want to optimise your website.
1. Set up your Google My Business Profile
The first step in plumber SEO is to create a Google My Business Profile. This profile will be used by Google to show people in your area who are looking for plumbing services.
It’s important that you provide accurate information, as this will help potential customers find you more easily.
Follow these steps to set up your business profile:
- Add or claim your business – You can add your business to Google by visiting the Google My Business website. This will allow you to create a business profile and verify that you are the owner of the business.
- Establish your business category – Choose the category that best describes your business. This will help potential customers find you more easily.
- Complete all necessary fields – Make sure to fill out all of the required information such as address, phone number, website URL and hours of operation.
- Set the areas you service – Select the cities and areas that you service. When people do location specific searches, you have a greater chance of showing up in the search results.
- Add any additional important information customers want – You can also add additional information such as photos, customer reviews and more.
- Add the services you offer – Let potential customers know what services you offer, such as pipe repairs, water heater replacements and more.
2. Find relevant keywords
Using a tool like ahrefs or SEMRush, find keywords that are relevant to your industry and your customers. Your goal is to identify the words and phrases that your customers are Googling.
Put yourself in the shoes of customers. What would they be searching for? What problems come up for customers? What do they want to know how to do? Why would a customer contact you?
You want to find keywords that are relatively low in competition and high in search volume. In other words, the ideal keywords are those that are being used by your audience but not being targeted by the competition.
3. Create pages around keywords
Once you’ve found relevant keywords, create unique pages around each of those primary keywords. For example, if one of your keywords is “how to replace a water heater”, create an in-depth page that explains the process and includes the primary and related keywords.
Sprinkle the keywords throughout the page in a natural way. Don’t try to stuff in as many keywords as possible. Google may penalise you in the search rankings if you do this. In addition to your primary keyword, make sure that you include long-tail keywords as well. These are longer phrases that people also search for in conjunction with your primary keyword.
Including both your primary and long-tail keywords ensures that you will show up in the maximum number of searches.
4. Create an organised site structure
You want your site to be organised in a way that makes sense for both searchers and search engines. Navigating your site should be easy, intuitive, and create a positive user experience. Every page should be linked to related pages so that both users and search engines can understand how the pages are related to each other.
Consider using topic clusters to organise the content on your site. A topic cluster is a group of pages on your site that are related to the same topic or theme. For example, if you offer plumbing services in multiple cities, you might create one page with information about all of the cities and then link to individual city pages from there.
Using this method will help Google understand how all of your content is related and it will make it easier for people to find what they are looking for.
5. Optimise your titles and meta descriptions
The title tag is the blue clickable link that appears in search engine results pages. It should be kept under 70 characters and should include your primary keywords, so that searchers can identify quickly whether the page contains relevant information.
The meta description is the bit of text displayed under the title tag in the search results. Your title tag should be less than 160 characters and should concisely explain what users will find on the page.
Titles and meta descriptions really do have an influence on whether people click on your website. You want them to be clear and compelling without overselling things.
6. Create an “about” page on your site
Source: Jim’s plumbing
An about page provides useful information to searchers and potential clients. Make sure to include info like how long you’ve been in business, how many clients you’ve served over the years, certifications you have, etc.
Use your about page to establish trust between you and searchers and strengthen your online reputation. You want them to feel like you’re reliable, experienced, and can help them solve their problems. You want them to see you as an expert in the plumbing industry.
An added bonus of having an About page is that it strengthens your Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). Google cares about all three factors and uses them when ranking your website.
7. Create a location page on your site
Source: Fast Ontime Local Plumber
Adding a location page to your site is essential. When people search for things like “plumber near me”, the first thing they do is look for your location. They want to see how far away you are, whether you service their area, etc.
If you have multiple locations, list them all, along with contact information for each location. These details also help searchers feel like they can trust you. If they know you’re a local business it will build a sense of trust.
8. Create unique pages for each service you offer
Source: Universal Plumbers
Every service you provide should have its own optimised page. This improves the odds of you showing up in search results for a specific service search. For example, if you unclog drains, create a page dedicated to that service. Make sure that you include both the primary keyword and long-tail keywords.
9. Use short, keyword-friendly URLs
Your URLs for each page should be short, descriptive, and include the page’s primary keyword. Don’t use long URLs with lots of random characters. For example, a bad URL is something like www.plumbingsite.com/ajhV1JkmlN. A good URL is www.plumbingsite.com/unclog-drains.
Using short, descriptive URLs helps both users and Google understand the content of the page. It also makes your pages more clickable in the search results.
10. Get positive reviews
Positive reviews are critically important for your business. When people Google a business, one of the first things they do is look at reviews. If you have a lot of good reviews, it establishes your trustworthiness and expertise. Positive reviews make it easier for prospective customers to trust you.
You should also include reviews on your website as a form of social proof.
11. Guest blog on authority sites
Guest blogging is when you write a blog post that is published on a website other than your own. It’s a great way to get both your name and your brand in front of a bigger audience. It also helps establish you as a plumbing industry expert that people should pay attention to.
Finally, when you guest blog you usually are allowed to include at least one link back to your website. Backlinks are a critical Google ranking factor, and the more backlinks you have the stronger your SEO results.
To get started with guest blogging, reach out to well-established websites and make a pitch about writing for them. Include potential topics, your credentials, and any other information relevant to the site.
12. Publish blog posts on your own site
Publishing SEO optimised blog posts on your website is a great way to attract organic search traffic. This is especially true for keywords that you may not otherwise be able to naturally include in pages.
Develop a content creation strategy that allows you to target the keywords you identified during your keyword research stage. Create in-depth, valuable content that will serve your audience. Value is key when it comes to publishing blog posts. The more valuable your posts are, the more they will be shared on social media and displayed in the search results.
13. Get backlinks to your blog posts
As we noted, backlinks from other websites are very powerful for SEO. Google sees backlinks as votes of confidence from other websites. All things equal, more backlinks translates into more organic search traffic. They build your E-A-T in Google’s eyes.
To get backlinks, your content needs to be highly valuable, to the point where someone wants to link back to it. Shallow, fluffy content won’t cut it. Your content needs to deliver maximum value and be highly readable.
Once you’ve created blog posts that fit that description, you can begin reaching out to other websites to see if they might be willing to link back to your content.
So What Did We Learn?
SEO for plumbers isn’t an easy task, but it’s worth the time and effort. It can help you attract more organic search traffic, generate more leads, and gain more revenue, all while continuing to effectively run your plumbing company.
If you want help with your plumber SEO, schedule a free consultation with Megaphone today ($1,200 value).
