SEO for plumbers: How to make sure you show top in local searches for plumbers

If there’s one thing that’s becoming more and more important for businesses to do, it’s improving their online visibility. If you’re not visible online, then potential customers won’t be able to find you and book your services.

This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) comes in handy. SEO uses a range of techniques to help you appear higher in any online searches.

If customers in your area search online for a plumber, you need your website to show up for them. Do that, and you’ll get a regular flow of plumber leads coming your way.

So, whether you’re starting a new plumbing business, or you have plenty of experience under your belt, here’s what you need to know about plumber SEO!

What is plumber SEO?

Plumber SEO is search engine optimisation for plumbers. If you have a website for your plumbing business, then you’ll need to do SEO to make sure customers land on your website to book your services.

It works like this:

• You have a website for your plumbing business
• You optimise it for SEO
• Your website shows up when customers search online for help with their plumbing issue in the area you serve
• They ring, message, email or WhatsApp you to book your service

SEO is the method used to drive more customers towards your website, directory listing, or social media pages.

This is done through two types of SEO:

• On-page – in terms of keywords, readability, images and relevance
• Off-page – in terms of backlinks, listings, directories, social channels and other pointers

By improving your SEO as a plumber, you’ll have more people visiting your website. Specifically those you want to sell your services.

The benefits of plumbing SEO

As you may have guessed, there are many benefits that come with setting up plumbing SEO. These include:

• Easier targeting of customers in your local area who need your services
• Increased lead generation
• A larger potential customer base
• A greater indication of your skills and experience

Local SEO for plumbers is essential for business

Focusing on ranking for your local area is what’s called ‘Local SEO’. It’s not only a good way to improve your website’s rankings, but drive people local to you and people you can do plumbing work for.

Those customers searching for plumbers near you will be shown options in their area. So you want to make sure that your website is one of their options.

That’s why you want your website to include the following information for customers to find:

• Your business address
• Your business phone number and email
• Your opening and closing hours
• Any customer testimonials and reviews you have

Including these will go a long way to helping the major search engines to recognise your plumbing business name as a brand people can trust.

How to do local SEO as a plumber

Write lots of quality content that focuses on your service areas.

By that, we mean write website content and post on social media. It’s always best to either tag a location on your social media posts, or include the location in the title of the content. E.g., ‘plumbers in London’, ‘tap leaking Manchester’, and even ’emergency plumbers Birmingham’.

Most importantly, make sure the content you create is relevant and helpful to the user – ie, it gives them a solution to their search.

Show your physical location digitally with a map pack

A subsection of local SEO, a map pack is shown when a map appears at the top of local searches.

This is typically a map of their local area, including nearby businesses that match their search criteria.

This map will appear above all other searches on a results page, so it’s essential to appear here if possible. So, you want to ensure you’ve optimised your Google Business profile to match this.

Join relevant directories to build your online presence for your location

Youi can create a Google Business, but you should also have consistent address, name and contact details on multiple channels:

• Your website
• Search Engines, e.g. Google Business
• Trade directory, like Checkatrade

Using a trade directory like Checkatrade will allow you to show not only on search engines, but Checkatrade’s own search engine/directory.

That means when people are specifically searching for plumbers on Checkatrade, they will be able to find you there. Even better, Checkatrade profiles are SEO’d up, meaning that if you have a profile on Checkatrade, that profile will show up on the likes of Google.

Join Checkatrade, show up on Google and Checkatrade. Two birds, one stone. Here’s why else you should join Checkatrade.

What are the SEO services for plumbers?

First things first, let’s look at what on-page SEO you can do to boost your plumbing website.

Typically, this means looking into implementing keyword research and content creation.

Carrying out keyword research

With keyword research, you’ll initially want to figure out which keywords you want to rank for. Often, these will be what words are most commonly associated with your services.

However, you want to pick those with a higher search volume as these are more popular.

For example, as a plumber, you might want to include phrases such as:

• Plumbers near me
• Plumber company
• Plumbers in [your service area]

On top of this, you should look to include more niche words, something like:

• How do I fit a tap
• Boiler repairs
• Leaking pipe replacement

Content creation

Content is important for SEO. Without content, it’s hard to make any progress in appearing online for searches.

And SEO isn’t just website related anymore. It’s important for social media too; the likes of TikTok and Meta. Even YouTube.

For now, let’s focus on websites and directory listings.

Once you have your keywords, it’s then time to turn to content creation. After all, if you don’t have relevant content on your site, no one will visit it.

So, take your time to craft copy for your website, including keywords on the pages you think are most relevant.

Naturally, you don’t have to do this for every page on your site.

You must target your core landing pages and services with your chosen keywords. Then, once your website is set up, you can create blog posts that target other keywords.

Blog articles are particularly useful to invest in once you’ve become established. For example, you could have a piece dedicated to explaining common plumbing terms and slang to customers.

Not only do they show your expertise and professionalism, but they broaden your potential audience.

These topics could include:

• Answers to general plumbing queries and questions
• Supportive blogs, such as what to do when a pipe starts leaking
• Tips and advice that homeowners can follow to maintain their home’s plumbing

And you by no means have to be an expert at writing to do this. However, if you don’t have the time to do this personally, you can always hire a freelance writer instead.

Link building

Finally, with all of the content you create, you need to be sure that you’re linking out to other pages.

This is called link building and is a crucial step to take to help Google rank your site.

Essentially, Google will crawl and rank your site partially based on how easy it is to navigate. So, if all of your pages have no links, Google won’t find them and it won’t rank your website.

Boost your plumbing SEO with Checkatrade

And there you have it; the basics of how to implement SEO for plumbers. Of course, there is far more you can do in this area, so we recommend doing more research when possible.

However, if you want a quick SEO boost now, then you might want to consider signing up for Checkatrade. The UK’s most popular online directory, here at Checkatrade, our goal is to get you more leads.

As a member, you’ll:

• Get your own profile, which can be optimised to appear higher in Google
• Be more visible, meaning more customers will be pointed your way without you having to do too much
• Enjoy great savings on business essentials like vehicles, fuel, workwear and insurance
• Have your work guaranteed up to £1,000
• Get more work coming your way

Get in touch today to learn more about our sign-up process.

And don’t forget to browse our other plumbing and SEO blogs. We’ve covered the basics about how to market your plumbing business and how to build a business website.

Content disclaimer: This content has been created for general information purposes and should not be taken as formal advice. Read our full disclaimer here.