Plumbing companies can rank for “plumber near me” by optimizing their websites and Google My Business listings for their target location. Examples of this include inserting city names into webpage titles and metadata and verifying the business address on Google Business Profile via postcard.
It’s important for plumbers to understand that “near me” searches are dynamic, which means that the intent of “near me” changes depending on the searcher’s location. For example, a homeowner searching “near me” at their Frisco, TX home will see different results than when searching “near me” at their Dallas, TX office.
Key Takeaway
Plumbers can rank for “near me” by optimizing their website and Google My Business listing for the target city name.
How Does Google Determine The Location of “Near Me”?
Google search results track the searcher’s location through GPS data from a phone or tablet, WiFi location tracking, and browser cookies. Depending on the searcher’s device and measures taken to block, hide, or falsify their location data, Google’s tracking may be precise or completely incorrect.
Some search users utilize tools like VPNs that dynamically alter their IP addresses to prevent search engines and other entities from tracking their location. However, the majority of consumers don’t exercise these measures allowing Google to accurately estimate their location.
Ranking for “Near Me” Queries on Google Search
Traditional Google search results (the ten blue links) rely on various website signals to rank plumbing websites in “near me” searches. Some of the most effective signals for registering your location with Google are:
Business Address in Website Footer
Schema Markup
Local Citations
Local Backlinks
City Name in Title Tag
City Name in Meta Description
Verified Reviews from Local Consumers
Geo-Coordinates
“Check-ins” of Recent Jobs
Ranking for “Near Me” Queries on Google Maps
Google Maps results and the Google Map 3-Pack use a different algorithm to track a business location which is based primarily on the verified address of the Google My Business listing or Google Business Profile. Plumbing companies must verify their business address with Google via postcard verification.
Once your listing is verified, you can take these steps to increase your chances of ranking for “near me”:
Request reviews from nearby consumers
Link your Google Business Profile to your optimized business website
Add all of your individual plumbing services to your services list
Upload unique and original photos to your business listing
How Valuable Are “Near Me” Rankings?
According to Google, queries containing the “near me” qualifier have grown at a 150% faster rate than similar searches that do not include the qualifier. Other research indicates that users collectively perform 1.5 billion “near me” searches per month. So it’s clear that ranking for these terms is highly valuable.
Ranking for “Near Me” in Multiple Cities
Plumbing companies are service area businesses that travel from their main location to various nearby cities. As a result, it makes sense for plumbers to seek rankings in all of their service cities rather than just the city in which their business address is verified.
Unfortunately, Google Maps rankings are based heavily on the proximity of the searcher in relation to your verified business address. If your business is verified in Frisco, it’s very difficult to rank for “near me” queries in Dallas, Plano, and other nearby cities.
The good news is that plumbers can still rank in these cities with their traditional website pages. First, you must create an individual city page for your target locations and install the DataPins plugin to drop pins on each city page. The more pins you produce, the better chance you have to rank in that city.
There are also rare cases where you can rank on Google Maps for less competitive service types like slab leak repair or whole house repiping. The previously mentioned DataPins process helps with Google Maps, too, as long as you connect your website URL to your Google Business Profile.
Final Thoughts on “Near Me” Rankings
Plumbing contractors can rank for “near me” by optimizing for the target location. Google processes near me queries based on the searcher’s location. For example, a plumber near me query from a Dallas searcher will yield very similar results to a query like plumber dallas.
Plumbers can take extra steps to maximize their local visibility with a strong Google Business Profile, optimized city pages, and the DataPins software tool.
Do you ever feel frustrated buying leads from another company? Not only do thousands of plumbing businesses purchase their leads from online services, they’re forced to share them with local competitors. That’s a hard pill for any professional to swallow, especially when competition is so fierce! Yet many businesses feel trapped into perpetuating the lead-buying process.
How can you break free of the cycle?
Today, we’re going to explore the process of improving your local search performance and generating your own leads. While we talk with plumbers with all kinds of backgrounds and stories, this strategy can help practically any business develop more traffic and higher quality plumbing leads. Let’s get started!
Interesting Tips for Plumbing Professionals
You need to be active in asking for reviews, especially if you average a 3.5 rating or lower.
Always test your website content with Copyscape to spot copied content.
Service pages tend to perform better than landing pages.
You need quality SEO to allow your PPC campaigns to convert.
The Same Old Story
Most of the plumbing professionals listed online experience some form of lead sales. Some buy leads through large household brands, while others purchase them via Google Ads. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with supplementing business with additional work from these sources. However, depending on these channels as your sole sources can severely limit the quality, scale, and effectiveness of your lead generation.
This also limits your ability to grow the reputation of your brand.
If you want to start growing your own sustainable, affordable leads, you’ll need to invest in the right channels. One of the easiest paths to lead growth is local SEO (search engine optimization), which focuses on making your business more visible to consumers in your service area. While it may require some continued effort on your company’s part, this channel offers a very dependable supply of customers and brand growth.
Why Choose Local SEO Over PPC?
First of all, SEO vs PPC is not an either/or choice. You can easily use both types of search campaigns to generate even stronger performance for your brand. However, SEO proves time and time again that it offers more dependable results than PPC. As a matter of fact, PPC campaigns have a very difficult time converting leads into customers without an organically optimized website to support them. If you click on an ad but the resulting website doesn’t make sense, will you buy from that site?
Organic SEO Still Provides a Much Higher Percentage of Site Traffic.
A website optimized for search will also provide a more pleasant user experience. If you’ve felt the 5-star user experience on a site before, you’ve already felt the effects of local SEO. An optimized website also delivers fresh, insightful content that encourages more meaningful relationships with the associated brand.
To put it simply: SEO is cheaper, more reliable, and contributes directly to your brand’s growth. That’s a winning combination that lead sales and PPC can’t provide. So why not invest in a channel that’s better for your company’s long-term success?
Key Factors in Local SEO
There are four crucial factors when it comes to local SEO:
Content
Web Design
Reviews / Recommendations
Citations
Content and Web Design
Like any other marketing activity, SEO requires a solid foundation. For most, that foundation is a well-crafted website design with structured service pages. While a PPC management company might try to bypass this requirement with short, sales-y landing pages, they typically don’t perform well without service information to back them up.
The best websites combine informative content with streamlined design.
Service pages make it easy for both Google and potential clients to understand exactly what you do. Without them, even people who find your website probably aren’t staying around for too long. Your Google Analytics should confirm this through average time on page and bounce rate.
Most successful web designs use a simple dropdown menu to direct people to their desired services. They also organize content by service category, making it easier to find and digest information in a timely manner. Finally, an optimized design heavily relies on schema coding to make content easily recognizable for Google crawlers.
Reviews and Citations
Among its many goals, Google strives to present the most dependable results to its user base. The search engine examines both information provided by a plumbing company and feedback presented by the community to determine whether that business deserves a spot in page 1 results. That’s where the majority of consumers pick their essential services from.
If local listings provide conflicting information about a plumbing company (such as different addresses or operating hours), it may choose to look to another contractor instead. Likewise, if client reviews indicate the business is not to be trusted, Google will not rank the company well. Reviews and citations work together to determine a plumber’s overall dependability.
Crucial SEO Requirements for Plumbers
Continue asking customers (especially happy ones) for reviews!
Never try to cover up negative feedback.
Gather reviews from a variety of sources, especially Google, Facebook, and Yelp.
Make sure your listings provide the same contact, location, and operational info.
Get citations from as many reputable companies as possible (BBB, Yelp, etc.)
At Plumbing Webmasters, we help hundreds of businesses develop a reliable source of leads through organic, local SEO. Not only do our customers enjoy higher rankings in search, they also earn more traffic and better lead quality! We’d be thrilled to talk with your plumbing company about your future growth plans.
What’s more powerful than a name? Your plumbing company name not only establishes your identify to potential clients, it communicates who you are to search engines as well. That’s why originality, clarity, and conciseness are so crucial when it comes to choosing your brand name!
In our latest discussion with Jason and Nolen, they’ll explore some simple guidelines on choosing a brand identify that’s optimized for search. Following these guidelines could be the difference between steady traffic and none at all! Be sure to listen in if you’re rebranding or kicking off a new plumbing business!
Helpful Tips on Naming Your Business
Pick a name that’s very memorable!
Generic names do not rank well in local search.
Avoid using your city in the name.
If you have an interesting personal name, consider using it for your company.
Purple Monkey Plumbing
What do you say: is “Purple Monkey Plumbing” an effective company name? Believe it or not, your answer says a lot about how much you understand local search marketing! We’ll reveal this name’s effectiveness at the end of this short blog. Before we get there, let’s run over a few facts about your company name.
The Purpose of Your Company Name
No, it’s not just to sound cool! Your company name helps people identify your services and stand out from other businesses. Think of the dozens of contractors that operate in your city alone. In broader metropolitan areas, your business could be competing against hundreds of other trained professionals.
When a local homeowner’s water heater breaks down and needs repairs, will they remember your brand name?
Despite the size and prevalence of the search engine, even Google can have a challenging time telling businesses apart! Your company name allows the hardworking Google Search algorithm to separate your brand from other nearby players. Choose wrong however, and your website may never receive the traffic you need to earn leads.
Watch Out! Some Brand Generators Can Produce Extra Generic or Misleading Names.
How to Pick a Company Name
There are two key qualities your brand name needs to succeed in local search: distinctiveness and memorability. While there are a host of other traits that could aid your other marketing activities, these two qualities are non-negotiable. What do these two terms mean?
First, a company name should stand out from the crowd. We hate to say it, but “5 Star Plumbing” isn’t going to be easy to remember (for consumers or Google). Steer clear of generic terminology that could get your brand confused with another professional’s! A memorable company name also increases the likelihood of past clients searching for your brand directly in search. Direct searches enjoy a higher chance of converting into actual sales.
The Classic Naming Mistake
Ten years ago, it was common practice to take a common search term, such as “Plumbing Company in Dallas, TX” and adopt it for your business name. This practice was enormously successful, so everyone and their grandmother started choosing generic names for their plumbing companies. Then Google stepped in with an algorithm update. Countless professionals started dropping off the map.
City Based Names Will Likely Pit You Against Citation Companies and More Popular List Articles.
Today, choosing an (Insert City) Plumber company name makes it almost impossible for people to find your business. Even if someone searched your name directly, Google would think the consumer was looking for a list of plumbers in your service area. Your business profile won’t even show up!
Bottom line: stay away from generic brand names, even if they are optimized for your city.
Other Important Steps for Your Business
Once you’ve decided on a quality company name, there are still a few steps to take to start ranking in local search. First, you’ll need to register a domain that closely matches your new name. If you plan on expanding your business into other cities / states, make sure you don’t pick a domain with a location prefix.
Make Sure Your Hosting Company Registers Your Company as the Domain Owner. Image From Bluehost
Make sure that you own the domain, not the registrar. Too many plumbing companies have gotten screwed over by their host when their registration expired. Just play it safe and make sure you buy the name!
Next, you’ll need to register the company name and domain with Google My Business (GMB). Google will provide a verification method for you to complete, then your plumbing company will be eligible to start ranking in local search. Fill out as much of the information as possible. The physical address for your company should be exactly the same as the one you registered with Yelp, the BBB, etc.
Need Help With Your Branding?
By the way, yes! Purple Monkey Plumbing could be a very successful company name.
At Plumbing Webmasters, we support hundreds of professionals from around the country with professional web design, brand development, and organic SEO solutions. If you’ve been looking for a seasoned digital marketing team to partner with, we’d be thrilled to talk with you! Call us anytime at (877) 388-9884 for a free consultation.
Being a plumber or a plumbing contractor calls for the best plumbing tools on the market. Although our team talks a lot about plumbing advertising and other marketing tools, your physical tools are just as crucial to your success.
Customers have a wide variety of problems that they depend on you to address.
As a plumber or contractor, you must have all the necessary equipment at your disposal to ensure that you can get the job – any job – done with the utmost quality and efficiency.
An array of tools combine multiple operations to ensure that you get versatility and reliability without spending a ton or having a lot of storage space for separate tools.
No more having to carry a ton of tools with only one specific use again. No more having to sift and sort through those tools to find the right one for the job.
These are ten of the newest and must-have tools on the market today for plumbers and plumbing contractors, tools that no professional should be without.
1) Bosch 1/4” Hex Impact Driver
While several are currently on the market, the brushless impact driver is a must-have for anyone in the plumbing industry, with a torque of 975 in.-lbs. You can’t beat the level of power that comes out of such a small package and a weight of just under two pounds.
The customers have spoken: this is a must-have. Don’t ever leave home without an impact driver like this one. You will have most of the battle won with this hex impact driver and won’t need much else in your tool bag.
The hex impact driver delivers in all aspects with the ultimate versatility, reliability, and power. Make any job more accessible and more convenient than ever before.
2) Hilti Cordless Rotary Hammer
The hammer has been a staple of any handyman’s tool belt for the longest time. But as the times have changed, the hammer had to follow. The traditional hammer you held and swung at your target got the job done for a long time, but they have evolved.
The Hilti cordless rotary hammer can deliver even more power in tighter spaces than ever before. It is perfect for drilling into masonry, concrete, wood, and steel for removing and driving screws. It also has a specially designed mechanism for hammering that can reach up to 5200 impacts per minute.
Your old hammer can’t even begin to compete with the cordless rotary hammer. It provides far more power, range, and features than ever possible from a hammer. Make sure that you have one in your tool bag before you head out again, and you will never have to worry about having enough power for the job again.
3) Milwaukee LED Compact Site Light
The compact site light offers two lights for both tasking and area lighting. It has an output of 2,200 lumens while in area mode, which is made for illuminating larger work areas, and 1,000 lumens of floodlighting which are meant for task situations.
There is no instance that this compact site light cannot handle.
Best of all, it offers up to 18 hours of total runtime, so you can be confident that you are getting all the light you need for the most time possible. It is also constructed of high-impact polycarbonate so that it will stand up to the maximum amount of abuse without breaking down.
With unmatched reliability and capability, it is little wonder that this is such a popular option among contractors and plumbers. You will always have the compact site light to guide your way.
4) Bosch Self-Leveling Cross-Line Laser with Plumb Points
If you still have a traditional level in your tool bag, throw that thing in the garbage right now. It is outdated in general, but especially when you can have a Bosch Self-Leveling Cross-Line Laser at your disposal. There are no other leveling options out there with the capabilities that this tool has.
This self-leveling cross-line laser delivers the ultimate versatility by providing evident laser lines and points. Additionally, these lines and points can be turned on both singularly or together to provide a vertical level, horizontal level, and plumb transfer applications.
Make measuring and leveling far more manageable than ever before when you implement the highly popular Bosch self-leveling cross-line laser with plumb points. You can cut a few outdated tools out of your tool belt and add this do-it-all tool.
5) Milwaukee Cheater Adaptable Pipe Wrench
There was once a time when it was necessary to carry a whole kit of wrenches for every situation. Sure, you were prepared, but you had to dig through your tools to find the proper wrench for the job and then go through the hassle of finding the correct wrench.
The Cheater is an adjustable, adaptable pipe wrench that offers two interchangeable handles that are threaded; they offer 10” length when used with no handles for the tighter spaces, an 18” length with a smaller handle for your general-purpose usage, and a 24” length that has a longer handle for maximum reach and leverage.
There is quite literally nothing that you cannot do with the Cheater.
This is an absolute must-havefor plumbers or contractors anywhere. It is incredibly versatile and can help you cut down on the number of tools that you need in your tool bag. What can be better than that?
6) DeWalt Press Tool
If you are in the plumbing industry, it goes without saying that fitting new pipes can be some of the most challenging work that you have to do. And like some of the other tools on this list that replace outdated tools, the DeWalt press tool will do the same.
This tool is capable of pressing pipe fittings from ½” to a whopping 4” in both stainless steel and copper piping. It can complete the full range of presses and a wide range of crimping heads and attachments for various applications and materials.
You sometimes need to perform an inspection before you ever start work. This ensures that you are of the utmost certainty where the issue lies and to ensure that there are not any spreading issues to be aware of.
This can be highly difficult without the right tools at your disposal. With the Rothenberger ROCAM inspection camera, you can be certain that you will find the problem every single time with the least amount of difficulty involved.
Suitable for pipework from 40-300 mm in diameter and a 30 m x 7 mm pushrod that can be extended an additional 8 m, you can get to just about any area possible. Twenty-five waterproof LEDs ensure you can get all the lighting that you need along the way.
There is no better tool on the market today when it comes to pipe fitting. What used to be a difficult task has now been made easier than ever because of this reliable and versatile camera. Never let a problem escape unseen ever again when you can have this excellent camera in your employ.
8) Milwaukee Drain Snake Kit
This is a necessity for any plumbers out there. Clogged drains are one of the most common issues that customers call in professionals for. With this drain snake kit, you can make short work of any clogged drain at a moment’s notice.
Simply put, this is the ultimate service plumbing solution. With a weight of only 10 pounds, it is the lightest of any professional drain cleaner on the market today.
It has a hybrid, unique design that can provide both the benefits of a floor-based drain cleaner and a handheld into one machine.
Traditional, manual snakes are fine and well, but the Milwaukee drain snake kit provides versatility and quality that has yet to be matched. Add one of these to your tool bag, and you will have a vast variety of problems taken care of thanks to one tool.
9) RIGID Straplock Pipe Handle
One of the most significant issues in maintaining and installing those larger diameter metal and plastic pipes is not the weight itself. Instead, the grip turns out to be the biggest issue for users. When you can’t get the proper amount of grip and leverage, you can’t get the adequate amount of force applied in all directions.
Never struggle with larger-diameter pipes again when you can implement the pipe handle into your tool bag.It is a favorite among plumbers for a good reason and will likely remain that way for a long time to come.
10) Milwaukee Sawzall Reciprocating Saw
As much as the entire plumbing process has changed for the better, there will still come a time when you need to get down to the nitty-gritty and do some old-fashioned grunt work. Thankfully, thanks to tools like the Milwaukee Sawzall, you don’t have to grunt quite as much as you once did.
There is also a ONE-KEY component that lets users track and customize the tool’s performance for unmatched productivity. You can even track and manage the tool through the associated app as well. Many manufacturers wish they had that kind of versatility and convenience.
The customers have spoken and made this Sawzall a favorite among plumbers and plumbing contractors out there. Make sure that you add this one to your repertoire immediately.
Thankfully, times have changed, and technology has evolved to allow you to find the best job you possibly can with the most remarkable ease and convenience.
You don’t have to worry about lugging around a considerable amount of plumbing tools in some big, clustered van again; you can carry a handful of tools in your truck or car and have easy access to whatever job you might need.
Hopefully, this list of top-tier products inspires you to find powerful tools for your company’s arsenal. Our Plumbing Webmasters team would love to be your go-to solution for all things related SEO-related.
The Importance of New Plumbing Tools
Plumbing companies are competing in various ways, from marketing to customer service and equipment. Investing in the latest plumbing tools can be a major advantage for your plumbing business if you know where to look.
However, not all tools are going to be worth your money. As an expert in the industry, you already know how and when to use discretion when investing in plumbing tools.
Plumbing websites serve as a digital business card for your company. Studies show that your website’s first impression can influence customers to use your services or move on to a competitor. For instance, a typical user forms an opinion about your site in just 50 milliseconds. A variety of factors determine website quality and how users respond through engagement.
A quality plumbing website makes finding plumbing services easy and contact information, like a phone number and email address, accessible. Your website aims to generate new customers and help grow your plumbing company in the long term. Few companies master their web presence, but Plumbing Webmasters suggests ways you can.
Plumbing Website Examples
1) Westside Plumbing
One of the most trusted and dedicated services in the Fort Worth area, Westside Plumbing manages to set itself apart from the competition through quality and consistent work and a website that makes it easy for customers to navigate and find information quickly.
Westside Plumbing has a website that cleanly delineates each of its services. There are tabs for individual residential services as well as commercial services. You can find a dedicated landing page for everything from faucet repair and installation to garbage disposal repair and everything in between.
Best of all, their contact information is everywhere. If you enjoy what you see on the website, an easily accessible phone number shows up, so you won’t have to jump around to find contact info. The contact form shows up right on the home page with the ability to choose specific services.
2) Pittsburg, CA Plumber
There are countless plumbing services throughout California, and with good reason: it is one of the most densely populated states in the union. Surely there will be a vast array of services, all vying for the same audience.
With a clean website, Pittsburg Plumber manages to stand apart from a sea of competitors. They have a clean layout that makes it easy to navigate and individual landing pages for each service to make it easy to find relevant content.
Not only that, their contact info is everywhere, so you won’t have to jump around to look for a phone number or address. Some of the best services around might have websites that make it difficult to find even the most elementary information about them. That’s why it is critical to have engaging plumbing website content.
3) Patrick E. Chase Plumbing
Not every plumbing business has to have a fancy name to get the recognition that it deserves. Sometimes, all you need is a dedicated, professional service and a clean, concise website to bring you the kind of brand recognition that most businesses would love.
Patrick E. Chase Plumbing doesn’t have anything flashy on its website, just a clean design and easily accessible information. When you are trying to find the information you need to get plumbing repairs done, the last thing you want is to have to jump through hoops to find the information you need.
Their website also offers a blog that has helpful tips for a variety of different subjects. If you ever wondered what could make your water heater go wrong, their blog can offer you helpful hints. Smooth and to the point, this is how a professional website should look.
4) Lionfish Plumbing of CA
As mentioned previously, there are a considerable number of plumbing services are available throughout the state of California. It can be challenging to differentiate them and to determine which one is the best for your buck.
But Lionfish Plumbing of CA manages to stand out from the rest of the pack by providing quality work and a clean, concise website for their prospective customers. If you ever doubted the kind of service Lionfish Plumbing provides, one look at their website will change that in a heartbeat.
Their website is categorized cleanly and efficiently. Customers can navigate their way through with complete ease, finding the landing page they are looking for without a hassle. And never worry about finding contact info; it is on every page, making it easier than ever to contact them.
5) Hot n’ Cold Plumbing & Gas Piping
If you need plumbing services in the greater Huntsville, AL area, there is one name that stands out above the rest: Hot n’ Cold Plumbing & Gas Piping. They provide quality customer service and even better home services.
In addition to the vast array of services that they offer, neatly parsed out through category dropdowns and individual landing pages, they also have a dedicated reviews section. Testimonials are great for determining the company’s trustworthiness.
Hot n’ Cold Plumbing & Gas Piping remains one of the best names in the plumbing business, and their website is an exact representation of both the services they offer and their level of professionalism.
6) Piece of Mind Plumbing
Based out of Fort Worth, TX, Piece of Mind Plumbing is a 24/7 plumbing company and service. They are there whenever a plumbing need arises because they understand that plumbing problems don’t have a set of dedicated hours.
When it comes to their website, they make it easy to contact them with a few fields of information at the bottom of their website so that they can get your essential contact information. With an affordable and quickly responsive service that makes them a favorite throughout the area.
Don’t deal with a supposedly professional company that doesn’t have a professional-looking website. Turn to pros who reach their customers and allow them to get the information they need for the job. Piece of Mind Plumbing has a website that rivals some of the best in the business.
7) Service Force Plumbing
If you live in the Rockville, MD, area and need plumbing repair services, there is no name you need to know other than Service Force Plumbing. They have been a full-service plumbing company for years and selected as one of the best of 2019, according to HomeGuide.
They have a keen understanding of what is needed for customers when perusing a business’ website. They parse things out individually by category and service, allowing potential customers to find specific service pages and information.
In addition to easily accessible contact information, they also have reviews from actual customers so that you can see just what others experienced when using their service. A few websites are this clean and easy to navigate; that means your prospective customers find what they want quickly.
8) Sunset West Plumbing & Rooter
When you are looking for plumbing service in a hurry, you don’t want to fiddle around with a website that is not intuitive. Some websites can be overly clunky and make it difficult for you to find the information you need before selecting.
Sunset West Plumbing & Rooter is one of the best plumbing websites on the web. Their site is clean and simple, getting you to where you need to be in a hurry. Their contact information is all over the site, so you can get to them with just a single click, regardless of where on the website you happen to be.
They outline their dedicated service area to find out if you fall into their service area and not have any doubts. With the number of services they offer, they make it easy to find anything with a single click.
9) Top Shelf Plumbing
There is something to be said about the presentation. While it is not necessarily the most crucial thing, it can dictate what prospective customers think about your plumbing business. Having a quality plumbing website is of the utmost importance, especially in a crowded business like plumbing services.
Top Shelf Plumbing manages to stand out. In Orange County, CA, there are endless choices for plumbing services, but Top Shelf stands out for various reasons.
One of these is that their website is sleek, modern, clean, and easy to navigate. You cannot only find the page that you are looking for with little to no effort, but you can also contact them on one of their social media outlets just as quickly.
That level of accessibility and ease is what separates a quality company from the rest. Top Shelf truly is among the best around, and their website is evidence of that.
10) KRK Enterprises, Inc.
One of the critical aspects of a plumbing website is the color scheme. It sounds pretty trivial, but it’s true. Whatever the colors of your business or logo, it is essential to implement that color scheme throughout your plumbing website design.
It looks odd and unprofessional if your logo is one color scheme, yet your website is another. Color is a small but clear example of synergy throughout your website.
This kind of synchronicity is essential to display throughout a plumbing website. The pages that house your services should be clear and concise, which is necessary for your prospective customers to find the information they are after.
KRK Enterprises, Inc. does not have the flashiest of websites, but they grab the attention thanks to their bright color scheme and a well-laid-out group of information. Whatever question you might have, there is likely a link to the answer on the home page. That is a professional website.
11) Ingram Plumbing
One underrated yet essential aspect of a professional plumbing website that doesn’t get talked about is personalization. Many giant companies out there feel like big, soulless machines that are merely there for revenue.
When a company can implement a bit of humanity and care into its website, they have already managed to stand out amongst the pack. Ingram plumbing shows you their actual staff and actual job sites to feel what the jobs entail. Accessibility is essential when presenting a professional yet approachable image.
Ingram Plumbing continues to be one of the best in the business for many reasons, and its highly professional and fluid website is just one of many. League City, TX residents and those nearby should remember the name of this company.
12) Delk Plumbing, Inc.
A good plumbing company knows that it has to establish itself as trustworthy and reliable. Any business, actually, but it is even more critical in an industry where it is imperative to enter a customer’s home.
Delk Plumbing, Inc. goes through the steps to show you why you should trust them on their home page. They tell you the facts:
They are licensed and insured.
They are honest and professional.
They 100% guarantee your satisfaction.
These are the kinds of things that consumers love and come to depend on, and they have it in spades.
Delk Plumbing, Inc. makes it easy to navigate their site to find the service consumers are after to get the assistance they need quickly and cost-efficiently. It is hard to beat that kind of convenience.
13) Binta’s Mechanical
As a plumbing contractor in a world of plumbing contractors, there are a few ways to stand out as a business. One of these is establishing a trustworthy feeling and providing a professional, affordable service.
Binta’s Mechanical does this through its continued dedication to quality and service and sets that tone on its website. With their friendly, smiling staff adorning the front page, you get a feeling of who they are immediately.
They keep prospective customers on their plumbing website by offering their services on single landing pages and offering reviews and testimonials about real customer experiences. Social proof is the best way to get customers’ attention and make them feel like they trust and know your business.
14) Freedom Flow Plumbing & Heating
Some plumbing companies also provide heating or cooling services and require a more blended design concept. One such example of this is Freedom Flow Plumbing and Heating. While the plumbing aspects of the website are similar to other designs on this list, the additional SEO element brings a new facet to the site.
Striking a balance between plumbing and heating services is a delicate task. Obviously, the company aims to rank for both types of keywords, but sometimes the plumbing website design can present unique challenges. Luckily, Freedom Flow Plumbing’s website achieves its goals and also ranks well on Google.
The website’s header photo stands out among the crowd with beautiful imagery that is poetic and patriotic. Consumers feel comfortable browsing around the Freedom Flow homepage as they can find subsets of services ranging from HVAC to kitchen remodeling.
Finally, the embedded review widget in the site’s footer provides social proof for prospects who remain on the fence regarding services. Since the widget pulls reviews from 3rd party sources like Google My Business, the visitor knows that the feedback is valid and not embellished for the company’s sake.
15) BDS Plumbing
While a little bit of a comfy, cozy feeling will work for professional websites, there is also something to be said of a crisp, clean plumbing website design that showcases the services your company offers without inundating the customer’s clickable items.
BDS Plumbing accomplishes this with modern hoverable text. Instead of crowding their site with text about each of their services, they use a modern touch to put text over pictures when the user hovers. Expandable text saves space on the page and allows visitors to get the information that they are after.
BDS Plumbing is a name to check out for one of the top services in the state of Georgia. They provide the kind of quality and service that we all crave, but they also deliver it through a plumbing website that feels modern and classy. That style and presentation go a long way toward drawing in prospective customers.
Features of The Best Plumbing Websites
You can see fifteen examples of the best plumbing websites above, but what features do they have in common, along with other great websites across the web? You’ll find that while good sites look unique, they also share a common thread with other outstanding websites.
Below, we will outline some of the major features that comprise the best websites for plumbing companies in 2023.
Accessible Calls to Action
Websites for plumbers are meant to generate leads and conversions, which are only made possible through urgent calls to action (CTAs). The most successful websites feature multiple contact options with contact forms, clickable phone numbers, and email lead magnets.
In each case, it is critical to present the visitor with a value proposition, such as a time-sensitive offer, a downloadable file, or a special discount.
Branded Presentation
Have you ever come across a website that looks way too similar to thousands of other websites across the internet? These types of websites come from stock templates and often fail to achieve the mark of a great website.
The best plumbing websites showcase a brand uniquely and powerfully by showcasing original images of the staff and aligning them with a branded color scheme.
Clean Navigation
Nothing frustrates users more than poor navigation, which can increase bounce rates on your plumbing website. Sometimes a website might look great visually, but if users can’t freely navigate to other important pages, the visuals don’t matter. With this in mind, you can’t have a great website without great navigation.
Responsive Web Design
The best plumbing websites use responsive web design (RWD), which ensures optimal display across devices. Retired homeowners in their 70s can navigate the site on a desktop just as easily as a 30-year-old on their smartphone.
Catering to a wide consumer base is an essential factor for plumbers and properly showcasing your website across every kind of device ensures you achieve your goals.
User Experience
We spoke about navigation which is one aspect of user experience, but factors like site speed, site structure, and calls to action are also significant. The user must feel like the site caters to their needs and provides opportunities to access information.
Most of all, websites should load as fast as possible (in under 3 seconds) so that users can get to your content quickly.
A plumbing Facebook business page is a dedicated profile that exists on the Facebook social media platform. Plumbing companies need a business page in order to run Facebook Ads and display official business contact information like address, phone number, and website URL.
But how can plumbing companies actually leverage their Facebook Business page as part of a broader marketing strategy? At Plumbing Webmasters, we work with numerous plumbing contractors across the country as they work to streamline their social media marketing efforts.
Time and time again, we see that familiar light bulb go off as they realize the power that social media platforms (particularly Facebook) offer for their plumbing SEO and advertising efforts.
Because of the enormous marketing power that the tech giant offers professionals around the US, our team developed a handy list of pro tips to maximize your plumbing company’s Facebook business page.
Expert Analysis
Plumbers can use a Facebook Business Page to share content, establish brand authority, and generate additional leads.
Pro Tip #1: Share (and Re-Share) Content
Nothing adds fresh life to your website like rich visual media and informative guides. Google loves this type of content! With thorough plumbing SEO and proper formatting, your content may earn a spot at the top of consumer SERP results as a featured snippet.
Then again, there’s only so much real estate on your plumbing company website. Sometimes there’s simply no room for that high-quality video of a recent project. Your Facebook business page offers a perfect place to showcase your most attractive work that (for whatever reason) can’t be posted to your blog or gallery.
Have a Great Guide You’d Like to Share With Potential Customers? Share it on Your Facebook Business Page!
Unless your company blog already has a substantial following, content rarely travels beyond the page. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer valuable results! Much of Google’s ongoing website evaluations depend upon a steady stream of new content.
Facebook offers an environment much more conducive to sharing your best materials. That includes both organic sharing and paid Facebook advertising.
A New Content Lifecycle
The plumbing industry rarely experiences dramatic change, at least on a year-to-year basis. That means that the practical guide or homeowner savings blog you wrote last year (or even two years ago) still offers great value for your clients! It simply needs updates.
One of our favorite tricks at the Plumbing Webmasters is taking outstanding but aged content and refurbishing it. For instance, we grabbed an older guide, updated the content, added invigorating visuals, and re-released one of our favorite plumber marketing guides (Your 2023 Plumbing Marketing Plan).
So how can your business take advantage of this convenient trick?
Recycling Old Content on Facebook
Step #1: Take any well-performing content from previous years.
Step #2: Review the material and make updates for the current year/audience.
Step #3: Add fresh keyword optimization. Target hot questions from People Also Ask.
Step #4: Infuse fresh visuals, including diagrams, photos, and/or infographics.
Step #5: Re-post on your company blog page.
Step #6: Post the new version to Facebook (minus any internal site links).
Pro Tip #2: Build Your Brand
Think of your Facebook business page as the younger brother to your company website. Not only does it offer your customers valuable information about your operating times, reviews, etc., but it also provides you with opportunities to enhance your brand image!
You can convey three essential qualities about your business: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Also known as the E-E-A-T factors, these traits promote deeper interest with prospective clients and higher rankings on Google SERPs.
E-A-T Up!
So how can plumbing contractors use their Facebook business page to create stronger relationships? Look for activities that naturally develop your E-A-T factors! Below, we identify ways to develop your Facebook profile in a way that emphasizes these qualities.
Qualifying Expertise
Does your plumbing company offer the necessary credentials and experience to warrant a higher ranking on Google SERPs? That’s the question that the search engine tries to answer every time it evaluates content from your website.
After all, directing people to an un-certified professional would reflect poorly on Google’s listing capabilities. That’s why plumbing contractors must properly showcase their…
State License(s) and/or Certification(s)
Brand Certifications
Training Certifications
Related Association Membership Badges
Years of Experience
All of these website elements show that the company and employed individuals offer the necessary expertise to provide quality service. Your Facebook business page deserves the same treatment. After all, some homeowners shop exclusively through Facebook.
Be sure that your certifications and licenses are featured prominently on your Facebook homepage (or under a “Licenses” page). Likewise, anyone creating blog posts or having content posted under their name should also have their credentials visible at the top or the bottom of the page in a brief bio.
Displaying Authority
Who would you trust more: a master plumber with 20 years of experience or a hobbyist without certifications? Expertise focuses explicitly on the qualifications of a business and its employees.
According to Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, authoritativeness examines the website as a whole, the content within, and the authority of the plumbing contractors.
Questions Google Might Ask
Does the website incorporate professional design with competent navigation?
Does the content link to authoritative industry sources?
Does the site review and refine content on a regular basis?
How often does the site produce new content?
What are the content developer’s qualifications on the subject?
How many other sites link back to material on this website?
If your business has already been around for years, odds are you and your employees already have significant industry knowledge that’s worth sharing. Share your professional insights (or have a content writer ghostwrite them for you) in a simple guide.
Just make sure you proudly share your credentials in certification form or in a bio (as in the example above). Authoritative content shared by an experienced industry authority makes for good plumber SEO and great shareability!
Earning Trust
Trustworthiness offers a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, you can easily spell out the various activities and qualities necessary to earn trust. On the other, building rapport with followers and customers takes genuine effort and (often) a lot of time.
The fastest way to prove your company’s trustworthiness is to let your happy customers lay the groundwork!
Of course, you’ll have to ask for reviews to receive them! If you haven’t already, try creating a special “Please Review Us!” card (or text program) that your professionals can distribute to customers after a job. Facebook page is the perfect place for reviews for many reasons.
Why Facebook Business Reviews Are Awesome
They’re prominently featured across each page.
Customers tend to speak more informally.
Your business can easily write back to customers to thank them.
Facebook reviews can be easily seen by Google, too, affecting trust ratings.
While it may be tempting, never erase negative reviews unless they contain inappropriate or hateful speech. Show a thoughtful attempt to address any unhappy client posting in the reviews. An unhappy review here and there actually creates a sense of credibility that you wouldn’t have with only 5-star ratings.
Pro Tip #3: Generate Additional Leads
With over two billion active users on Facebook, no other social media platform offers such a fantastic opportunity for developing leads away from your website. As we mentioned, your Facebook business page provides a second outlet for connecting with potential clients.
To support plumbing contractors and professionals in other industries, the social media giant provides incredibly sophisticated analytical tools too! Perhaps the most important tool isFacebook Insights.
What sort of information do you have at your disposal?
Think of this analytical tool as a report card for your Facebook business page, but one that offers infinitely more detail. Your social media marketing team can easily track performance, outreach, and engagement with your target community.
The platform also makes it easy to take your most popular posts and turn them into paid advertisements via the “Boost Post” feature. Do you have a particular video or guide that people just go crazy for? Try turning that content into an ad and target your geographical area.
Speaking of targeting, a huge percentage of wasted ad budget can be traced back to campaign/target mismatch. You have the right promotional message but the wrong audience.
With Facebook’s ability to deliver pinpoint targeting (demographic, monetary, industry, etc.), you can rest assured that your advertising shows up in front of the eyes you want to see it.
Now you can reach new markets you’ve been dying to test.
Plumbing Webmasters & Social Media Marketing
Do you feel your team has neither the time nor energy to manage a Facebook business page successfully? Our team at Plumbing Webmasters would love to help! Our social media marketing team specializes in building long-term engagement and optimizing your page for search.
We also target those essential E-E-A-T factors (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) to expand your business online. Clients regularly experience faster lead development, increased ROI on ad spend, and superior plumber SEO development.
We get it; you’ve tried every form of plumbing marketing over the years, and none of it works. That’s actually how we started our marketing agency to begin with.
We tried to hire marketing agencies to help grow our home services businesses, and they did nothing but patronize us and rob us of our money.
Having now been in business for more than a decade, we’ve compiled a guide to help plumbers learn marketing and develop a comprehensive marketing plan going into 2024.
We didn’t pull any punches because we know what’s it like to be disrespected.
Plumbing Marketing Essentials
Company Brand
Google Business Profile
Website
SEO
Social Media
Plumbing Marketing Explained
Marketing isn’t rocket science. Every time you promote your plumbing company, you are participating in marketing.
In 2024, most plumbers resort to buying leads, but with our marketing strategy, you can generate free plumbing leads from various sources. You can beat these big companies at their own game.
While most modern marketing is digital, offline promotional methods like direct mail, print flyers, and networking are still effective, too.
Our guide covers every aspect of marketing for plumbers, not just SEO, PPC, and email blasts. We run the full gamut so that readers will have a broad knowledge of the craft.
How to Measure Plumbing Marketing Results
Plumbing companies can measure marketing campaigns with financial metrics like return on marketing investment (ROMI) and customer acquisition cost (CAC).
On a more granular level, plumbers can review digital metrics from Google Analytics and Google Search Console, including monthly clicks, monthly unique visits, and monthly impressions.
Because marketing can entail everything from Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to pay-per-click advertising (PPC), the most informative metrics will depend on your unique campaign.
In some cases, quantifiable metrics such as revenue or return on investment (ROI) can provide conclusive measurements. However, more granular studies will provide further context.
Executing a Plumbing Marketing Plan
Plumbers need information, strategy, and resources to execute a marketing plan. Without them, there’s no practical way to follow through or feel confident in the future process.
Most contractors and companies are pressed for time and don’t think they have enough to allocate marketing resources properly.
Information
Businesses must gather information before developing a marketing plan. For instance, study target markets, consumers, and promotional methods as a starting place.
Smartphones and WiFi have changed how consumers interact with businesses, and plumbers must adjust.
Still, be aware of misleading information and ensure you are getting your data from a verified source.
Strategy
Reading about the cost of a plumbing website can provide ideas and even cost figures.
Still, until you decide what you’re willing to pay for a website and how much ROI you expect it to generate, it isn’t all that valuable. Developing a strategy solves this problem.
If, through research, you can determine that you hope to make x amount of dollars through marketing this year, you can begin to formulate a plan that projects a favorable return on investment.
Resources
Planning and doing are two different things. Plumbers can have the best marketing success strategy but lack the resources to execute the plan.
A single person cannot possibly perform all the actions that make up a promising marketing campaign, let alone a full-time business owner.
Access to a team of individuals with unique skill sets is the ideal scenario for promoting plumbing services. At Plumbing Webmasters, our team meets those exact needs.
Call it a sales pitch, but we intentionally built a webmasters’ team to provide the skilled labor required to execute a marketing plan.
Marketing Basics for Plumbers
Every form of promotion is marketing. Whether you buy billboard space on your local highway or build a branded company website and publish it online, you promote your plumbing services.
Think about the times you’ve left business cards on the windshield of parked vehicles or left fliers in the mailboxes of nearby homes.
That is marketing. Marketing happens even when you don’t realize it.
When you discuss your service with an acquaintance, think of it more like a friendly conversation, but make sure to “sell yourself” just in case you are marketing.
Contrary to popular belief, marketing doesn’t have to be manipulative, but it certainly can confirm that same belief.
1. Any Promotion of Your Plumbing Service is a Form of Marketing
2. Marketing Includes Paid Advertising
3. You Don’t Have To “Manipulate” People To Be Good At Marketing
Ways to Market Plumbing Services
At Plumbing Webmasters, our specialty is online marketing. There are many forms of promotion within the online marketing category, but offline promotion exists.
The more traditional forms of advertising like print, billboards, and even radio/television are all conducted without the need for an internet connection.
They also no longer work very well. Very few consumers find plumbers through offline channels in 2024.
Instead, they visit Google and search for nearby plumbing companies and often compare and contrast them based on customer reviews from their Google Business Profile, Facebook, or Yelp pages.
They might also check platforms like Instagram and YouTube to further understand the brand and its trustworthiness.
An inbound strategy organically pulls potential customers into your services, while an outbound strategy goes out and gets them.
Most traditional forms of marketing (including advertising) are considered outbound. Newer methods, most famously SEO, are categorized as inbound promotion.
The main distinction between the two is that outbound marketing is both intrusive and interruptive, while inbound marketing is notably less so.
Since outbound promotion relies on “going out to get” potential customers, it tends to require a more significant financial investment.
The most common example of this is Google Ads (PPC), a modern form of outbound promotion that costs much more to execute than SEO, which is the contemporary face of inbound marketing.
Billboard Advertising
One old-school promotional tactic that has been rendered obsolete by the onset of inbound marketing strategies, mainly digitally relevant, is billboard advertising.
When drivers pass a billboard for your plumbing services, the likelihood of the ad being relevant to them at that time and place is shallow.
Compare that to the relevance for someone who typed in “plumber near me” on their smartphone.
In the latter case, the person viewing your search result has already demonstrated a need for your services, which makes the relevance of the search result much greater.
It so happens that the cost of securing that search result is also much lower than the price of the billboard, making it that much more advantageous from a marketing perspective.
Business Cards
Although they are an old-school marketing tactic, business cards remain a worthwhile investment for plumbers, if for no other reason than their sheer cheapness.
The investment in these paper-thin promotional materials is so minuscule that any benefit at all would make them “worth it.” There’s also a degree of personalization that business cards can extend.
After completing a plumbing service for a paying customer, leaving them with a card that lists your contact information and a reminder to review your service on Google or Facebook can increase callbacks, customer retention, and reviews.
So, while business cards are unlikely to “bring in” customers, they can help retain and maximize the ones compiled through other marketing methods, such as search engine optimization (SEO).
Content Marketing
One new-school form of promotion is content marketing. Whether it is a social media platform like YouTube or a search engine like Google, content is the internet’s lifeblood.
Without content, Google could not exist, Facebook could not exist, YouTube could not exist, and so on.
The opportunity present for plumbers is creating content assets and marketing them through all of these different channels.
An example of content marketing would be writing a highly informative blog post about common plumbing problems and, sharing it on Facebook LinkedIn, and converting it into a YouTube video.
As word of this blog post spreads via search engines and social media, it would begin to funnel visitors to your homepage while growing brand awareness.
If it became secure on page one of Google, it would start to earn inbound links, improving its ranking even more naturally.
Creating high-quality content gives your plumbing company the opportunity to distribute it across multiple marketing channels.
Google Ads (PPC)
PPC is the intersection between modern and traditional marketing. The concept itself is conventional, but its application is very contemporary.
You might think of Google Ads compared to the example of the billboard mentioned above.
This way, ads are revealed only to a group of people that are worth advertising to. You cannot apply this same tactic to a billboard campaign since plumbers could not possibly track everyone who sees it.
While Google Ads are decidedly modern in their application, keep in mind that they are still a form of outbound marketing, which makes them both expensive and, in some cases, off-putting to consumers.
Google Ads imitate organic results on search results.
Print Advertising
Local newspaper ads or ads in the Yellow Pages were once enough to generate high-quality plumbing leads. Those days are long gone, and print ads no longer carry much weight to prospective clients.
There’s more than one reason for this phenomenon, but the most obvious one is relatively straightforward: nobody reads print anymore.
Okay, so “nobody” is an exaggeration, but the decrease in print viewership from the late ’90s is astronomical.
Most newspapers have transitioned to digital formats as their flagship distribution channel, and that is, of course, because their readers will only show up online.
Being mentioned in a newspaper article still holds value in 2024, but only if it’s digitally published and preferably with a link back to your website. Inbound links serve as endorsements in Google’s algorithm.
Remarketing / Retargeting
If one marketing method can be considered both inbound and outbound, it would be remarketing, aka retargeting.
Remarketing is the process of advertising services to someone who has already demonstrated interest in your service in one way or another.
This interest is often made clear through website visitation, but users can also complete other defined events, such as watching a branded YouTube video.
If someone browses your website or watches your video, their interest in your ad is theoretically more significant than someone who has not.
Advertisements can retarget these users using browser cookie tracking.
The numbers back up retargeting as a promotional method by showing significant increases in conversion rates to groups who have shown prior interest in the service.
The previous interest of the consumer was inbound, while your promotional targeting of them is outbound.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the most effective marketing strategy for plumbers in 2024. It checks all the boxes discussed on this page.
It is a form of inbound promotion; consumers reach it at their most preferred source (Google), incredibly cost-efficient.
Furthermore, it can be easily tracked, monitored, and analyzed at all times.
While paid advertising methods like Google Ads (PPC) require a real-time investment for a short-term return, SEO for plumbers necessitates less investment to secure a long-term business asset.
Once search results appear on Google, they can become an ongoing lead generator for years to come and cost you very little as a plumbing company compared to other forms of promotion.
Google is a constantly evolving search engine, so SEO is always subject to minor changes.
Ranking at the top of organic search results yields the best long-term ROI for plumbing companies.
Social Media Ads
You now know about Google Ads, but were you aware that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube also offer ad space?
Displaying ads on social media has become an increasingly popular promotional method.
Since an organic Facebook post on your business page will no longer reach any of your followers, advertising becomes the logical solution.
Ads, of course, can be expensive, but sometimes the investment is worth the trade.
Facebook ads can yield considerable ROI if adequately constructed, managed, and tracked throughout their lifespan. The process is not dissimilar to analyzing a Google Ads campaign, and the goal is identical.
Facebook’s Advantage+ audience targeting allows plumbers to reach the most optimal users online.
Social Media Marketing
Ads are not the only way to promote through social networks. Organic posts on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube remain meaningful assets for plumbers.
While they may not directly generate leads, they can help grow brand awareness and even influence local SEO by sending signals to Google.
Even if it is effectively a business listing, a presence on social media boosts authority and lets Google and its users know that you are a legitimate business and have taken the time to connect with your potential customers through social media.
For example, one way to utilize LinkedIn is to share blog posts published on your website.
Content sharing helps distribute on-page content to external sources, which helps SEO as a general principle.
Facebook is a worthy platform to distribute high-quality plumbing content from your website. Of course, your reach will be limited unless you invest in Facebook Advertising.
Sharing original photos and videos is also beneficial to plumbers.
Telemarketing (Cold Calling)
Remember the days of smashing your Motorola to pieces with a baseball bat? Ok, so maybe you don’t, but that isn’t so far-fetched to consider when telemarketers harass you in your home.
There was always a negative connotation associated with cold calls, but consumers are more aware of their tricks in 2024 than ever before.
As a result, the few times telemarketing did work have dwindled to an even less likely occurrence.
So imagine calling random strangers in your service area to see if they have a broken pipe in their kitchen.
Here’s a tip: if they do, they have already searched Google and found the plumber of their choice to rectify the issue.
Unsuspecting consumers don’t need you and don’t want your phone call. They might even block your number on their iPhone or Android device and make a note of your utter disgracefulness.
Cold calling is not a viable marketing strategy for plumbers in 2024.
Television / Radio Spots
In 2024, the crazy plumber who comes on a commercial when watching the local news is doing two things: embarrassing himself and wasting money.
Flashback to 1999, and he’s only embarrassing himself. But today, there’s no longer an incentive to do so.
For that matter, TV spots and radio spots reach a much narrower audience than they did 20 years ago.
The cost of advertising on either medium remains higher than it’s worth, and a commercial’s production is not doing plumbers any favors.
Uploading a self-made video to YouTube using only your iPhone device has an excellent chance of ROI than does a TV spot.
Like other types of old-school promotion discussed on this page, TV and radio ads are a form of outbound marketing that reaches a pool of viewers or listeners who will find them primarily irrelevant.
Aside from large brands and franchises, TV / Radio spots are typically a money pit for plumbers.
Truck Wraps
Draping your truck in a sized-fit and mobile promotional sticker is not a horrible idea, even in 2023. Although it is undoubtedly a form of outbound marketing and is not trackable in the way SEO or social media marketing is, it can still provide ROI to plumbing companies.
What makes it different than a billboard, you ask? For one, it costs less money to implement. Secondly, once it’s a part of your truck, it becomes a permanent business asset.
With a billboard or TV spot, you are paying an ongoing fee to keep the word out. The truck or car wrap can show your company logo, contact information, website URL, and anything else you promote.
Again, it can be a worthwhile investment because it is a one-time cost with a lifetime of opportunity to return. There is no fixed fee, and it can help brand your business.
Benefits of Marketing for Plumbing Companies
A plumber benefits from promotion in many ways. Assuming you develop and implement the best strategies, marketing can drive your business to the top of your market.
The key is to take the time to create a plan based on research and to invest in the labor required to apply it successfully.
Brand Awareness
Building a brand can seem like “fluff” from a plumber’s standpoint, but branding is essential for several reasons and is a product of effective marketing.
Brands are built on recognition first and foremost, but trust ultimately sustains them. Google has shown time and again that trust is one of its most influential search ranking factors.
By building a brand through digital platforms (business listings, social media, website), you legitimize your plumbing company with a strong and expansive web presence.
When people complain about Google favoring brands, they are bickering about the trust those companies have built through Google and the individuals who utilize its search engine.
Sure, is it hard to build more confidence than a conglomerate? Yes. But remember, local results get priority for plumbers.
Lead Generation
Plumbing marketing exists to generate leads. It cannot be any more simple than that. Leads are potential customers who connect with your business in one way or another. Both an email inquiry and a phone call are examples.
Leads vary in quality, and services that are promising “lead generation for plumbers” may fail to produce serious prospects.
Sometimes, they offer shared leads, which implies those same customers are given to other plumbers in your area, making them less likely to convert into a sale.
The best kinds of leads are exclusive, meaning the prospect is inquiring only about your services in an email or phone call.
SEO produces the highest quality leads (exclusives), which is another reason why it’s so valuable. Advertising, digital or otherwise, is also designed to generate leads.
Plumbers can purchase leads from 3rd-party providers, but creating your own lead generation process produces a much higher ROI and retention rate.
The downside of buying shared leads has been well-documented over the years.
Return on Investment (ROI)
The goal of plumbing companies is to make money. It’s not rocket science. You, as a plumber, must make more than you spend.
This simple equation is known as ROI, which is short for Return on Investment. The revenue must significantly exceed the expenses to succeed in business.
When adequately executed, marketing will yield an ROI, and sometimes one that is so significant it changes the trajectory of your life.
SEO is one of the most powerful tools on earth because it can help plumbers earn money without spending too much on it.
It can get you a larger home, a more appealing car, and a better education for your children.
No, it does not guarantee you any of those things, but it gives you a chance, which is usually enough to justify the investment in the first place. But plumbers must decide for themselves.
Defining an Audience
No one can fully explain marketing without discussing the importance of a target audience. Sure, promotion in itself can reach anyone, anywhere, anytime.
But as we discussed with some of the specific methods, that is not always the best course of action.
It makes far more sense from both a practical and financial standpoint to promote services to a defined subgroup of people.
Who belongs to this subgroup is determined by you as a plumber and us as your marketing adviser.
Demographics
Age, education level, lifestyle, profession, relationship status, residence status. These are each an example of a demographic. Plumbing contractors might find one or more of these quite helpful when defining their target audience.
Let’s take residence, for example. Plumbing services are highly relevant for individuals who own and live in homes (homeowners). After all, they, as a homeowner, are responsible for the plumbing.
Now, let’s compare that to people who rent homes or apartments. These people are not liable for plumbing maintenance.
So, by and large, they aren’t on the lookout for your services. As you might imagine, promoting services only to homeowners and not home renters is cost-effective.
Demographic targeting is one of the most efficient ways to maximize ad spend on Facebook and other platforms.
Medium
Reaching a prospective customer requires some vehicle, and we don’t mean your plumbing truck. We are alluding to the medium or channel through which the prospect learns of your services.
We’ve detailed options and which of them we believe are the most effective in 2024.
In our opinion, Google is the number one medium through which to reach a potential client, and the data backs this up. With this in mind, SEO becomes a clear-cut choice for plumbing marketing.
Keep in mind that companies are not limited to only one channel. You can reach prospects on both Google and social media, for example. You can even use a truck wrap and also use Google Ads. There’s plenty of flexibility.
Radius
As a plumber with ambition, your service radius might be “optimistic,” to put it kindly. Contractors’ truth is that they should not market services to locations they cannot serve efficiently.
It can compromise your business if it takes 2 hours to deploy a truck to an area you market.
Not only are you spending on fuel it takes to get there and back, but you are providing a substandard service and one that a company with a closer radius could easily outperform.
Focusing on a radius that you can serve optimally will improve your performance and likely help your company build a superior reputation, including online reviews on Google and Facebook.
Tracking Marketing Data
We identified measurement as one of the three core elements of marketing. But before you can measure, you must track data. There must be a large enough sample of data to make a measurement worthwhile.
Several tools exist that can help plumbers track their marketing data:
Facebook Insights
Facebook Page Insights is the platform’s native analytics tool that tracks the behaviors of users who visit or interact with your page or posts.
Page Insights is the most potent native social media tracking tool available online. As we noted before, Facebook is no longer a network on which to reach consumers organically.
To bring people closer together, they changed the algorithm to return the focus to human interactions rather than business or brand to humans.
That’s not great news for plumbers, but Facebook Insights remains a useful tool for tracking Facebook users’ behavior.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 is the number one tracking tool available online. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, it tracks data using the best source we possibly have, Google itself.
GA4 can track data from both SEO and paid advertising campaigns. Although they don’t reveal every bit of information, you can’t see all of the terms people search for to enter your website.
GA4 provides enough to give plumbing companies a good idea about where improvements are necessary and where their successes originate.
To install Google Analytics 4 on a website, you must embed the code within the HTML. Contact a local website designer or programmer if you don’t know how to do this yourself.
HubSpot Marketing
HubSpot Marketing is a marketing analytics software that tracks data from all of your different promotional channels.
Unlike Facebook Audience Insights or Google Analytics, HubSpot Marketing can organize information from multiple sources into a single unified dashboard.
It empowers plumbers to analyze their data from a broader view.
While HubSpot Marketing helps track data as it flows in, its utility is even more impactful than that. The ultimate goal of this tool is to increase website conversion rates for businesses.
Other kinds of software like HS exist on the web, but most independent evaluators rank it as the most prominent marketing analytics software available.
Plumbing Marketing Services
Many contractors have a fundamental question about marketing: is there someone who can do it for me?
The answer is yes. Plumbing Webmasters markets plumbers all across the United States of America and helps them reach their business goals each year. Our process is not complicated.
We have a team of 15 skilled webmasters who perform the skilled labor required for an effective marketing campaign. We handle everything from design (custom websites) to plumbing SEO services.
Here’s a full breakdown:
Content
Our content team includes professional writers trained regularly in the latest SEO practices and whose work is verified by an on-staff editor.
There is a saying in the SEO industry: content is king. That’s because Google has publicly stated its affinity for quality content and cites it as the most critical factor in a page’s value.
We produce highly relevant content that is original, relevant, and unique. Each piece of content published on Plumbing Webmasters’ designed websites passes Copyscape to confirm its uniqueness and avoid duplicate content issues.
Our writers are knowledgeable about plumbing services and write content for your consumers. We never engage in black-hat content tricks like keyword stuffing. We are a white-hat SEO company.
Design (Custom Websites)
Our website design team includes professionals with experience in marketing for plumbers. Each site built by our staff is custom-made and optimized for search.
But most importantly, it is designed with clean code and schema markup.
When HTML code is clean, CSS style sheets are advanced, and schema markup microdata is incorporated, the sky’s the limit for plumbing websites.
Visual appeal is also a consideration under the Plumbing Webmasters design team’s watchful eye.
Although the presentation does not reveal the code behind it, having an aesthetically pleasing display can increase conversion rates on a plumbing company website.
A practical design integrates your company logo and color scheme.
Mapping
There’s a saying in marketing, “Put yourself on the map,” and it’s never been more literal than in 2024. Today, “the map” in its most literal sense is Google Maps.
Search queries are adjusted based on the searcher’s geo-location concerning the search result.
Local SERPs yield a group of results known as the Local Map Pack, which is 3 Google Maps listings that are most relevant to the user, based primarily on their location.
Google Maps links with Google Business Profile to show the aggregate star rating of a plumbing company.
When Plumbing Webmasters conducts mapping services, we verify your Google Business Profile’s location and optimize it for local search.
We also go to great lengths to ensure that you optimize your Google Business Profile, including the presence of favorable reviews that we help you generate with DataPins software.
The Map 3-Pack is a prominent ranking position for local plumbing companies.
Reputation Management
Part of the promotion is reputation. How can a plumber most effectively market himself without a solid reputation? For many plumbers, reputation starts with becoming known in their local community.
Establishing a name can be challenging enough on its own, but maintaining a favorable perception is even more difficult.
The first step in gaining notoriety is to install DataPins software from Plumbing Webmasters. It makes the process of leaving reviews more convenient for customers.
They can visit your website and directly submit feedback to Google or Facebook without ever having to leave your site.
Additionally, the software sends text reminders with links so customers don’t forget to do it at home.
To maintain a positive reputation, try to do a great job on services and always monitor review platforms for any negativity. If it exists, respond professionally and request its removal if it is unfounded.
Optimization
The objective of SEO is to optimize every aspect of your plumbing company’s web presence. Some mistakenly believe SEO is explicitly reserved and only for a website.
That is not the case. SEO expands far beyond your main website — although it helps to have one as a central hub. Business directories, external domains, and social media pages are examples of web properties that encompass SEO on a larger scale.
There was a time when a website was the only viable destination for a prospective client, but that is no longer the case.
Google can no longer grade websites exclusive from other factors, including but not limited to citation sources and social media signals.
Inbound links remain an SEO factor whether Google chooses to dismiss it or not. Sites with quality links generally outperform those without them.
Final Thoughts on a Plumbing Marketing Plan
It is essential to have a marketing plan before embarking on your journey as a business owner.
The successful plumbing companies are not high up on Google because they’re big; they’re big because they’re high up on Google.
And you can be, too, by implementing your marketing plan.
While you may not use every suggestion in this post, it is important to cover the essentials like a Google My Business listing, a company website, and proper search engine optimization.
If you require assistance, feel free to reach out to Plumbing Webmasters to streamline your marketing plan and get more customers.
It’s no surprise that social media is all the rage…and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Facebook marketing still dominates most of the attention of business owners who seek to leverage social media marketing to grow and appeal to new customers.
But Instagram emerges as a viable lead source for plumbing repairs, especially taking into consideration that 60% of Instagram users check in with the app daily. That’s a dedicated user!
It’s a wise business owner indeed who realizes that meeting potential plumbing customers right where they are — often checking their social media feeds — is a natural way to make Instagram Marketing a powerful tool in building your business.
Today we’re going to share a few tips for using Instagram Stories as a way to get maximum attention, bypassing the challenging (for businesses) feed algorithm, and standing out well from the competition for target customers.
What Is Instagram Stories And Why Should Plumbers Use It?
Admittedly, plumbers probably aren’t the target demographic when Instagram released the Stories feature in late 2016. No offense, but pipe repairs aren’t exactly sexy. However, as Hootsuite reports, Stories initiate Direct Messages for one in every five posted.
(Direct Messages — or “DMs” — are when users privately contact another user or account, kind of like Instant Messaging.) This represents a keen opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and foster relationships before the need for plumbing repairs even arises!
Instagram Stories are viewed at the top of a user’s feed from the app and may include photos, videos (including specialized videos like Boomerang, Superzoom, etc.), or text content. Because these are not displayed in the optimized feed for users (based on an algorithm that admittedly doesn’t tend to fair well for businesses), they tend to get unique attention and have become more popular than feed posts.
Stories mimic features in Snapchat and were so welcomed that Facebook (who owns Instagram) introduced them to their platform as well.
At a high level, you can think about Instagram posts as evergreen content that users are more likely to see if they navigate intentionally to your profile page, while Stories are like behind-the-scenes looks at your every day. Stories tend to be more informal, and given the increasing desire for authenticity on social media, this is often a preferred view to see users and businesses with their hair down, so to speak.
Example of text and poll features for Instagram Stories
Tip #1: Think About Stories As Content Marketing For Plumbers
As many of you know, content marketingis a great way to attract new customers for your plumbing business. In contrast to traditional marketing, this approach provides content focused on relevant services and information for potential clients versus advertising your specific company.
The goal is to serve the reader/user by answering questions and anticipating needs versus explicitly saying, “Hire me!” (Though that may likely follow when you do this well.)
Instagram Stories can be content marketing for your plumbing business if you share practical information, such as tips for keeping a home maintained according to season or a behind-the-scenes look at a repair to offering advice for locating pipe leaks.
The key here is that the information you share (the content) is helpful whether they’re in your service area or not. So while it’s a good idea to make feed content a little more tailored — perhaps highlighting local businesses you work with or sharing some favorite plumbing jobs from various neighborhoods you service — Stories are a great place to show up literally.
Let followers get to know YOU and your team by interviewing your stellar techs, and even give your shop pup some love. (You’ll probably get more engagement over posts of your animals than you do your team, no offense.)
Tip #2: Use Questions And Poll Stickers To Encourage Engagement on Stories
Adding stickers and text to your Stories is a great way to make them pop as users scroll through new content and optimize who sees what you’re creating. Stickers are found by tapping the square face icon. You can add auto-generated content like time, temperature (which could be impactful if you’re doing an extreme seasonal repair), or emojis.
Here are a few others worth playing with:
Countdown – This is an entertaining way to create a shared sense of excitement. Maybe your local sports team has a big game coming up. Create a countdown to make it known you’re involved!
Location – Great for attracting attention within your service area by tagging your location in familiar places. (Locations don’t necessarily tie back to a certain company or shop, so be sure to @Mention the shop to share the love.)
Poll – Poses a binary choice to followers, against which they can gauge other responses by percent answered. A fun opportunity for engagement and easy for folks to participate.
Questions – Allows you to pose a question and collect responses from viewers. This is an awesome way to start a conversation with users, and you can even share responses to keep the topic going and create a sense of community.
Screenshot of Stories stickers for Instagram Marketing
Adding text to video Stories is wise because many people watch videos without their sound on, so adding captions to summarize the content is key for getting the message across and reaching all your users. (Consider, too, hearing-impaired followers!
They’re often left out when Stories rely on sound to get the message across.) So if you record a quick repair overview using the Hands-Free function, which recently lets you capture sequential 15-second clips without having to keep tapping, you can add some text to call out your content.
(A little goes a long way. Keep it brief and use the Typewriter font for a sleek, simple look.) You should also add hashtags, just as you would in the caption of a feed post, to categorize your content and help new viewers find you!
Looking for practical advice on using the app to create Stories? Check out this post from Later for a step-by-step guide to Stories! They nailed it.
Let’s Address The Elephant In The Room
You don’t have time to think about stickers, hashtags, and emojis. We get that. You’re a busy professional, and social media is probably the last thing you want to focus on after a busy day of service calls and running your business.
Most home service professionals are farming out their social media marketing, and plumbers are no exception. This is a really wise delegation, as social media experts for SEO are far more capable of making the most of those efforts to increase leads and help your Instagram account boost your overall rankings.
That being said, I’m still addressing this post to you because it’s important that you understand the thought process behind why SEO specialists like us do what we do. Assuming you hire this out, how else will you know the value of what you’re getting (or not getting, unfortunately) if you don’t have a sense of social media marketing done well?
This is our service to you, whether you call us or not. (That’s content marketing, by the way. See, it all ties together!)
Tip #3: Make A Plan For Engagement In Social Media Marketing
To the point I just made, we’re fully aware that you’re not watching your DMs like a hawk all day long. But someone should be. Whoever you hire or delegate within your team to monitor your plumbing business’s Instagram account should prioritize staying on top of the activity. Why?
The Instagram algorithm is all about engagement. You need to engage if you want to show up for more users. It’s well known by now that not all followers will see every new post unless there is active engagement that lets Instagram know there is value in that content based on experience.
In other words, if you post self-serving content on the regular, overly promoting your company and being overtly “salesy,” not only does this not foster a genuine community (enjoy those Spambots, though), but your posts will rarely be seen by anyone. The result is a wasted effort, all the way.
However, if you publish relevant, valuable plumbing information aligned with an overall content marketing strategy for social media that aims to serve your customer base, then you’re far more likely to invite comments, receive Direct Messages, and get the kind of engagement that helps your company separate itself from the myriad of businesses that fade into the background on Instagram.
Your followers are giving you the green light to market to them regularly, so give that some respect and make sure you’re delivering value and trying to cultivate a community. If you just show up to shove your brand in their face, no one is going to want to play with you.
In closing, it’s important to understand how each social media platform works to best leverage them as a tool for growing your business. Showing up with the same approach across the board isn’t help you fare well and could hurt the plumbing social media marketing you’re working so hard to establish.
However, rocking features like Instagram Stories will make your brand memorable and worth following, fostering a loyal referral network that will allow your company to thrive!
When search engine users perform a search on Google or another platform, their query inherently contains an intended meaning, which is known as user intent. For example, the query plumber near me is intended to find a local plumber near the searcher’s location.
Key Takeaway
Creating content that not only optimizes for a keyword but matches the actual intent of the query boosts your website’s value and SEO.
At Plumbing Webmasters, we’ve discussed the importance of good, meaningful content for plumbers. Content can determine where you rank on search results, whether it’s a homepage, service page, or blog post.
User intent refers to a search engine user’s intention when submitting a query. So, for instance, if a user searches for plumbing, we can’t know whether they intend to find plumbing services, its definition, or basic facts about plumbing.
But conversely, if a user searches for plumbing repair services in Dallas, TX, we know their precise intention.
How User Intent Impacts Search Results
As the top search engine globally, Google aims to deliver the most desirable results to its users. With this in mind, Google’s algorithm attempts to detect the intention of every search query. As we stated above, some terms are easier to determine than others, but Google uses various data points to help pinpoint user intent.
As a plumbing website, your job is to produce content that meets every possible user intent for your target audience. For example, some of your future customers may search for slab leak repair services, while others may search for a more general phrase like plumber near me. Therefore, websites that meet the most user intent will generate the most traffic.
Types of User Intent for Plumbing Customers
You can break down user intents into different categories as an SEO specialist or website administrator. From there, you can target the users most likely to convert into paying customers while supplementing those top-of-the-funnel prospects with secondary users.
First, let’s examine the different kinds of user intent for search users:
Informational Intent: A user seeking information about a subject (i.e., broken water pipe outside house)
Navigational Intent: A user trying to find contact information about a specific plumbing company (i.e., jimbob’s plumbing contact us)
Transactional Intent: A user seeking services and willing to invest money immediately (i.e., plumbing repair services in dallas)
As a local plumbing company, transactional intent queries are the most valuable. Users conducting these searches are ready to invest in plumbing services today, and your company can be the beneficiary.
Conversely, information intent queries are typically users seeking additional information and are not yet in the buying stage. While this traffic can still hold value for future sales, they are not as immediately beneficial to your business.
Optimizing Your Blog for Informational Intent
For well-designed plumbing websites, service pages should meet transactional intent and convert most of your visitors who intend to buy your services.
But why limit your traffic to users who are ready to buy when you can also reach users who may be prepared to buy in the future?
With this in mind, plumbing blog posts are great for bringing in future customers seeking information about plumbing. Consider some of the following blog post topics:
What To Do When Your Water Pipe Bursts? (Tips & Examples)
How Much Do Typical Plumbing Services Cost in Dallas, TX?
How To Tell If Water Damage Is New Or Old? (With Examples)
7 Toilet Flush Problems That Indicate Severe Plumbing Damage
Aside from getting more traffic to your website and appealing to potential customers, your informational blog posts can also strengthen your services page. For example, linking a blog post about burst pipes to your pipe repair service page is a great way to rank higher on the service page.
Informational content typically garners more external links than service pages, so the link equity acquired from the blog post transfers to the service page, thus improving its ranking.
Leveraging User Intent in Your Plumbing Sales Funnel
If you think about your sales funnel with prospective customers at the top and information seekers at the bottom, you can better understand how to move people to subsequent sales process stages. For example, a user searching for signs of a bad sewer line won’t buy today, but they may eventually buy your services.
One way to increase your chances is by including lead magnets in your blog posts. A lead magnet is like a value proposition that offers users something in exchange for their contact information. From there, you can remarket to the user through email marketing and provide discounts and coupons, further enticing the person to keep your company in mind.
Navigating Vague or Unknown Intent
For some queries, the intent is vague or unclear. For example, a one-word query like plumbing is inherently vague, and Google cannot know for sure what the user’s actual intent is. In these cases, it’s best to analyze the search engine results.
If you find that the term mostly prompts results of service pages or plumbing company homepages, you know that Google has determined that most users are intending to find a plumbing service. Conversely, if you find that most of the results are definitions and guides, the intent is presumed to be informational.
In some cases, you’ll find that the search results are hybrid, meaning they show a variety of content types ranging from transactional to informational. These types of results indicate that Google’s data is inconclusive on the intent.
Final Thoughts on User Intent for Plumbers
It’s important to search engines and their users that intent is satisfied when performing a search. As a result, when potential customers search for queries like slab leak repair dallas your website should provide them with a page that clearly defines your slab leak repair services in Dallas, TX.
It’s also important to avoid targeting keywords for the sake of traffic alone. If your plumbing company cannot provide real value for the intent of the query, it’s best to avoid covering the topic. When users are satisfied with your content and overall website, you’ve provided an optimal user experience, boosting SEO.
Most plumbers think it’s all about Google when it comes to internet marketing. And while Google is absolutely the giant in the world of SEO, there are many “signals” outside your primary website and Google My Business listing that can make a huge difference in how you rank in Google searches for plumbing services. For example, social media marketing for plumbers is a great avenue to develop new customers and send good vibes for Google rankings, too.
As with anything else, knowing how to make the most impact with social media marketing for plumbing will help you invest your time and advertising budget wisely. So today, we’re going to share a few key ways to take your social media pages to the next level and leverage the incredible exposure of those platforms to gain more customers.
Everyone And Their Mom Is On Social Media
Graph showing the percentage of U.S. adults who use at least one social media site (Source: Pew Research Center)
Take a gander at the graph above. Of U.S. adults between 18-49, over 75% are on at least one social media platform. These sites aren’t going away; in fact, most are gaining traction and diversifying. The way we take in news and information has drastically changed over the last few decades, and plumbing social media will be evermore a driving force in this space. The influence on buying decisions is significant, so you don’t want to miss the boat on reaching potential customers. If this research tells us anything, it’s that your core customer base is on social media.
Social Media Algorithms To Get More Plumbing Customers
There is not enough space here to go into every single algorithm for all the social media platforms, but we will cover some of the basics for the most popular platforms at a high level to give you a nice boost. One of the most important things to understand is that the best practices for ranking well with organic SEO don’t work the same on sites like Facebook and Instagram. (Facebook owns Instagram, so you’ll see a lot of overlap in their approach and algorithmic preferences.)
The Facebook Algorithm
At the beginning of 2018, Facebook announced a new algorithm that would unabashedly favor “meaningful interactions.” The powerhouse platform shifted its focus on commenting and sharing as signals of interest versus simply liking a post or page. Passive actions aren’t going to get you on the radar with the incredible volume of users that Facebook boasts.
Facebook is still the reigning king of social media, so you’ve got to show up. An excellent way to consider optimizing your Facebook business page is to remember that it’s a social network. As a result, you should engage within Facebook and leverage all the tools available to stay ingrained in that space.
An article from Hootsuite gave some excellent advice for those who use Facebook Pages, as they are more likely to take a hit given the inherent lack of engagement typical of those accounts:
“…Brands should create quality content focused on sparking conversations between users. Try including questions in your posts, or writing about timely, relevant topics that users are sure to have an opinion on.”
Now, let’s be honest: plumbing repairs aren’t the sexiest topic ever. However, suppose you see your mission for content marketing for plumbing services as serving up valuable information on something you know very well. In that case, you’ll be better poised to write posts that deliver. Ask questions, seek feedback, keep it light. For example, as followers to share their most frustrating home repair story, or perhaps the funniest/most embarrassing.
But here’s a critical point:
Don’t respond with sales pitches or sound like an advertisement.
Respond like a living, breathing human.
Laugh with them, or cringe with them, and make your comment specific to what they’re saying.
You can promote engagement and demonstrate that your page isn’t a dull, stagnant sales tool but rather a community worth engaging with regularly.
The Instagram Algorithm
Let me start with a sobering stat: according to an article from Later about the algorithm change, an estimated 10% of your audience on Instagram is seeing your posts. Brutal, right? But that doesn’t mean you should ditch Instagram. Of the U.S. adults who use Instagram, 60% check it daily, according to Pew. That’s significant engagement and an opportunity not to be missed for your plumbing business. These realities mean that you must play by the rules and plan posts to perform best.
Since the algorithm that drives Instagram feeds is also all about engagement, you need to take some specific steps to help boost the perception of interaction with your followers. These include:
Encourage followers to “DM us for details!” – This drives traffic to your Direct Messages inbox, which is like private mail to which you can respond within the app, and also allows you to foster more direct relationships with customers.
Respond faithfully and quickly – If you never respond to comments and DMs, or if it takes you months to do so, you’re going to take a hit. Social media is supposed to be social, so remember that and treat comments and DMs as viable plumbing leads.
Use Stories to appeal to more followers – Stories are a great way to escape the feed a bit and engage uniquely with followers.
Write meaningful captions – Even though Instagram is a visual platform, the captions are how users can send signals about their interests. If you write great, helpful Instagram captions — treating it like all your other plumbing content — then followers are more likely to read them. The time spent reading your post is measured, and that attention could mean you’re showing up on feeds more prominently.
The YouTube Algorithm
If you think that social media marketing for plumbing doesn’t have a place on YouTube, you’d be sorely mistaken. At the top of the pack, 73% of U.S. adults use YouTube. Let me repeat that: almost three-quarters of Americans are on YouTube.
The critical takeaway for successful YouTube marketing is to deliver video content that users want. You wouldn’t believe how many people post videos that sound good based on their keyword-stuffed title for clickbait, only to fail to deliver anything of actual value. Likes nor clicks will get you better positioning amongst search terms for plumbing services. What will help you stand out are videos that are helpful, unique, and get to the point with the good stuff.
Increasing the likelihood that a viewer will watch and finish the videos you upload as part of your internet marketing strategy is far more beneficial than trying to cram a file with information overload. Our attention spans are waning over time, so focus on short videos — maybe 2-5 minutes — that respond to a specific need or question. Of course, videos show up best for particular searches (since Google loves to fetch video results for search engine queries), but the fact that viewers watch your content start-to-finish will bode well for how YouTube perceives your content.
Content Marketing To Get Loyal Plumbing Clients
I mentioned content marketing earlier, but it’s worth repeating that you have to see all content you put out there as valuable pieces of information. (Or not, in which case, ditch it.) Everything you publish should serve your potential clients, from an Instagram caption to a “How To” video on YouTube (which tends to perform well) or a long-form blog post on your website. Don’t think that the job of social media marketing is to advertise, but think of it as another form of value-add that you can deliver as a subject-matter expert on all things plumbing.
Because social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook measure followers, who choose to remain a captive audience for the content you put out, you must look at this pool as a potential referral and new client base that is more valuable than gold! They’re allowing you to market to them as a business, which is exceedingly rare in a hyper-marketed world, so position yourself as a significant source of information to help them better manage their homes (or businesses if you service commercial plumbing clients).
Diversify Social Media Marketing To Reach Customers
Perhaps you’ve spent a lot of time over the years on your Facebook business page, but you’ve given little thought to Instagram, Twitter, or any of the other top social media platforms. Diversifying your coverage will help create more branding opportunities and allow you to reach varied demographics to expand your client base.
People of all ages own homes and need the plumbing services you offer, but they’re all on different social media platforms, as you can see here:
We’ve given some specific tips above for how you can maximize your efforts for social media marketing to gain new plumbing customers and develop a dedicated referral network. Social marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or burdensome but instead can be a way to interact directly with potential clients regularly. You don’t have to wait for calls to come in; you can find them on social media every day, all day.
Hello! If you have any questions, leave your info below and we'll call you.
