Have you ever been ripped off by a plumbing SEO service company? With so many businesses out in the market, separating the wheat from the chaff can be a tough challenge. Today, Nolen and Jason talk about how to separate shady web companies from legitimate SEO services. They’ll also explain the differences between our team at Plumbing Webmasters and other digital marketing services. Listen in and check out our guide below, especially if you’ve been frustrated by web companies in the past!

Key Points to Listen For

SEO results usually take a few months after starting out.
Some SEO service companies use deceptive metrics.
Mixed-match online solutions often produce poor results.
Pretty websites don’t always perform.

Finding Your SEO Service Company

So you want to take your budding plumbing business online and pursue new clients? Great! Now you just need to find a dependable SEO service company to guide your digital marketing strategy. There’s just one question:

Who do you trust with your company’s online development?

Finding your perfect online marketing partner isn’t as simple as Google searching “SEO for Plumbers” and picking the first organic result. Admittedly, the Plumbing Webmasters team would be very happy if you did, but that’s besides the point. With multiple quality solutions available on the market, and a long list of poorly performing services, you’ll need to do some careful research.

SEO Service Qualities to Investigate

Familiarity with your service industry
Content writing quality
A service’s own SEO rankings
Typical time requirements (production & search results)
Pricing and results policies

The Webmasters Showing Up as a Top SEO Service Company

It’s Smart to Examine Multiple Top Companies, Including Their Reviews, Pricing, and Included Services.

As you cultivate a list of potential prospects, you’ll inevitably come across both winners and losers. Examine each solution carefully, especially when it comes to included services and promised results. Below we’ll explore some of the crucial qualities to hunt for in your SEO service company, and which ones to avoid like the plague!

Great Qualities in Your SEO Service Company

Look for the same qualities that Google demands from its listed companies: expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T, for short). Try to cultivate a list of at least 5 premium candidates for your plumbing SEO service company. Here’s what those characteristics may look like for such a business:

Expertise: Years in Business; Certifications; High Search Rankings
Authoritativeness: Extensive Content Production (blogs, videos)
Trustworthiness: Great, Uncensored Reviews; Listings in BBB

This certainly isn’t an exclusive list. The team you want heading up your plumbing SEO should at least be able to rank in the front page of their own primary keywords. Also, you should desire a company that shows clear knowledge of the search industry in their writing. Finally, great companies crave transparency. They’ll happily show you all their reviews, both positive and negative.

Red Flags For Plumber SEO

Reducing your negative options is just as important as collecting your top 5. For this, you’ll need a list of serious red flags that should automatically disqualify (or at least devalue) potential candidates for your plumbing SEO service company.

Avoid These at All Costs

Intentionally deceptive or misleading claims
Salesmen that try to exploit your inexperience with SEO
Overly narrow marketing services
Companies with no reviews in search or on their website
Businesses that don’t rank well themselves
SEO service companies that don’t understand plumbing
Services that guarantee immediate results

All business relationships must grow from a foundation of trust. Misleading or deceptive online companies are not worth your time or your money. The same can be said for underperforming digital marketing businesses (or “specialists”) that can’t prove their own capabilities. Finally, try to stick with candidates that already work plumbing companies like yours. It makes a difference!

Setting Your Expectations

One of the most destructive forces in a business relationship is failed expectations. With that being said, reasonable goal-setting both drives your plumber SEO company towards quality results and protects your business from wasted investments. Unfortunately, most plumbing contractors haven’t been trained on how to gauge success in online marketing. This leaves plenty of opportunity for unreasonable expectations to take root.

Dangerous Fallacies for Plumbing SEO

#1: “Search engine optimization produces results practically overnight!”
#2: “Search engine optimization requires at least a year to take effect.”
#3: “This single service can produce lasting benefits for your SEO.”
#4: “Our team guarantees immediate results.”
#5: “Our team ensures front page rankings for all your chosen keywords.”
#6: “Anyone can handle their own SEO plan, website development, etc..”

At Plumbing Webmasters, we’ve seen these lies cost businesses thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars in wasted investments. Let’s undo each of these falsehoods right here.

Google Analytics Results From Our SEO Service Company

SEO Naturally Fluctuates, Which is Why it Pays to Create Logical Expectations Early On.

Reasonable Expectations for Plumbing SEO

#1 & #2: Most business see significant results after 2 to 3 months.
#3: Optimizing for search requires hundreds of small changes that no single solution provides.
#4: Even Google doesn’t guarantee results, and your marketing team isn’t Google.
#5: Front page local ranking is a reasonable expectation for some keywords, not all of them.
#6: Few plumbing contractors have the required talent pool for handling pro-level SEO.

How to Measure Your SEO Service Results

Don’t let these points discourage you from pursuing a fruitful partnership with a capable SEO service company. We simply wish to drive plumbers toward qualified, trustworthy businesses that can actually provide lasting results. To gauge these results, you’ll need sophisticated metrics for your SEO strategy. There are numerous metrics your business can examine for success.

How to Measure Success

Localized keyword rankings (primary and secondary)
Site traffic improvements
Lead call, email, and/or text volume
Lower bounce rates
Heavier page engagement
and More

How can a business that is just starting out get a hold of these measurements? Unfortunately, there may not be enough data initially to track most of site related activity. However, there are still ways to track SEO progress. During lead calls, talk with your potential clients about how they found your services. If they answer “I saw your website.”, you’ll know you’ve found a winning company.

Of course, you can also track your keyword ranking improvements through the Incognito Search function in Google. Since these don’t track your browsing history, you’ll get more accurate results when you test local keywords to see if your brand is ranking. If your marketing company created a new business website for you, you’ll be able to start tracking results within a few months via Google’s Search Console and Analytics.

Team Up With the Plumbing Webmasters!

At the Plumbing Webmasters, we consistent and measurable results for our clients. Our plumbing contractors dominate the ranks in their local search results, often for hundreds of keywords. This naturally produces better site traffic, stronger engagement, and higher quality leads. Of course, we invite you to check out our reviews and see if they back up our claims.

If your plumbing company struggles with online search marketing, or if you’ve just entered the industry, we can help! Consult with one of our seasoned SEO veterans (for free) about your goals, and see if our business could be the right fit. You’ll quickly find why plumbers and many other service professionals choose us as their trusted SEO service company!

Simply call (877) 388-9884 to get started.

What Makes Us Different From Other Companies | The Plumbing SEO Podcast