SEO for Plumbing Companies: How to Rank and Generate Leads Online
The only difference is that most plumbers tend to make a lot of mistakes with their websites…..
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Plumber SEO isn’t different from Real Estate SEO.
The only difference is that most plumbers tend to make a lot of mistakes with their websites. I’ll help you to fix that today. But first…
Is your plumbing business struggling to get leads and clients?
Or do you want to reach out to more people and increase your profits? Well, the truth is that the plumbing market has become more competitive.
But we can help you rank better in Google so you can get better leads. Book a free consultation today.
According to IBISWorld, the U.S. plumbing industry is huge, with a revenue of $106 billion in 2018. The number of plumbing firms has also grown by 1.7%.
Attracting a customer and retaining an existing client has become even harder.
Firstly, you have to deal with many other service providers in your city, state, or country at large.
Secondly, you need to keep up with the changes. I mean, you can’t still use obsolete technique and still expect to outsmart your competitor, can you?
In addition, today’s customers are more knowledgeable and this makes them very demanding. They will know what they want, will demand high quality service but are willing to only pay a very competitive fee.
However, the most challenging aspect of running a plumbing website in this modern times is being visible online. Gone are the days when consumers flipped through the Directory or Yellow Pages to find a plumber.
Nowadays, they simply go online via their Laptop, Notebook, Desktop PC, Tablet, or any other device and simply searching for a provider. Woe unto you if you can’t easily be found.
Did you know that businesses, which appear on the first page of Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engines, are more likely to be found?
In fact, statistics indicate that the top 3 ranked companies in the search engines will enjoy as much as 60% of the visitors, according to a study by the Groupon Marketing Team.
Remember that Google gets 84% organic clicks — which means that if your plumbing website is at the top, you’ll share in these targeted clicks.
So, what can you do to ensure your business features on the top pages? Well, you need to invest in the best and proven Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Fortunately, we have identified the key SEO strategies for plumbers and all you need to read this article to the end. But, before we go through them, how about we mention the importance of Local SEO?
Let’s consider 3 Reasons Why Local SEO Is A Must For Plumbing Companies:
When was the last time you used a local directory or Yellow Pages to find a service in your city?
I see, my guess is that you can’t even remember.
The days of the Yellow Pages are long gone. Like many other prospective service seekers, when in need of a plumber or any other service, you simply go to Google, Yahoo, or Bing. You also never go beyond the first 2 to 3 pages.
Something interesting about the search queries is that:
97% of consumers use online methods to search for local businesses while only 3 % will use Yellow Pages.
50% of mobile searches targeting a local business will be followed by a phone call, email, chat, and other contact methods.
40% of the searches done via mobile target local businesses.
20% of the search queries target local businesses.
Unlike the Yellow Pages where you constantly had to ensure the details are correct, add or remove irrelevant or obsolete information, for instance, when you changed your business’ location or contact details, SEO remains more or less the same.
That means you’ll continue to generate free traffic to your website if you do it the right way.
Your website, social media Handles, and other channels will not change.
And unlike the Yellow Page where the potential customer had to interact with you, in local SEO, the potential customer will visit your website or blog without you knowing.
All you will notice is an increase in traffic or queries. Statistics indicate that:
Local SEO has a Conversion Rate of 28% meaning that at least 1 in 5 visitors will purchase your service or product.
65% of consumers use mobile devices to search for relevant information without worrying too much about the source.
30% of searches carried out via mobile devices are more concerned with the location
If you want some free traffic to your website, we can help. Book a Free Consultation with Scott Keever today.
Local search engine optimization is very specific to your locality. It only concentrates on the plumbing services within your region. That means you’d use less effort, time, and money to target a specific market.
Doing so not only gives you a comparative advantage over your competitors but will also make you an authority.
As a result, you’ll notice an improvement such as increased traffic, inquiries, and sales within 30 days. In fact, the organic search results that you get would beat paid search and social media.
What’s even more exciting is that you will create a loyal following.
According to research by Google, “51% of consumers discover a new service or business via mobile searches.” More so, mobile devices are used more than desktop devices when it comes to searching for information or business.
Mentioned above are the key reasons why you and any other serious plumber needs to invest in SEO.
To save you the trouble of knowing what works or what doesn’t work, where to start, or how to do it, we have identified the best tactics.
But before we dive in, I want to show you some of the reasons why most plumbing websites fail. This should guide you in the right path as we discuss the strategies:
Before we dive into the local SEO strategies for plumbers, I will now tell you where plumbing websites go wrong. In this section, you will see why there are very few renowned plumbing sites.
Here are some of the mistakes plumbers make with their websites:
The concept of keywords has been sung over and over again. But where is the mistake? Where do plumbing sites go wrong?
Here’s the answer: given the nature of the business, that is, specialization, it’s difficult to come up with keywords that are centered around searches. Therefore, most plumbing website owners will resort to keyword stuffing.
Keyword stuffing is the forceful placement of keywords on a website. This disrupts the logical flow of content on the website. Avoid it at all costs.
Poor flow of logic will scare a potential customer away. Customers can be difficult people — even the smallest of mistakes drive them away.
Additionally, high traffic without conversion is totally useless. Just stuff your keywords, but be ready for the first step of your website failing. In other words, avoid keyword stuffing completely.
Most plumbing websites tend to be carried away by product promotion rather than conversion optimization which boils down to providing a good user experience for their audience.
While business rules dictate the need for strategic plans which usually span a year, online marketing has quite a unique approach.
Most plumbing businesses will tend to use their long-term plans a part of the strategies to implement for online marketing. This is a recipe for disaster.
Plumbing website owners fail to realize that online marketing is a dynamic form of marketing that requires constant reviewing of strategies in order to attract buyers.
With strategic plans, you’ll probably have to wait a year before reviewing.
You just sink your head in the sand for a whole year and when you lift it up, you expect some profit. Try that in online marketing and you have started narrating your failure story.
The reasoning behind plumbing is, who needs it on social media. The number of likes you will probably get might be discouraging. Consequently, you decide that your website and social media can’t blend-in perfectly.
For example, Facebook. This is a platform with more than 2 billion users. Judging from what people post and discuss, plumbing doesn’t fall anywhere.
This is poor reasoning and a move towards failure. Once in a while. someone will experience a plumbing problem.
If you keep an online presence by constantly posting about your services, anytime anyone has a plumbing need, you’d be the first person they’ll contact.
Even better, they will go straight to your website. Failure to generate traffic to plumbing websites from alternative sources can be attributed to the failure of such websites.
How do you link internal pages on your plumbing website? Am I redirected to another website when I click a link on your homepage? Or does a link take me to a totally strange page?
These are the silent things that happen to website users that most website owners, especially plumbers, fail to notice.
Hidden, irrelevant, redirected, and spam links tend to put off potential customers. If your website has any of these types of irritating links, then you have an answer as to why your plumbing website is not performing.
I know plumbing might not be such an interesting topic compared to health. This does not mean that in my plumbing website design, I should focus less on users.
At the design stage of developing a website, you still don’t know your potential audience. Assume it’s a bride you’re anticipating. You’ll surely want to impress her. Don’t discourage 60% of your ideal customers.
Potential customers are like brides.
A poorly-organized plumbing website will not attract users, it’s characterized by overcrowded content and difficulties in navigation. Very dull colors also make up a poorly-designed website.
Most plumbing websites tend to concentrate on already converted customers while forgetting prospects who are in the early stages of the sales funnel.
There has to be a balance. Don’t just inject more resources into customer retention, use a part of your resources to acquire more customers.
Plumbing websites concentrate on giving incentives to already existing customers who are set to take long before returning to acquire a new product or service.
In the long run, you will realize that you have few or no customers at all.
The type of content you’re giving your customers also matter. Plumbing websites that go deep into the details of their products, for example, describing the composition of a material used to make a pipe are surely boring.
While it’s important to write content to target search users, don’t sabotage your content quality.
In the product description section, just state the general name of the material and its advantage. Not every customer studied plumbing.
‘Low-quality content’ can also lower a plumbing site’s ranking on the search engine. If this happens to your site, efforts to recovery might take quite long., long enough to put you out of business.
How to implement the best SEO strategies for Plumbing companies:
There’s more to finding the right keywords suited to your business. Yes, you may include popular terms like the best plumber, finding a good plumber, and related terms.
However, if they aren’t relevant to your main idea, then they will have little impact. Using tools such as Google Analytics and Google AdWords will give you an idea of what’s currently trending in the market.
Better yet, use a simple but powerful keywords tool such as KeywordTool.io to conduct this research. Simply enter your primary keyword (e.g., best plumber) and let the tool do the rest.
Looking at the results, you can pick the right keywords for your pages.
As you dig deeper in your keywords research, you may also discover keywords that are very specific such as:
Emergency plumber,
Local plumber
Water damage repair
Plumber near me
How to treat water damage
Research shows that keyword phrases containing at least 4 words account for 50% of the searches.
Caution: Don’t optimize your page for a keyword phrase that’s long but has no definite meaning. Only target long-tail keywords that have a clear intent. See a few examples:
Water damage repair cost
Plumber for water damage
Also important is to know what your intents are. Are you targeting a curious visitor or you mostly interested in selling a service?
The format of the keywords will be dependent on the intents. For instance, a nicely written article on plumbing will enlighten a curious person who may not necessarily be looking for a service at that moment.
If the article is about “How to stop a leak” or “Step-by-deep installation of a faucet” or “how to choose a good plumber,” the ‘curious’ prospect may enjoy the thoughts that you have to share but they’re not ready to hire a plumber yet.
On the other hand, if the reader came to your website after inputting a keyword such as “water damage repair cost,” there’s a greater chance that the person is looking to know the cost and probably hire a plumber.
In your content, make sure you add clear and persuasive calls to action. That way, the visitor would either send you an email, call you, or even fill a form. For example, The Masters Plasters, a Rendering Company in Melbourne use a simple CTA in their service page.
Once you have identified the relevant keywords you’d like to target, the next step is ensuring they appear on your homepage and inner pages.
With the new Google Algorithms, it’s important to ensure you don’t place them everywhere or use the keywords multiple times on the page — as this can be deemed as “Spamming.”
Here’s a good example of a ‘keyword-stuffed’ paragraph:
You are better of using topical-related terms to create your content so that the search engine crawlers can better understand your page.
The optimization begins in Google My Business page and the website pages. On the Google My Business page, your goals are to introduce your services/products to prospects and customers.
This makes it easier for the search engine to find the web page and a visitor to easily understand your business.
The core pages (home page, services pages, etc) are the most important and are dealt with first. Next, you will go to the content pages, which may comprise an “About Us”, Blog, or FAQ section.
Your aim is to improve the performance of these important pages.
When your plumbing company is listed on Google My Business, a search user will see the business listed in the Google local map pack when they enter a relevant keyword into the search engine.
It’s therefore vital to clearly show your business name, Address, and Phone number (N.A.P.). Don’t forget to enter your business’ hours.
Additional pages about social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn…) and Directory Listings may be included.
Bear in mind that your listing on the Google My Business page should contain all the relevant business information, location, address, hours of operation, and contact. Nevertheless, you should keep it brief (not more than 200 words).
That’s exactly how your listings will appear in Google local map pack.
The next step is creating the right citations and links. Citations are what define your business. Simply get your business listed on local directories and industry websites across the web.
That’s how to get citations.
Citation focuses on the Name, Address and Phone number or simply NAP. With this information, the consumer will be able to identify the exact location of your business.
It’s therefore critical that the information is the same with that found on the Google My Business page. Ensure the details are also available on the footer of every page as well as the contact page.
After this, you can begin to apply for listings on the different directories, which include National & General Business Directories, Plumbing Specific Directories, and Local Directories.
Links are equally important?
Inbound links play a vital role in the ranking of the business. Inbound links are those links pointing to your website or page from other domains or websites.
The importance of inbound links can never be over-emphasized. The Google algorithm is developed to look for legitimate and relevant links that add value to your page and also your visitor.
It’s thus essential to go for genuine high-quality links from authority sites.
You can build more links by your NAP to Local, National, as well as Plumbing Directories or cross-referrals from family and friends, association and participating in charities.
Don’t forget to write guest posts, engage in link reclamations, fix broken links on other people’s blogs, get featured on podcasts, etc.
Like many other people, you pay close attention to what previous and current customers say about a business, right?
You tend to trust businesses that have many positive reviews when compared to those with fewer or a handful of negative reviews.
Your plumbing business will also be gauged based on the reviews and the more encouraging they are, the more likely it will stand out and rank higher.
You can always ask a customer to provide reviews after delivering a service. Having a simple form makes it easy for the customer to leave a review whereas sending review requests via email on a regular basis helps to keep the reviews coming.
The final step to implementing SEO for Plumbing companies is effective tracking.
It’s possible that your SEO strategy is working quite well but you still see your competitors outranking you for some of the most-targeted keywords. You can even see the countries where you’re ranked:
That’s why it’s important to track your results. Monitoring helps to identify your strength and weakness and allows you to modify or improve it.
The most critical areas to track are:
i). Ranking: Tools such as Google Search Console (previously referred to as Google Webmaster Tools), Rank Ranger, and other tools help to check the impressions, keyword performance, click-through rate as well as providing automatic updates.
You can easily use the “Position Tracking” tool that’s available in SEMrush to know exactly where you’re ranked in Google search results.
ii). Traffic: It’s paramount to know how many people visited your website and viewed your pages. Google Analytics enables you to monitor this and will provide comprehensive reports.
Generally, you should review the traffic matrix on a monthly basis.
You can also know the conversion rates of users who are searching for your plumbing services. If you set up Google Analytics well, everything can be tracked.
Are you ready to begin?
Creating a good and effective local SEO campaign will not only make your plumbing business rank higher in the search engines but also attract more traffic and leads.
Your target audience (i.e., people looking to hire a plumber in your locality) will be able to find your website online.
However, coming up with a good strategy can be a challenge to both seasoned and beginner plumbers. Fortunately, we have shown you the 5 basic steps to creating a good local SEO plan.
Better yet, you can Book a Free Consultation with Scott Keever if you still have questions or need help ranking your plumbing website.
CEO, Keever SEO
The only difference is that most plumbers tend to make a lot of mistakes with their websites…..
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