Local SEO for plumbers is the most affordable way to generate plumbing leads in 2024.
However, there’s one important caveat: Local SEO is only effective when properly implemented.
I founded Plumbing Webmasters in 2013 and have worked on thousands of plumbing company websites since then.
My Local SEO strategy is based on concrete, proven data.
The Local SEO strategy I reveal in this guide has proven to work on 1,500+ websites over the past 11+ years.
My data-driven Local SEO strategy for plumbers reveals the following:
- Why Local SEO only works for some plumbers
- Local keywords homeowners use to find plumbers online
- What kinds of local website pages generate leads
- The relationship between user experience and local search rankings
- Google Map 3-Pack strategies for local plumbers
- The software local plumbers are using to build credibility
- The importance of local directories for plumbers
- How to spot Local SEO scams and disinformation
- And more – all based on my 11+ years of direct, first-hand experience with plumbers.
Why Local SEO Only Works for Some Plumbers
I am Texas direct and Texas respectful, so I won’t lie to you; Local SEO only works for some plumbers.
In fact, 70% of plumbing companies are unhappy with their local SEO provider.
So what are the 30% of plumbers doing that they aren’t?
They use data-driven local SEO strategies proven to generate leads and ROI.
I wrote this guide to ensure that you have free access to these strategies.
Local Keywords Homeowners Use to Find Plumbers
Homeowners use thousands of keywords and keyword variations to find plumbers online.
You can use a tool called SEMRush to measure the estimated search volume of various terms.
Let’s take the term “plumbing services,” for example.
SEMRush estimates that United States residents search for this or related terms 320,720 times monthly.
The number of searches in your local service area depends on population and demand.
Below, I’ll categorize keyword types so plumbers can better understand what to target in their website content.
Service-Based Keywords
Service-based keywords contain your services, such as plumbing repair, toilet repair, slab leak repair, or water heater replacement.
They also include general terms like plumber, plumber near me, and plumbing company.
These terms fall under the category of commercial intent keywords, meaning those who search for them actively seek to schedule a service with a plumbing company.
Most of these keywords will show an estimated volume on keyword research tools like SEMRush, allowing you to gauge the relative popularity of various services.
Google uses geolocation to determine each searcher’s general location (provided they are not using a VPN to block their IP address).
As a result, a homeowner in Fort Worth, TX, who searches “plumbing repair” will receive a list of Fort Worth-based plumbing companies on their search results.
Location-Based Keywords
Location-based keywords contain a city within your service area (i.e. dallas plumber, houston plumbing company, etc.)
These terms are essential for local plumbing companies as they are frequently used by homeowners seeking plumbing services.
Like service-based keywords, these terms also fall under commercial intent queries, typically from individuals seeking to schedule a local service.
Depending on your city’s population, these keywords may or may not show an estimated search volume inside SEMRush.
Note: Just because a term does not show volume in keyword research tools does not mean nobody searches for it.
Some search users prefer to specify their precise location within a query to ensure the search engine understands their request.
Other times, the searcher may be searching from another location (at work or on vacation) and must ensure Google returns providers in the service area of their home’s location.
These nuances add more facets to local SEO strategy for plumbers.
Hidden Keywords
Most plumbing companies conclude their keyword strategy after targeting service and location-based terms, which is a big mistake.
Over 60% of converting website traffic comes from what are known as hidden keywords.
These terms don’t register a search volume in SEMRush and don’t appear as queries inside your Google Search Console reports.
Mostly, these terms are “long-tail” phrases like rannai tankless water heater installation sugar land tx.”
It’s critical to your local SEO strategy that you rank for these hidden terms on Google search results.
While it might seem like few people search for these queries, the conversion rates for those who do search for them are considerably higher than traditional terms.
Users who use specific context within their query know precisely what they are looking for and will choose the plumber who best demonstrates that they provide the solution.
Local Website Pages That Generate Leads
Homeowners seeking local plumbing services don’t want to read a novel; they want to establish trust with a local business and quickly contact them.
Landing pages that generate leads align with these needs by providing trust signals like reviews and photos and clear call-to-actions like a contact form and clickable phone number.
If you can achieve both things within your plumbing website page while ranking on top of Google search results, your stream of exclusive plumbing leads will be consistently excellent.
Pro Tip: The “trick” is ranking for the keywords researched in the previous step without sacrificing on-page conversions.
Local On-Page SEO
Implementing on-page SEO is how you get your plumbing website page ranking on local search results.
Some primary features of on-page SEO include:
- Header Tags: H1s, H2s, & H3s
- Keyword Placement: Insertions of top keywords for plumbers within different page elements
- Meta Descriptions: 158 characters (928 pixels) shown beneath search results
- Title Tags: SEO titles shown on search results and the browser
- URL Structure: URLs displayed in the web address
Each landing page should target a group of keywords with a single user intent.
For example, plumber near me, plumber, plumbing company, and plumber dallas all share the same user intent and should all be targeted on a single page.
By targeting keywords with shared user intent on a single page, you avoid keyword cannibalization, which is a phenomenon that arises when multiple pages targeting the same keyword collectively dilute rankings.
Local User Experience and Search Rankings
After funneling homeowners to your site through organic search results, you must convert them at a high percentage.
The first step is establishing trust and credibility with unique photos of recent jobs and displaying reviews from verified local customers on 3rd party platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
The next step is encouraging the visitor to contact your business.
This occurs with calls to action or CTAs.
Examples of CTAs include:
- Contact Forms
- Clickable Phone Numbers
- Opt-in Forms
- Lead Magnets
In conversion rate optimization, the prominence of your CTAs can make or break success.
For example, red buttons with size 16 text increase conversions by 40%.
Implementing CRO onto your website pages maximizes the investment and impact of local SEO.
User Experience’s Impact on Local Search Rankings
Google’s recent Page Experience Update further cements its pledge to focus on users first and foremost.
You must keep the user’s needs first to achieve local SEO results in 2024.
There are various ways to enhance the user experience for your plumbing company, many of which deal with your primary website.
As plumbing companies serve a wide range of clients in terms of age and technical acumen, meeting everyone’s needs becomes an imperative aspect of local SEO.
Site Speed
Users expect sites to load in less than 3 seconds at the maximum, and that threshold will only decrease each year.
Your local plumbing website must load quickly, which requires a well-designed website and a technical SEO process.
You can test your website speed with various tools, like Google Pagespeed Insights, and address potential deterrents with plugins like WPRocket.
Pro Tip: Consider investing in a content delivery network (CDN) to speed up your website further.
Navigation
Your local website must serve a wide range of clients and be easy to navigate on all devices, from mobile to desktop.
Design elements like the navigation menu must cater to all users so they stay on your website as long as possible and invest in your services.
Mobile users, in particular, will grow frustrated with poor navigation and bounce from your website quickly.
Usability
With ADA compliance, websites are held to a higher standard, ensuring disabled users can use websites.
You must now consider things like text size, alt text, and voice recognition to meet the needs of all possible users.
WordPress plugins can help make your website compliant, but it’s also a good idea to consult with a professional web designer.
Google Map 3-Pack for Plumbers
As a plumbing company, nearly half of your Google leads will come from Google Local Map 3-Pack, which uses a separate algorithm.
Your Google Business Profile appears within Google’s 3-pack results for terms like plumber near me or plumber (your city).
Armed with this knowledge, every plumbing company should follow these essential Local SEO steps:
Claim Your Google Business Profile
Navigate to google.com/business and claim and verify your listing if you have not already done so.
You must create a new Google Business Profile for new plumbers or those without a listing.
This process will involve entering essential business information, such as your company name, address, phone number, and business category (plumber).
One step some plumbers forget is adding their business website URL into the website field.
This is a critical step because the Google Maps algorithm scans this website URL for brand information, keywords, and other SEO signals.
After setting up your profile, you must undergo a verification process, which Google completes through video, direct mail, or phone calls.
After Google verifies your listing, you become eligible to appear in the Local 3-Pack for Google search results, increasing visibility and lead generation for your plumbing company.
Publish Local Website Content to Improve Maps Ranking
In the previous step, I mentioned inserting your website URL into your Google Business Profile.
Since Google scans this URL as part of its local ranking algorithm, adding location-specific content to your website is essential.
For example, your service page about hydrojetting services should focus on services in your main service area.
Here is an example of a title tag for localized SEO content:
Hydrojetting Services in Fort Worth, TX | Nolen’s Plumbing LLC
The Google Maps algorithm will scan this title tag, giving your Google Business Profile a greater chance of appearing for “hydro jetting near me” within the Google Map 3-Pack.
Build Local Links
Link building on the local level is both more accessible and more organic than national link building.
As a local plumbing company, you want foundational citation links from popular directories like Yelp, Angi’ HomeAdvisor, and Better Business Bureau.
You should also pursue links from local organizations like your Chamber of Commerce.
In most cases, building these kinds of credible links will be enough to rank for your desired terms in your service area.
Pro Tip: You don’t need to pursue national links from major platforms to compete for local keywords.
Software Plumbers Use to Build Local Credibility
Google determines a plumbing website’s local credibility using an acronym, E-E-A-T.
E-E-A-T stands for expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
While E-E-A-T is not the name of one of Google’s internal ranking factors, it is used to instruct its search quality graders on identifying good websites from bad ones.
We don’t know the precise name of Google’s ranking factor (or series of them) that uses E-E-A-T principles, but we know the principles themselves.
- Experience: How long has your plumbing company been in business?
- Expertise: Which plumbing services, equipment, and brands have you successfully utilized?
- Authoritativeness: Do your brand, logo, and social profiles have any following or recognition?
- Trustworthiness: Have current or former customers expressed happiness with your services?
Even in cases where local plumbing companies check one or more of these boxes, it’s challenging to relay the information on your website in a way that Google understands.
That’s why more and more plumbers are investing in project showcase software like NearbyNow, DataPins, and CompanyCam.
Project Photos
In the age of AI-generated photos, 100% original images of your plumbing projects have gained even more value.
These unique photos instill trust in website visitors, something Google values.
However, uploading photos individually to your computer and then to your website is laborious.
That’s why software solutions that support project photos and their publication are becoming increasingly popular in the plumbing sector.
In the spirit of transparency, I should tell you that I invested millions of dollars in creating software that solves this problem.
Most of you have heard of DataPins, my software, which I recommend as the best choice.
Pro Tip: Demonstrating recent projects on your plumbing website is crucial, regardless of how you get there.
Review Requests
Reviews are critical to your online reputation, as most consumers trust them as much as personal recommendations.
Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp can filter out spam and fake reviews, instilling trust that the feedback is legitimate.
Plumbers can increase reviews by using tools like DataPins, which automatically request reviews from recent clients who were satisfied with the services.
Pro Tip: Depending on your service area, hundreds or thousands of reviews may be required to compete on Google Maps rankings.
Review Plugins
Fake reviews were a problem before AI, and they’ve grown into a full-scale scam operation.
That’s why review plugins that pull authentic customer reviews from credible platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp have become more valuable.
The average website visitor will never trust a review screenshot, which can easily be generated through ChatGPT or Google Gemini.
Instead, they will require a review plugin directly linking to the Google Business Profile and other verified business listings from various platforms.
All my plumbing clients have this kind of plugin directly in their website’s footer.
The Importance of Local Directories for Plumbers
Local plumbing directories, called citations, have always been a part of local SEO strategy.
However, not all directories help rank your local websites.
One of the first services plumbing companies ask about from their Local SEO provider is directory citations, which are well-known in the plumbing community.
Some agencies will leverage this to sell you thousands of citations as part of your “strategy” while neglecting to explain that many citation sources are not helpful in ranking.
Below, I’ll explain which citations are helpful and how to leverage them to improve performance.
Indexing
An indexable directory listing is the minimum required to impact your company’s performance on Google search results.
Indexing simply means Google learned about the listing URL and made it eligible to rank.
Directories like Yelp, Angi’, and Facebook are almost always indexed, making them valuable citation sources.
Pro Tip: An easy way to check if your citation is currently indexed is to search Google with the following query: site: https://www.yelp.com/biz/plumbing-company-name (replace with your citation URL).
NAP Accuracy
For indexed citations, NAP accuracy is helpful.
NAP stands for name, address, and phone number, which should maintain consistency across your indexed listings.
While the consistency component is not as significant or a ranking factor as some experts claim, it does help establish brand consistency for your local business.
With this in mind, any changes to your essential contact information (i.e., your plumbing company moves to a new address) should be reflected in your listings.
Website URL
Most directories allow submissions to include a link to the business website URL, typically tagged as a nofollow link.
While nofollow links are less impactful than regular links, they still impact rankings and credibility.
Nofollow links are especially significant locally, where businesses are not competing with billionaire organizations for search rankings.
Pro Tip: Website URLs in directory listings ensure any referrals you receive from directory traffic will have access to your website, which can be converted into legitimate prospects.
How to Spot Local SEO Scams and Disinformation
Although 70% of plumbing companies are dissatisfied with their local SEO provider, only about 30% of those plumbers are actively seeking a new one.
This prompts them to search for agencies online and speak to their network about the best options for local SEO services.
Thousands of other plumbing companies are either happy with their provider (the 30%), have an in-house marketing team, or don’t invest anything in local SEO.
Outbound marketing agencies (you know, those annoying sales calls you get) aim to scam this group of consumers into changing their providers, firing their in-house team, or investing in local SEO for the first time.
Scams are achieved through disinformation, which is the intentional manipulation of consumers to create a desired outcome.
In this case, the outcome is signing a long-term agreement with the outbound local SEO agency.
Local SEO Scam Red Flags
Anytime you receive an unsolicited marketing call, it is a red flag.
Most of the time, these agencies are better at selling you their services than performing them.
Think about it: if an agency was good at local SEO, why would they need to harass you at work?
The reason is that they are a sales organization fronting as a local SEO company.
Be on the lookout for the following red flags:
- Unsolicited Sales Calls
- Local SEO Audits and Reports in your Email Inbox
- Long-Term Agreements
- Mandatory PPC Budget
Local SEO Disinformation from Influencers
The rise in social media engagement has made platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube breeding grounds for disinformation in the SEO industry.
Be wary of anyone calling themselves a local SEO guru. They may not have enough legitimate clients to support their claims.
Any person or organization encouraging plumbers to mass-produce blog posts is spreading disinformation.
Local plumbing websites must often delete most of their blog posts and not add more.
Other familiar narratives from misleading SEO influencers include buying links, using black-hat SEO, and joining courses or communities on Skool and other platforms.
If their messaging feels far-fetched and they seek your money through digital payment, avoiding their channel and advice is best.
Other Local SEO Factors for Plumbers
AI Local SEO Concepts for Plumbing Companies
Google’s AI overviews feature, which uses artificial intelligence to summarize the answer to a search query, is now live.
The feature has thus far received mixed reactions from users, many of whom prefer traditional search results.
Although AI may eventually change local SEO for plumbers, its impact on local search queries has been far less than that of national terms.
Also, it’s important to note that an AI-driven search experience does not make AI-generated content more appealing.
Google’s source data (the content it uses to summarize answers) is pulled from trusted sources who manually write content based on first-hand experience and expertise.
Learn more about AI and Local SEO below:
AI Overviews
Overviews are AI-generated blocks of texts that cite sources (like websites and organic search results) where it found its information.
Overviews highlight human-created content that demonstrates E-E-A-T in the subject matter related to the query.
As a result, plumbing companies must continue to focus on creating high-quality content.
Pro Tip: Local queries rarely trigger AI overviews, so this feature is not currently impacting local plumbers.
Google Perspectives
Google Perspectives is a multi-layered search filter highlighting human-generated content from social sources like YouTube Shorts, Reddit, and other discussion forums.
Plumbing companies can immediately leverage perspectives by creating short-form content, especially video content, through YouTube Shorts.
The idea of Perspectives won’t be limited to the search filter and will impact which search results appear in the traditional results.
The focus here, once again, is on first-hand experience.
With this in mind, your local website content should also focus on experience and YouTube Shorts.
The best way to automate the experience process on your website is to utilize DataPins.
Authentic Brand Buiding
Google’s recent algorithm updates are crafted to support authentic brands.
As a local plumber, networking with your local community and performing excellent services will improve your online search rankings.
Expanding brand recognition through truck wraps, print ads, and billboards also assists brand building.
You can further enhance your brand by investing resources in additional digital channels like podcasts and YouTube.
Below, I’ ’ll break down these brand-building concepts in greater detail.
Offline Networking
Becoming a genuine community member will be reflected in your search rankings going forward.
Attending community events like sports games and fundraisers will help you build your brand offline and online.
Service Excellence
From performing genuine plumbing services to attending to your customer needs, service quality is becoming more of an online ranking signal.
Reviews are the most tangible measure of service performance, but as we know, companies with the best review request software tend to generate more testimonials than companies without similar software.
However, Google is getting smarter every day, and providing excellent services is starting to translate more directly into rankings, even without reviews.
Brand Recognition
Showcasing your logo through truck wraps, billboards, and print ads may seem like old-school marketing, but these measures are tied directly to online rankings.
When people see your company logo offline and search for your company name on Google, it equates to a metric called “branded search.”
Google counts the number of times individuals search for various brand names per month, which signals the recognition of that company and brand.
Podcasting & YouTube
The digital channels that can directly impact your brand are podcasts and YouTube.
As more podcasters and influencers grow their personal brands and generate brand partnerships and equity, your plumbing company can leverage this trend to differentiate itself from competitors.
Consider starting a podcast and YouTube channel to discuss plumbing topics and demonstrate your expertise and experience.
Pro Tip: Don’t worry too much about views in the beginning, as the mere effort of sending out these digital brand signals is a plus for your local SEO.
Final Thoughts on Local SEO for Plumbers
Local SEO remains the most affordable and effective strategy for generating plumbing leads.
However, it only reaches its maximum potential when adequately implemented.
Based on my 11+ years of first-hand experience since founding Plumbing Webmasters in 2013 and optimizing thousands of professional plumbing websites, I’ve refined a data-driven Local SEO strategy that is proven to work on more than 1,500 websites.
Throughout the guide, I have detailed the essential elements of Local SEO for plumbers.
- Why Local SEO works for some plumbers and not others
- How to target local keywords to drive customers
- Creating lead-generating local landing pages
- Enhancing user experience for local residents
- Investing in Google Map 3-Pack strategies
- Using local software
- Prioritizing local directories for SEO
- Avoiding Local SEO scams and disinformation
- Emerging Local SEO factors to anticipate
Since these methods are proven across thousands of websites and more than ten years of algorithm updates, there is no gray area regarding their effectiveness.
Contractors can use this Local SEO for plumbers guide to increase visibility, generate leads, and grow a sustainable business in 2024.
