Does it ever feel like your plumbing SEO company is trying to hide something? Unfortunately, too many plumbing businesses get cheated by their digital marketing agency. That doesn’t have to be you! Thankfully, there are many red flags that can help you steer clear of shady marketing practices. Be sure to listen closely as Jason and Nolen discuss real industry stories that should serve as a word of warning.
Helpful Tips on SEO Services for Plumbers
- Watch out for bundled deals! These tend to cover up shady reporting practices.
- Many digital marketing rely heavily on PPC to markup their services.
- Month to month SEO services often work the hardest to produce results.
- SEO for plumbers should only require a couple months to start producing results.
Discovering the Tough Truth
“Bob” is a local contractor who relied on the same marketing service for two years. Despite his significant investment into online marketing, Bob noticed a suspicious lack of phone calls coming into his office. With growing concerns, he reached out to the agency that handled his PPC and SEO service bundle. As always, he heard the same old sales runaround that had grown less and less reassuring. So Bob decided it was time to consult with another marketing team.
After running a brief search of some of the top ranked SEO companies in his area, he arranged a one-on-one consultation with our team at the Webmasters. Pretty soon, Bob realized his nagging concerns were justified. Not only was his current provider using confusing reporting practices to hide their lack of organic SEO activity, but it was clear they were spending very little of the money they had allotted for PPC campaigns (and pocketing the rest).
In other words, Bob had been royally screwed for almost two years.
Does Your Reporting Come From Google, or a Less Trustworthy Source?
A Common Trend in Digital Marketing
Bob’s story is one we hear all to often. As an experienced contractor in a modestly-sized, non-competitive market, he should have been a rockstar in local search. But his digital marketing company had done literally nothing to optimize his website or his company Google My Business listing.
This trend fits many SEO services for plumbers: using flat fee bundles to hide inactivity and mark up prices.
Bundling paid search and organic SEO services together is almost always a bad idea, especially if the bundle is tied together with a long-term contract. Since contracting professionals see this sort of pricing all the time however, they think nothing of it. Frankly, digital marketing companies do a fantastic job of selling these services. Here’s what happens when a plumbing contractor steps into a long-term PPC/SEO bundle deal.
Part #1: They See Results (for a Time)
Most plumbers start seeing results, but not quite the quantity they expected. That’s because paid search campaigns start producing leads almost immediately. The initial influx of business is usually enough for most plumbers to grudgingly continue without contacting their marketing agency. Those that do speak out end up hearing the same familiar line:
“We’re working hard on your organic SEO, but it always takes 6 months to a year to start seeing results.”
Part #2: They Experience the Runaround
When leads begin to slow down, most plumbing contractors naturally start to wonder what’s going on. That’s when the confusing reporting comes out. Some marketing agencies appear more trustworthy by pushing their numbers through a third party reporting company.
On a side note: this is why you should always have your PPC campaign spending issued directly from Google. This prevents your digital marketing company from hiding the actual costs per click.
The reporting also enables SEO services for plumbers to cover their lack of progress on website optimization. Remember, successful SEO practices actually produce cheaper, higher quality leads for your business. Companies that make the most of their money with inexpensive PPC campaigns don’t want a productive organic presence taking money away from their primary source of income.
Part #3: They Get Addicted to PPC
What happens next? The same thing that plumbers experience when they purchase leads from a vendor: addiction. PPC’s slower, but dependable source of leads makes it difficult for most plumbing companies to part with their marketing agency. After all, who wants to leave a steady stream of business, even it if is smaller than they’d like?
Thus begins the cycle of PPC addiction, which takes many plumbers years to overcome. Those that do escape inevitably feel jaded against other marketing professionals that could actually provide real, lasting, and remarkable results. That’s why productive SEO services for plumbers have to work so hard to prove themselves!
