When it comes down to the plumbing population, about 80% don’t take marketing seriously. These plumbers are satisfied with the status quo and don’t wish to grow their plumbing company and make more money. That leaves an additional 20% who aspire for a greater life, and business. These plumbers have made an important first step in the marketing process, which is a very personal one. It is the will to improve their lifestyle through digital marketing. They understand that without a deliberate intention to improve, nothing will ever change. With that being said, not every plumber within that ambitious 20% knows how to market. In fact, it’s only about 1 out of 100 of those ambitious plumbers that are running on all cylinders. Here’s what that type of plumber knows to do:
Organic SEO
Organic SEO is the best return for plumbers in 2020. Contractors with 15 trucks on the ground are dominating organic search results in their market. Not only do they show up on organic results for keywords like plumbing repair dallas tx but they also get plenty of searches of their brand name. Since they’ve been established in their community as a top plumber, people are seeing their yard signs, or hearing about them from neighbors and then searching them on Google. This is where reputation makes a major difference, which we will expand on more later.
Local SEO
For plumbers, in particular, Google’s Local 3-Pack is critical to lead generation. It is important that your business listing shows up for search queries like plumber near me and plumbing repair near me. The local SEO algorithm is separate from the organic one and is based specifically on proximity, relevance, and prominence. An effective SEO strategy is locally focused and involves optimizing GMB listings as well as company websites. Reviews are helpful to local SEO which we will expand on in our reputation management section for plumbing companies.
Reputation Management
We’ve already referenced reputation management twice, so it’s important to expand on the idea. Plumbers who succeed in 2020 have a positive reputation online. This is executed through review generation, specifically on Google and Facebook. Review software for plumbers like BrandRevu is the secret weapon to establishing credibility through reviews. The software sends SMS text reminders with review links to ensure the consumer can simply and effortlessly leave a glowing review of your service. The more reviews your listings accumulate, the greater your prominence score is and the better chance you have of ranking on the Local 3-Pack.
Web Design
Plumbers who succeed have an established website with proper design. We cannot stress enough that the best plumbing websites use schema markup, clean codebase, and user experience optimization. Site speed is a critical factor in 2020 and it is urgent that users can browse through your website efficiently. Call to actions through click-to-call functionality are equally important when it comes to web design. Mobile users should have the option to connect to your phone straight from theirs. Embedded contact forms that are mobile-friendly is also something to consider for new plumbing websites.
Content Marketing
Web design is great but without content, the site won’t make the impact it is intended to. Every plumbing website should have more than a Homepage, About us page and Contact us page. Plumbers with 15 trucks on the ground didn’t get there with a 3-page website. Instead, they had content written for each one of their services like water heater repair, toilet repair, garbage disposal repair, etc. Content is only effective when it is written uniquely and not copied from other sources. Google hates duplicate content and will not rank your pages if they flag it as scraped. It is important to use your content to internally link to other pages and help your visitors through a logical sales funnel.
The Plumbing Webmasters Plan
Looking to take your company to the next level in 2020 and 2021? Do you aspire to go from the 80% of plumbers who don’t care to the 20% who aspire to be great? How about becoming the 1% who dominates online through SEO, local mapping, and web design? You can be part of this exclusive club if you simply follow the Plumbing Webmasters marketing plan. For more podcasts, check out our series The Plumbing SEO Podcast wherever you download your podcasts and RSS feeds.
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