Is Local SEO for plumbers necessary? Yes, local SEO is essential for plumbers seeking clients. In other words, if you need more clients, search engine optimization for local search is important.
You’ll be surprised to know that the majority of the people in your geographical location search for plumbers online. They don’t have the time to move from one location to another, searching for a plumber to hire.
A study shows that 96% of people depend on search engines to find local businesses. 60% also claim to read reviews before patronizing a local business.
If done correctly, local search engine optimization for plumbers will transform your business. But how is it correctly done?
If you need help with local SEO for your plumbing business, BitChip Digital is available to help you.
All the same, I took the liberty to explain what local SEO is, its benefits for plumbers, how to do it, and more tips. Read for more!
What Is Local SEO For Plumbers?
The term “local” means your area of operation, in other words, where your plumbing business is. SEO refers to strategic moves deployed to improve a business/website’s online visibility.
Now, what is local SEO for plumbing? It refers to a combination of strategies deployed to help a plumber appear in potential clients’ local search results.
The plumbing business is highly lucrative. It is a multi-billion dollar industry worth $124.2 billion.
The plumbing industry grew by 3.2% from 2017 to 2022. The report also shows there are 130,348 plumbing businesses in the United States of America.
People will always need plumbers as long as there are pipes and the possibility of leakages or blockages. People will always seek plumbing professionals to help fix problems with their plumbing systems.
When constructing a new home, you must hire a plumber. You need one to connect the pipes and get the drainage ready.
So, there are enormous opportunities for plumbers. The private sector also employs plumbers.
Local SEO will help place your plumbing business where potential local clients can find, contact, and hire you. It will ensure you appear in the local search results of clients actively looking for plumbers to hire.
Effective local SEO strategies for plumbers don’t just bring any client your way. Instead, it brings people in your area who have a plumbing issue to solve.
Studies show that 98% of people use the internet to find information about local businesses in 2022.
What does that tell you?
If you don’t optimize your plumbing business/website for local search, potential clients in your location will not find you online. Instead, they’ll find your competitors.
A 2019 study by Statista also confirms the impact local SEO has. The study revealed that one-third of consumers use the internet to search for local businesses daily.
We have defined what local SEO is for a plumber and shed light on the impact it can have on a plumbing company. Now, let’s discuss the importance of doing SEO for a plumbing business.
How Does Local SEO Benefit Plumbing Businesses?
A homeowner discovers a plumbing issue – a broken pipe or faulty faucet. What is the first step most homeowners in this situation will take? Mind you, the homeowner doesn’t know how to fix the plumbing issue.
In most cases, many people would search online for a professional plumber. Some will use keywords like “plumbers near me.”
Studies have shown that most people use the internet to find local businesses. So, most homeowners will search for plumbers online.
Searching online is more convenient. It is better than wasting gas or energy moving around the city looking for a plumber to hire.
Here is the cool part: if you do proper local SEO for your plumbing business, anyone searching for a plumber in your area will come across your website or profile and contact you.
On the other hand, if you don’t optimize for local search, you’ll lose business to your competitors. Is that what you want? I don’t think so!
Here are the benefits of local search engine optimization for your plumbing business.
1: Improve your online visibility in local search engine result page:
Optimizing your plumbing business’s website will help improve your online visibility. In other words, potential clients seeking a local plumber (a plumber domiciled in their geographical location) will find you.
Using SEO
You can optimize your website for local search in three different ways.
- One of the ways to optimize your plumbing website for local search is to use location-specific keywords. Ensure the keywords are long-tailored and have great potential to rank high in local searches. For example, if you’re a plumber in Houston, your keyword will be something like “Houston plumber near me.” Note that this is only an example.
A Handy Tip: Using premium local SEO keyword research tools for plumbers, you can only find the right keyword via research
- Creating a well-optimized Google Business Profile is another way to optimize your plumbing business for a local search engine.
A Handy Tip: Indicate your company’s physical address in your Google My Business profile. And ensure the details you provide on the page are accurate.
When you indicate your address, Google will showcase your Google Business Profile in relevant search results.
Another thing you need to do is add captivating images of you delivering plumbing services to clients.
Use captivating images, and include a phone number prospects can contact you with. Include relevant details that make reaching you a breeze for potential clients.
- Building backlinks via guest posting is another way to improve online visibility and build authority for your local plumbing business. Prospects that come across your guest post will start seeing you as a reputable and knowledgeable plumber.
2: Attract qualified visitors to your plumbing site:
As a plumbing professional, your target audience or potential clients are people within and around your locality. They are the ones that will patronize your plumbing service.
How does local SEO help? You’ll get more traffic by targeting the right keywords on your website (on-page optimization). Note that traffic from organic search results is different from paid search.
Visitors on your plumbing business website organically seek a plumber to hire. However, some may seek information on how to solve a plumbing problem or acquire more knowledge.
So, local SEO will attract quality leads to your business. It will attract prospects that are looking for plumbers to hire.
A Handy Tip: Your content should be information-packed, well-optimized, and valuable to users. It should solve users’ problems.
Use long-tail keywords in your content. Furthermore, avoid keyword cannibalization and stuffing. These are against Google’s rules and can ruin your SEO effort completely.
Another thing you need to focus on is your website’s user experience (UX). Is your website mobile-friendly? Does it load fast? Find out if it is.
If possible, Google would want websites to load in half a second. It wants websites to load faster to deliver an excellent user experience.
Your website should also be mobile-friendly. In other words, it should display its content on mobile phones like desktops.
A website that is mobile-friendly and loads faster has satisfied two important Google ranking factors.
The website’s mobile-friendliness and loading speed are crucial ranking factors. They are so important they can overshadow other SEO efforts you make to rank high.
3: Deliver great user experience to prospective customers:
How does SEO improve user experience? Here is a popular question many may be nursing in their minds.
When performing SEO, you’ll have no option but to audit and, if necessary, work on areas of your website that improve user experience. An example is your website’s mobile-friendliness and loading speed.
When you make your website mobile-friendly, load faster, and packed with valuable content, you’ll easily rank high for your target keywords. Another benefit you’ll enjoy is repeat visits from users.
When people visit your website and don’t have bad experiences, they may want to repeat the visits. But when the reverse is the case, you’ll lose visitors to your competitors.
4: Become an authority to local customers:
Perhaps you don’t consider yourself a local authority in the plumbing business, but all that could change with SEO. How?
Create high-quality and information-packed content. Publish high-quality and plumbing-related content consistently.
Here is what you should know. People are looking for information online. They seek information on using or repairing plumbing equipment, such as faucets.
Any person who finds your content helpful will share it on their social media accounts and acknowledge your experience in plumbing services.
For example, a user looking for information on “how to unclog kitchen faucets” may stumble on similar content on your website. After reading your content, the person may realize how difficult and time-consuming unclogging a kitchen faucet is and decide to hire you.
You can build authority in different ways. These include publishing high-quality articles on your website. Another option is to create high-quality guest posts.
5: Build social proof and trust:
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that explains that people do things when they see others doing the same thing. For example, a potential client may hire you for their plumbing task because they have read positive and enticing reviews about you.
According to BrightLocal’s 2023 Local Consumer Review Survey, 87% of customers read online reviews of local businesses before taking action.
So, where do consumers look for reviews for local businesses?
According to a study, 89% of consumers use Google, 48% use Facebook, and 32% use Yelp.
Source: BrightLocal
As you can see from the image, people also use Instagram and Siri. They check different online platforms for reviews about a business to ensure they are hiring the right person for their job.
How do you get reviews on Google?
The simple strategy is creating a professional-looking and well-optimized Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). The profile should include your business name, address, phone number, pictures of what you do, and a description that helps prospects understand your business.
Prospects can give you reviews on your Google Business Profile. That is the good thing about having a profile. So, keep delivering quality plumbing services to get positive reviews.
Note that positive reviews have far more impact on a business than negative reviews. Positive reviews will convince prospects to trust and hire you far more easily than negative ones.
Don’t get me wrong! Most people will still patronize you even if you have one or a few negative reviews. They’ll consider how you respond to your unsatisfied customers.
So, be professional in your response. Respond swiftly to all your reviews, whether positive or negative. For the positive reviews, show appreciation to the customer. While for negative reviews, apologize to the customers and let them know you’re willing to fix the problem right away.
You can see a review of a plumbing service on Yelp. A potential customer who sees this already knows what to expect from you.
Here is another review on Facebook. The good part is that potential clients can see these reviews on the Google search engine result page. They don’t need to visit Facebook to see the rating or review.
Reviews on Google Business Profile are also displayed on the search engine result page.
6: Higher closing rate:
Did you know local leads from search engines have a higher closing rate? This is true when the leads are organic.
The closing rate of SEO leads is higher than that of paid search and other forms of online marketing. That is because SEO brings you qualified leads.
An individual who enters the search term “best plumbing service Houston” on Google search engine is looking for one of two things: information on plumbing service or a plumber to hire. If the person in question lands on your website, you’re qualified for the job. You’ll be contacted and hired.
Studies show organic search results are 8.5X more likely to be clicked, while paid search results are 1.5X more likely to convert.
You can see the difference. You can see that SEO delivers massive results.
It may take a while to start ranking with SEO. So, patience is crucial when optimizing your website. If you keep putting in great SEO efforts, Google will reward you one day. Your website will rank at the top of the search engine result page.
People trust organic search results more than paid search. That is why they’re more likely to click a website’s link they encountered organically than one pushed to the top of the search engine result page via paid search.
Organic search results match the search intent of prospects. So, they’re more likely to be clicked on than paid search.
Below is how a website pushed to the top of the search result via paid search looks like on the search rankings.
7: SEO is a cost-effective online marketing strategy:
In addition to having a higher closing rate, search engine optimization (SEO) is far more cost-effective than pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. SEO has a lower customer acquisition cost (CAC), which refers to how much it takes to get a customer.
The prices of adverts vary. They depend on the keywords you’re targeting and the competition in your niche. Additionally, you must continue to fund your account to appear on the search result page when running ads.
When the money in your Google ad account finishes, your website will disappear from the search engine result page. So, you must continue to fund your ads account to maintain your position in SERPs (search engine results pages.
Fortunately, SEO doesn’t work that way. You don’t need to fund any account or pay Google to sponsor your website. Instead, Google will reward you for your hard work and the value that you render.
In other words, if your plumbing website is well-optimized and your content is high-quality, Google would want to show your content to users. You don’t have to pay a dim to rank high. All you need to do for your website to rank is to continue putting in more effort.
Another interesting thing about SEO is that you’ll continue to rank high even when you stop putting in effort for a while. In other words, when you apply the brakes on your SEO campaign, your website won’t disappear from the SERP. Likewise, your competitors won’t outrank you overnight.
Should You Hire A Local SEO Expert For Your Plumbing Business?
There are three ways you can perform SEO for your local business.
- Do it yourself
- Hire an in-house SEO expert
- Outsource to a reputable SEO company
Most plumbers may want to manage their SEO campaigns by themselves. Unfortunately, search engine optimization is quite complex and time-consuming.
Google algorithm changes over 600 times yearly, almost equivalent to twice daily. And every time the algorithm changes, there’s a change in ranking and traffic.
In other words, some websites (especially those not following SEO best practices) will take a massive hit. Many will see their ranking and traffic drop massively.
If you want to do SEO by yourself, you must be ready to dedicate time and resources. Why finances? You’ll need SEO tools to conduct keyword research and analyze and monitor your website.
Additionally, you must join important SEO forums, including groups, and connect with SEO experts. You also need to study how the changes in Google’s algorithm impact your website.
You probably won’t have the time to manage your plumbing website SEO and deliver services to your client. Besides, you have to monitor the performance of your SEO strategies from time to time and make the necessary adjustments.
Hiring an in-house SEO expert is another way to manage your plumbing service SEO. You’ll have someone who knows about SEO working in your office.
Unfortunately, hiring an in-house SEO expert can be expensive. You’ll spend over $150,000 on salaries, benefits, health insurance, software, computers, etc.
Which is the best option to manage a plumbing website SEO?
The straightforward answer is to outsource to an SEO agency. Find an affordable agency that is hungry for success and can go the extra mile to ensure you get the desired results.
BitChip Digital is an SEO agency dedicated to helping businesses succeed online. With over 10+ years of experience and passion for SEO, rest assured that the team will meet your SEO needs.
How To Perform Local SEO For Plumbers
Here is a breakdown of how local SEO is done for plumbers.
You can study each step to gain basic knowledge and find it easier to communicate with any SEO expert you’re hiring.
1: Create a well-optimized Google Business Profile:
Google Business Profile (GBP) is vital for local SEO campaigns for plumbing services. So, create a professional-looking profile.
Write your business name as is. Avoid using a plumbing SEO keyword in your business name. It is against Google’s rules and can land you in trouble.
Add a description of your business in your GBP. Let prospects that stumble on your page know the kind of plumbing service you specialize in. Additionally, remember to sprinkle your keyword in the description.
Add your address, phone number, and other relevant details on your Google My Business profile. And whenever you move to a new address or change your phone number, remember to edit it on your Google Business Profile.
Having a Google Business Profile is good for your plumbing business. Your business will appear in local search results for people looking for plumbers in your area.
Additionally, people can easily give you reviews on your Google Business profile. And you know the impact reviews can have on a business.
Positive reviews will make your business trustworthy. It will erase any fear that prospects have about your business.
2: Conduct in-depth keyword research:
Keyword research is essential when doing local search engine optimization for plumbers. You need the right keywords to rank and get organic traffic.
What type of keywords should you target?
First and foremost, understand that keywords have varied search volumes and difficulty. So, if you want to rank fast, choose a keyword with lower competition.
Your keywords should be long-tail. I am not saying you should ditch short-tail. Of course, you can sprinkle short-tail keywords in your content to boost your chances of ranking for them. However, your primary focus should be long-tail keywords.
Furthermore, use location-specific long-tail keywords. An example is the best plumbing service in Texas.”
You can see the example. When a potential customer enters the keyword in the Google search engine, they’ll find websites targeting it.
You can conduct keyword research using paid or free SEO keyword tools. However, you’ll get in-depth information about each keyword to make an informed decision.
3: Create a well-optimized and professional-looking website for your plumbing company:
A website is like your physical plumbing shop. The only difference is that the website is online while your shop is a physical structure. Nevertheless, both are important.
So, create a professional-looking website for your plumbing business. And ensure the website is mobile-friendly.
Mobile-friendliness is crucial, as most visitors will come from mobile devices. Research shows over 50% of all website traffic now comes from mobile phones.
Another study pointed out that 93% of users visit the internet via mobile. By the way, the number of mobile phones is more than the population in the world.
Mobile-friendliness is also a ranking factor and refers to how a website displays on mobile devices. A mobile-friendly website will display its content on all mobile devices the same way it shows it on a desktop.
Another thing you need to do is choose a responsive design. And when you start populating your website with content, ensure the site loads faster.
Website loading speed is a crucial ranking factor impacting user experience. Google wants websites to load as quickly as half a second. So, improve your website loading speed to impress users and Google.
4: Build dedicated pages for each plumbing service you deliver:
If you are rendering different plumbing services and want to rank for multiple keywords, consider creating dedicated pages for each plumbing service you render.
Write detailed descriptions of each service, showing potential clients how you can solve their problems. Make the descriptions a breeze to read and understand. Make it less technical and well-optimized.
5: Populate your website with high-quality content:
After creating a professional-looking website, it shouldn’t end there. Focus on populating your website with high-quality content.
Write content on how to solve varied plumbing issues and more. Show your visitors that you’re an expert in the field. This way, you’re gradually building local authority in the plumbing niche and gaining the trust of local consumers.
Tips to note when creating content:
- Analyze your competitors when creating your content. Check the type of content your competitors are creating, word count, target keywords, backlinks, and more. Run a complete analysis of several of your competitors.
- Conduct in-depth research on the topic. Don’t assume that you don’t need to do research because you are a plumber. You’ll properly understand how to optimize your content for search engines by checking what other websites are doing.
- Optimize your images for search engines. You should use 100% unique and high-quality photos.
- Place your keywords strategically in your content. Add keywords in your meta description, title, H1, H2, H3, and content body.
- Avoid keyword cannibalization. Google dislikes it. Another keyword mistake you should avoid is keyword stuffing. In other words, don’t target the same primary keyword in two or more contents. Google won’t know which one to rank. Additionally, avoid over-optimizing your content with a keyword. It is against Google’s rules.
- Publish high-quality blog posts on your plumbing services consistently. When you do, search engines will take you seriously.
- Include a call to action in your content. Do you want people to subscribe to your newsletters, order your service, buy a product, or take a different action? Ensure you state it clearly.
- Allow visitors to share your content on social media and other platforms. Include a social media share button on your web page.
6: Build a high-quality backlink profile:
Backlinks are a major ranking factor. So, building high-quality backlinks will help you rank higher in SERP.
You can build backlinks by creating high-quality and linkable content. Other website owners will cite your content in their blogs.
You can also build backlinks via guest posting, niche editing, creating free tools, reclaiming unlinked mentions, updating old content, and more.
Tips to follow when building backlinks:
- Your backlinks should be niche-relevant and high-quality. Get backlinks from websites in the same niche as yours.
- Write quality content for guest posts. Your content should add value to users.
- Avoid backlinks from spammy websites.
- Balance up your backlinks. In other words, get do-follow and no-follow links. The ratio can be 60:40. Let 60 percent of your backlinks be do-follow while 40 percent are no-follow.
Conclusion
We have explained local SEO for plumbers, the benefits, and how to optimize your business for local search results. Now, it’s your turn to take action.
Your plumbing business can be more successful than it currently is. You can rank high and get more organic traffic. With local SEO, you’ll gain massive popularity in your geographical location.
SEO will place your plumbing business at the feet of local consumers seeking a professional plumber to hire. And the good part is that SEO is cost-effective.
Creating and managing a Google Business Profile is free. Google doesn’t charge a dime for it. Additionally, SEO differs from paid search, where you have to pay the Google search engine for your website to appear on the search engine results pages. Google rewards your SEO efforts by ranking you at the top of SERP.
You can take your plumbing business to the next level with local SEO. Hire an SEO expert to get the benefits.
