Categories
Marketing Plumbing

8 Important Plumbing Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking in Your Business

Increase your clients base, and maximize profits in your plumbing company with digital marketing KPIs

Do you have an idea of what makes your plumbing company’s marketing or advertising campaigns a success? Clues why is your business not generating enough leads? Why is a plumbing company doing so well?

KPI gif

Well, suppose you are not closely monitoring your plumbing marketing efforts online. In that case, you will never understand what is working or not, and that’s where digital marketing Key Performance Indicators come in. Using KPI, you can measure and track metrics that matter most to your plumbing business growth.

Before internet marketing was introduced, a plumber would only establish how a specific campaign was fairing based on office visits and the number of new clients acquired. However, such results rarely displayed an accurate calculation. But with the right plumbing marketing KPIs, you can know your weak areas and conduct the much-need tweaks in your strategies for maximum results.

That said, here are a few things to understand before selecting and monitoring your digital marketing for plumbers’ KPI.

What Are Plumber KPIs?

Portrait of plumber

A Key Performance Indicator is a measurable attribute showcasing how ineffectively or effectively your plumbing company reaches its desired goals. Plumbing marketing KPIs are quantifiable measures or metrics employed to assess the performance of your company’s marketing objectives. These metrics can be traced to different aspects of your plumbing business, ranging from employees and leads generated to sales.

Internet marketing KPIs go hand in hand with your company’s online marketing strategies regardless of sales growth, brand awareness, SEO strategy, and lead generation. Examples of such metrics include details on conversion rate, engagement rate, sales revenue, page conversion, marketing qualified leads, and SERP. Any measurable figure in your plumber marketing plan that can be acted upon constitutes a KPI.

KPI comes from Google Analytics, lead conversion tool, Google Ads, Google Analytics, or even from your plumbing sales representatives.

Why Track Your Plumbing Marketing’s KPIs? 5 Reasons

When properly used, plumbing marketing KPI tracking can be an incredible tool for growing your company. Some of the key advantages of measuring metrics and acting on data include but are not restricted to:

1. Monitor Your Plumbing Company’s Health

A plumber checking water management system.

Only a few KPIs are required to measure the health of your company. Plumbers who monitor metrics in categories such as employees, customers, processes, and revenue find it very easy to remain on track while keeping their income high.

2. Measure Processes

A plumber in the kitchen installs a new water tap.

KPIs are typically applied to show if your company is attaining its strategic goals set by the top management. Numerous KPIs are utilized to measure processes, such as productivity indicators, profitability indicators, and quality indicators amongst others.

3. Client Metrics

A man looking on a client metrics for his company.

Besides employees and processes, client metrics are also of utmost importance. They can help your company know the number of customers, the revenue generated, and even the cost of acquiring those clients.

 4. Operational Metrics

Plumber fixing problem with faucet in the kitchen.

Operations metrics are a good way to help your operations department enhance its day-to-day operations. You can use such metrics to make sure staffing, finances, and marketing are on the right track.

5. Measure Progress Over Time

measuring your business progress

 A good strategy for measuring your business progress is to set targets at the beginning of the year, such as revenue, gross margin, number of locations, and even number of employees. Then, you can use weekly, quarterly and monthly reports to remain on track with the KPIs and progress towards set goals at the start of the year.

In a plumbing marketing campaign, tracking your KPIs is the only way to understand what is working or not. For instance, if you make good money from a specific marketing campaign, but you cannot show what generated that revenue or profit, then you will never know what you need to improve and where you need to invest more. Your site traffic, for example, could be the one driving all your qualified leads and your marketing crew or department is busy investing a lot of dollars on unnecessary channels.

Top 10 Plumbing Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking in Your Business

1. Cost Per Lead (CPL)

CCPL formula

CPL is a plumbing KPI used in lead generation to know how much each lead costs your company. In simple terms, it shows you the cost of bringing in a lead from your advertising or marketing campaigns. Leads help you understand which contact or user is a potential client. It is normally the initial step into knowing how your internet marketing is performing beyond simple reach from metrics like unique visitors to your plumbing website.

Cost per lead helps you understand where your brand awareness efforts in marketing are most crucial. They tell you whether your campaigns are generating desired results at an affordable cost or not. They assist you to understand the amount of money you need to get a particular set of leads for your plumbing company. Because leads are the starting point of your sales processes, improving and benchmarking your cost per lead is an important metric for your plumbing marketing efforts or campaigns.

2. Conversion Rate (CR)

Conversion Rate gif

In plumbing marketing, a conversion happens when a prospect or client completes a particular activity, such as booking a job or subscribing to your newsletter. It can also be any action that helps meet your plumbing company’s objectives. On the other hand, conversion rate measures how regularly a client completes a particular set goal,

Conversion rate is a crucial metric that shows you if your marketing campaigns are on track. They tell you how effective your strategies are in terms of attaining a set goal. A higher conversion rate implies more likelihood of prospects or clients converting after coming across your piece of content. This also means low costs in terms of acquiring customers, which saves you money in the long run.

Consequently, the more conversions, the better your plumbing gets in Google rankings. Thus, if you want to skyrocket your bottom line, make minor but worthy tweaks to your plumbing website. Use Google Optimize together with Google Analytics to test various elements of your website to increase your revenue without necessarily increasing your ad spend.

3. Return on Investment (ROI)

ROI gif

ROI denotes the amount of profit your plumbing company will earn from the money spent on a particular activity or investment like a marketing campaign. As an online marketing metric, ROI helps you know whether your company is profitable or not. It shows the expenditures as well as activities connected with them that are creating revenue and those that are not.

So, it is an important tool for planning your marketing or advertising budgets. While it is not possible to capture the total money spent on marketing activity, say a Google Ad campaign, it is crucial to make sure that your ROI is comparable to other internet marketing activities.

4. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate from website traffic

Simply put, bounce rate refers to the number of clients or prospects who visit your plumbing website and leave right away without completing any meaningful action. If your site has a high bounce rate, this is a good indication that there are flaws in your online marketing strategies, and some of them could be irrelevant traffic sources, weak landing pages, or poor targeting, amongst others.

A prospect visiting and clicking off your website also implies they didn’t find what they were searching for and the only way to make sure that they spend time on it is by auditing your content and identifying what they are looking for. This way, you will craft relevant content that will attract them.

5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Businessmen

CPA revolves around revenue after a lead becomes a paying client. It gives you a rough idea of how much you will spend to get a client to open his or her wallet. CPA is a deal for paid search marketing campaigns like Pay-Per-Click campaigns.

5. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR image

CTR is another internet marketing metric that quantifies the number of clicks on a specific content over the number of impressions it achieves. It is the percentage of prospects that click on a campaign after coming across it.

CTR is the simple form of engagement rate because the only engagement counted is the one that matters the most and clicks on a link. This metric shows whether your site content is interesting to grab people’s attention and lead them to click on the link and be redirected to the plumbing website.

In Google ads, CTR boosts your quality score each time a user clicks on an ad, and when this occurs, your ads are ranked on top of SERPs, which has other advantages, such as increased traffic and more conversions.

6. Lifetime Value

A higher customer lifetime value indicates that your plumbing business is doing well and often signals a profit.

Customer lifetime value refers to a KPI used to measure the amount of revenue you can expect from a specific client for the entire period of doing business with your company.

A higher customer lifetime value indicates that your plumbing business is doing well and often signals a profit. It helps you understand how valuable different customers are and thus allocate more resources to them.

 7. Business Growth

business growth metric

Another important KPI for plumbers is the business growth metric. This can be calculated in numerous ways, but estimating your annual gross profit margins is the most effective is the most effective. This is where you bring things like cost of operation like salaries, and cost of equipment into the equation. To find your gross profit margin, calculate your total sales revenue and subtract your total cost of operation, divide the figure you obtain with sales revenue again.

8. Customer Satisfaction

Woman thanking plumber

Lastly, client satisfaction. Do you know that it is much cheaper to keep an existing customer than to try to get a new one? This is why customer satisfaction is an important KPI for plumbers; since client satisfaction leads to retention.

You can assess your customer satisfaction levels by developing a questionnaire form and asking clients to fill it out. Keeping your eye on online reviews is also crucial. You can improve customer satisfaction by responding to all reviews (whether negative or positive) promptly and professionally.

Top Channels for Local Plumbing Contractors to Generate Qualified Leads

By analyzing your overall plumbing marketing strategy and how every lead source generates qualified sales for your company.

Then you can begin to work on the different marketing efforts with every channel to obtain more qualified leads, increase sales growth and reduce client acquisition costs.

While monitoring plumbing marketing KPIs your sales crew should come in to see how your collective advertising or marketing efforts generate results across the following channels.

Organic Search

Organic Search gif

Homeowners and property managers use search engines such as Google or Bing to find information about a local service business and click on the organic results shown to them. No advertisements. Organic site traffic will be one of the cheapest in terms of acquiring leads but will take the longest time to develop and achieve realistic results.

Paid Advertising

Google Local Service Ads

There are multiple ways paid advertising is showcased to your potential clients to boost website traffic, and here are some examples. But, if you want to increase your chances of increasing traffic to lead ratio, landing pages are a perfect way to achieve this.

  • Google Local Service Ads
  • Text ads from Google Ads
  • Display advertising on other sites
  • Paid ads on social media websites
  • Click to call ads from Google

Social Media Marketing

Go viral

Social media is one of those platforms that can help you in various ways. Not all resulting to direct sales, but offering you an opportunity to build and get:

  • Brand awareness
  • Potential client referrals
  • Client support channel

As you can see, a lot goes into each plumbing marketing KPI, and together they show a clear picture of how your company is performing online. Every monthly report combines it all and makes sure we continually drive revenue in the best ways possible. At Blackstorm Design +Marketing, we are in the business to create lifelong partnerships, and such plumbing business marketing KPIs hold our team accountable.

Let’s work together to create a strong online presence for your plumbing company so you can book more jobs on the web.

Schedule a free strategy session with Blackstorm Design + Marketing to learn how we can help your plumbing business grow today.

Categories
Marketing Plumbing

10 Important Plumbing Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking in Your Business

Increase your clients base, and maximize profits in your company with plumbing  marketing KPIs

Do you have an idea of what makes your plumbing company’s marketing or advertising campaigns a success? Clues why your business is not generating enough leads? Why is a plumbing company doing so well?

Well, suppose you are not closely monitoring your plumbing marketing efforts online. In that case, you will never understand what is working or not, and that’s where digital marketing Key Performance Indicators come in. You can measure and track metrics that matter most to your plumbing business growth using KPI.

increase customer base

Before internet marketing was introduced, a plumber would only establish how a specific campaign was fairing based on office visits and the number of new clients acquired. However, such results rarely displayed an accurate calculation. But with the right plumbing marketing KPIs, you can know your weak areas and conduct the much-need tweaks in your strategies for maximum results.

That said, here are a few things to understand before selecting and monitoring your digital marketing for plumbers’ KPI.

What Are Plumbing Marketing  KPIs?

Key Performance Indicator

Key Performance Indicator is a measurable attribute showcasing how ineffectively or effectively your plumbing company reaches its desired goals. Plumbing marketing KPIs are quantifiable measures or metrics employed to assess the performance of your company’s marketing objectives. These metrics can be traced to different aspects of your plumbing business ranging from employees and leads generated to sales.

Internet marketing KPIs go hand in hand with your company’s online marketing strategies regardless of whether it’s sales growth, brand awareness, SEO strategy, and lead generation. Examples of such metrics include details on conversion rate, engagement rate, sales revenue, page conversion, marketing qualified leads, and SERP. Any measurable figure in your plumber marketing plan, one that can be acted upon, constitutes a KPI.

KPI comes from Google Analytics, lead conversion tool, Google Ads, Google Analytics, or even from your plumbing sales representatives.

5 Reasons To Track Your Plumbing Marketing’s KPIs?

When properly used, plumbing marketing KPI tracking can be an incredible tool for growing your company. Some of the key advantages of measuring metrics and acting on data include but are not restricted to:

1. Monitor Your Plumbing Company’s Health

Company’s Health

Only a few KPIs are required to measure the health of your company. Plumbers who monitor metrics in categories such as employees, customers, processes, and revenue find it very easy to remain on track while keeping their income high.

2. Measure Processes

KPIs are utilized to measure processes

KPIs are typically applied to show if your company is attaining its strategic goals set by the top management. Numerous KPIs are utilized to measure processes, such as productivity indicators, profitability indicators, and quality indicators amongst others.

3. Client Metrics

KPI metrics

Besides employees and processes, client metrics are also of utmost importance. They can help your company know the number of customers, revenue generated, and even the cost of acquiring those clients.

4. Operational Metrics

use operational metrics to ensure staffing, finances, and marketing are on the right track

Operations metrics are a good way to help your operations department enhance its day-to-day operations. You can use such metrics to make sure staffing, finances, and marketing are on the right track.

5. Measure Progress Over Time

business progress

A good strategy for measuring your business progress is to set targets at the beginning of the year, such as revenue, gross margin, number of locations, and even number of employees. Then, you can use weekly, quarterly, and monthly reports to remain on track with the KPIs and progress towards set goals at the start of the year.

 In a plumbing marketing campaign, tracking your KPIs is the only way to understand what is working or not. For instance, if you make good money from a specific marketing campaign, but you cannot show what generated that revenue or profit, that is, then you will never know what you need to improve and where you need to invest more. Your site traffic, for example, could be the one driving all your qualified leads and your marketing crew or department is busy investing a lot of dollars on unnecessary channels.

Top 10 Plumbing Marketing KPIs You Should Be Tracking in Your Business

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

CPL

CPL is a plumbing KPI used in lead generation to know how much each lead costs your company. In simple terms, it shows you the cost of bringing in a lead from your advertising or marketing campaigns. Leads help you understand which contact or user is a potential client. It is normally the initial step into knowing how your internet marketing is performing beyond simple reach from metrics like unique visitors to your plumbing website.

Cost per lead helps you understand where your brand awareness efforts in marketing are most crucial. They tell you whether your campaigns are generating desired results at an affordable cost or not. They assist you to understand the amount of money you need to get a particular set of leads for your plumbing company. Because leads are the starting point of your sales processes, improving and benchmarking your cost per lead is an important metric for your plumbing marketing efforts or campaigns.

Conversion Rate [CR]

the more conversions, the better your plumbing gets in Google rankings

In plumbing marketing, a conversion happens when a prospect or client completes a particular activity, such as booking a job or subscribing to your newsletter. It can also be any action that helps meet the objectives that your plumbing company has. On the other hand, conversion rate measures how regularly a client completes a particular set goal,

Conversion rate is a crucial metric that shows you if your marketing campaigns are on track. They tell you how effective your strategies are in terms of attaining a set goal. A higher conversion rate implies more likelihood of prospects or clients converting after coming across your piece of content. This also means low costs in terms of acquiring customers, which saves you money in the long run.

Consequently, the more conversions, the better your plumbing gets in Google rankings. Thus, if you want to skyrocket your bottom line, make minor but worthy tweaks to your plumbing website. Use Google Optimize together with Google Analytics to test various elements of your website to increase your revenue without necessarily increasing your ad spend.

Return on Investment (ROI)

ROI

ROI denotes the amount of profit your plumbing company will earn from the money spent on a particular activity or investment like a marketing campaign. As an online marketing metric, ROI helps you know whether your company is profitable or not. It shows the expenditures as well as activities connected with them that are creating revenue and those that are not.

So, it is an important tool for planning your marketing or advertising budgets. While it is not possible to capture the total money spent on marketing activity, say a Google Ad campaign, it is crucial to make sure that your ROI is comparable to other internet marketing activities.

Bounce Rate

bounce rate refers to the number of clients or prospects who visit your plumbing website

Simply put, bounce rate refers to the number of clients or prospects who visit your plumbing website and leave right away without completing any meaningful action. If your site has a high bounce rate, this is a good indication that there are flaws in your online marketing strategies, and some of them could be irrelevant traffic sources, weak landing pages, or poor targeting, amongst others.

A prospect visiting and clicking off your website also implies they didn’t find what they were searching for and the only way to make sure that they spend time on it is by auditing your content and identifying what they are looking for. This way, you will craft relevant content that will attract them.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

CPA

CPA revolves around revenue after a lead becomes a paying client. It gives you a rough idea of how much you will spend to get a client to open his or her wallet. CPA is a deal for paid search marketing campaigns like Pay-Per-Click campaigns.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR

CTR is another internet marketing metric that quantifies the number of clicks on a specific content over the number of impressions it achieves. It is the percentage of prospects that click on a campaign after coming across it.

CTR is the simple form of engagement rate because the only engagement counted is the one that matters the most and clicks on a link. This metric shows whether your site content is interesting to grab people’s attention and lead them to click on the link and be redirected to the plumbing website.

In Google ads, CTR boosts your quality score each time a user clicks on an ad, and when this occurs, your ads are ranked on top of SERPs, which has other advantages such as increased traffic and more conversions.

Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value refers to a KPI used to measure the amount of revenue you can expect from a specific client for the entire period of doing business with your company.

A higher customer lifetime value indicates that your plumbing business is doing well and often signals a profit. It helps you understand how valuable different customers are and thus allocate more resources to them.

Business Growth

business growth metric

Another important KPI for plumbers is the business growth metric. This can be calculated in numerous ways, but estimating your annual gross profit margins is the most effective. This is where you bring in things like cost of operation, salaries, and cost of equipment into the equation. To find your gross profit margin, calculate your total sales revenue and subtract your total cost of operation, divide the figure you obtain with sales revenue again.

Customer Satisfaction

client satisfaction

Lastly, client satisfaction. Do you know that it is much cheaper to keep an existing customer than to try to get a new one? This is why customer satisfaction is an important KPI for plumbers since client satisfaction leads to retention.

You can assess your customer satisfaction levels by developing a questionnaire form and asking clients to fill it. Keeping your eye on online reviews is also crucial. You can improve customer satisfaction by responding to all reviews (whether negative or positive) promptly and professionally.

Top Channels for Local Plumbing Contractors to Generate Qualified Leads

By analyzing your overall plumbing marketing strategy and how every lead source generates qualified sales for your company.

Then you can begin to work on the different marketing efforts with every channel to obtain more qualified leads, increase sales growth and reduce client acquisition costs.

While monitoring plumbing marketing KPIs your sales crew should come in to see how your collective advertising or marketing efforts generate results across the following channels.

Organic Search

Organic site traffic will be one of the cheapest in terms of acquiring leads

Homeowners and property managers use search engines such as Google or Bing to find information about a local service business and click on the organic results shown to them. Not advertisements. Organic site traffic will be one of the cheapest in terms of acquiring leads but will take the longest time to develop and achieve realistic results.

Paid Advertising

Increase your chances of increasing traffic

There are multiple ways paid advertising is showcased to your potential clients to boost website traffic, and here are some examples. But, if you want to increase your chances of increasing traffic to lead ratio, landing pages are a perfect way to achieve this.

  • Google Local Service Ads
  • Text ads from Google Ads
  • Display advertising on other sites
  • Paid ads on social media websites
  • Click to call ads from Google.

Social Media Marketing

SMM illustration

Social media is one of those platforms that can help you in various ways. Not all resulting to direct sales, but offering you an opportunity to build and get:

  • Brand awareness
  • Potential client referrals
  • Client support channel

As you can see, a lot goes into each plumbing marketing KPI, and together they show a clear picture of how your company is performing online. Every monthly report combines it all and makes sure we continually drive revenue in the best ways possible. At BlackStorm Design +Marketing, we are in the business to create lifelong partnerships, and such plumbing business marketing KPIs hold our team accountable.

Let’s work together to create a strong online presence for your plumbing company so you can book more jobs on the web.

Schedule a free strategy session with BlackStorm Design + Marketing to learn how we can help your plumbing business grow today.

Categories
Plumbing SEO

How to Build a Successful Plumbing Company from Scratch

If you have ever thought about building and running a successful plumbing business, you are not alone. Having a flexible schedule, being your boss, and enjoying more financial rewards that come with plumbing company ownership are excellent reasons to build your own plumbing company. 

Every successful plumbing company started with a passion and drive. Even business moguls like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos began building their businesses from zero. It’s one thing to work in a profession you enjoy, but it is a whole different story turning that profession into a successful plumbing company that supports your employees, you, and your family. 

Running a successful plumbing business can be daunting. And that explains why so many plumbing companies shut their doors even before they get started. Yet, running a successful plumbing company is not challenging when you can avoid and spot the pitfalls. 

A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Start a Plumbing Company from Scratch.

How to Start a Plumbing Company

Building a plumbing business from scratch does not have to be complicated or hard, but it requires some work and planning. Here are the most crucial ten steps to follow when building a plumbing company from scratch.

Step 1: Research Your Target Market

ideal customer

As a new plumber on the block, you need to research your market carefully. Try as much as possible to discover the level of demand for your plumbing services and how your rivals are trying to satisfy that demand. Knowing what your competitors already know won’t cut it. Dive into your target market and analyze it like a pro. Search for keywords that are related to the plumbing industry. Don’t fret if your target market seems flooded. You can use this as your competitive advantage. It implies that if it works for other plumbers, it can still work for you. It also means that there is money to be made here.

Step 2: Write a Plan for your Plumbing Business

plan

I know this is not the “most fun” part of starting your business but a crucial step in building a successful plumbing company. A clear business plan is vital for success as a plumbing contractor, and it will assist you to discover the specifics of your plumbing business and unearth some unknowns. Here are some questions that you need to answer in your business plan.

  • What Are the Costs involved when starting a Plumbing Company?

Costs

Though you can start your plumbing business in your compound, extra space will be required as your business grows. Storage space to keep your plumbing materials must be available. Additional expenses include renting/purchasing an administrative office to paying for high-speed internet, labor, and utilities cost. Workers and liability insurance costs must also be paid. Other recurring expenses include employees’ salaries, office supplies, and internet costs.

  • Is the Plumbing Business Profitable?

growth arrow

Yes, plumbing is a lucrative venture where you can make a six-figure profit after a few years of operation. Plumbing contractors who have been in business for several years can make thousands of dollars in profit every year. Expand across states, the nation, and counties, and your plumbing business will make millions of dollars in profits each year.

  • How Will You Make Your Plumbing Company More Profitable?

More Profitable

The key to increasing your plumbing company’s profitability is to reduce the cost of material and labor while securing a stream of new leads/clients. Establish your offline/online reputation as a high-quality plumbing contractor, and you will start to charge more than your competitors for the same services. Experienced plumbing contractors have a lot of knowledge and skills that property owners are willing to pay for. If you have a dumpster that you don’t use all week long, you can consider renting it out to another plumber who does own one. If you have a storage/office space that you don’t use in full, consider renting it to another business owner.

  • How do you choose a Name for Your New Plumbing Company?

naming your new business

Naming a new plumbing business can feel as daunting as naming a newborn or a puppy. Fortunately, we have already published a guide on choosing a plumbing company name that can help you along. In the meantime, keep these tips on how to name your plumbing business in mind:

  • Avoid names that are too long and difficult to spell.
  • Make sure your preferred name is not used by other plumbers online or offline.
  • Think of how your name will appear on your website URL and social media platforms.

It would be best if you considered your business plan as an outline of your company. A good business plan should contain the following information: 

  1. Executive Summary: This explains your plumbing business services and the problems it solves for the consumers.
  2. Market Evaluation: This should discuss the market you are serving.
  3. Marketing strategies: How will you dive into the market and sell your plumbing services/products?
  4. Operational plan: this outlines the day-to-day operations of running your plumbing business.

Step 3: Form a Legal Entity

business organization

You need to establish a legal business entity like LLC, which prevents you from being personally liable when your plumbing company is sued. You can opt to choose several plumbing business structures, including partnerships, corporations, sole proprietorships, DBAs, and LLCs. Your accountant or financial adviser will select the appropriate one for you.

Step 4: Register for Taxes

taxes

The IRS website is the best place to understand the various state and federal taxes affecting your business if you are starting a plumbing company. Start by checking with the IRS’s Small Business and Self-employment center. Furthermore, you need to check the tax obligations required by your respective state.

Step 5: Open a Separate Bank Account and Credit Card for Your Plumbing Business

Bank Account and Credit Card

Opening a separate credit card and bank account for your business is crucial for personal assets protection.

When your business and personal accounts are mixed, your valuables (such as your home or car) are at risk if your plumbing company is sued. This is what is referred to as piercing your corporate veil.

Step 6: Get the Necessary Permits and Licenses

Permits and Licenses for business

Failure to obtain necessary licenses and permits can lead to hefty fines or the closure of your plumbing business.

Local and State Business Licensing Requirements

Business Licensing Requirements

Specific state licenses and permits may be required to operate a plumbing company. Learn more about licensing in your state by visiting SBA’S reference to state licenses and permits.

Service Agreement

terms of agreement

Plumbing contractors must request their customers to sign a service agreement before they begin a new project. This agreement spells out customer expectations and reduces legal disputes by spelling out payment conditions and terms, intellectual property ownership, and service level expectations.

Certificate of Occupancy

example of Certificate of Occupancy

You can operate your plumbing company out of a storefront, and a plumbing business that operates out of a physical location needs a certificate of occupancy. This certificate confirms that all zoning laws, government, and building regulations have been satisfied.

Step 7: Get Insurance

general liability insurance

Just as with permits and insurance, your new plumbing business requires protection to operate safely and lawfully. There are various kinds of insurance policies created for different types of companies to cover unexpected risks. If you are not sure about the kind of risks your business may face, you need to start with general liability insurance. Another notable insurance policy associated with plumbing businesses is worker’s compensation insurance. If your plumbing company has employees, then most probably, your state will require to have workers’ compensation coverage. 

Step 8: Market and Promote Your New Plumbing Business

promote your new business

Why should a property owner select you to install or replace their water pipe?

That’s a significant question if you want to build a successful plumbing business. And the answer lies in your plumbing marketing. But if you are just starting your plumbing business, it can be daunting to know where to start. Fortunately, this post will discuss crucial plumbing marketing strategies that will help your business nurture trust, generate referrals and earn more clients.

Create a Stunning Plumbing Website to Market Your Business 24/7.

creating website

Your plumbing website should act as your virtual sales representative 24/7/365 and generate a stream of qualified leads. How you create and use your site will influence your plumbing marketing activities-but just building one will not skyrocket your plumbing sales automatically. If you want your plumbing website to market your business online, it needs to have these four main things:

  • It needs to be super-fast: The average client expects your web page to load in less than three seconds.
  • It must be Functional: Plumbing websites should be appropriately coded for SEO, which implies adding structure to the site with metadata like optimized images, schema, Meta, and title tags.
  • Your plumbing website needs to be mobile-friendly: Over 50% of overall U.S. traffic comes from tablets and smartphones.
  • It must be secure: More than 40% of all plumbing websites that appear on the first page of Google are HTTPS, which is why Google has confirmed that it favors secure sites over unsecured ones.
  • It needs to provide helpful Quality Content: A significant ranking factor lies in the quality over your website’s quantity.

If your website is missing any of the above features, you need to partner with a reputable plumbing website design agency like Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing. 

Boost Your Plumbing Website Conversion Rate with a Redesign

website redesign

One of the best ways of increasing your plumbing website conversion rate is by requesting a website redesign from our experts. Our experienced web designers will work round the clock to ensure that your websites generate more qualified leads and skyrocket your plumbing sales.

Maximize Your Reach on Google

SERP

To get more plumbing clients/leads, your business needs to appear on top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Here are some tips that will help you to stay off Google results:

  • Use keywords strategically
  • Incorporate featured snippets
  • Get quality online reviews
  • Make sure that your Google My Business Listing is accurate and complete
  • Stay on top of Google Algorithm updates
  • Leverage Local service ads.
  • Create profiles on directories like Yelp, Angie’s List, or Thumbtack.

As a plumber, we understand you are busy managing your employees and sourcing materials, making it daunting to optimize your plumbing website for search engines on your own.

The good news is that Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing has a team of experienced SEO professionals who can help your plumbing website rank on the first page of Google and outshine your competitors online.

Invest in Paid ads to Increase Booked Plumbing Jobs

PPC

Pay per Click advertising allows plumbing businesses anywhere to be found on the first page of the Google search results. It is digital marketing where plumbers display ads and pay the advertiser once their ads are clicked. The two significant advantages of PPC are controlled relevance and visibility.

Use Social Media Marketing and Remarketing

Remarketing campaign

Once you have created your plumbing website and started getting some traffic, make sure that you remarket your plumbing services to potential clients who did not contact you. This implies that showing them ads even after they have navigated away from your site. This is important because most prospects will not contact you on their very first attempt.

Social media marketing is also a great option. With a combination of internet marketing and some local service ads, you can target a customer directly with a new client offer.

Manage Your Reputation Online and Offline

Reputation

When it comes to selecting a plumbing company, reputation plays a critical role. After all, no property owner wants to work with a plumbing contractor who does a shoddy job, does not meet deadlines, or does not stand behind their promises.

Word-of-mouth recommendations are still a significant factor in how commercial and residential clients select a plumbing contractor. To take advantage of these positive recommendations, ask your happy clients to refer you to their relatives and friends.

Online reviews are critical too, and you need to make sure that you earn more Google reviews and respond to the reviews you obtain. If that sounds too hard for you to do, make sure that you partner with Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing to manage your plumbing company reputation offline and online.

The Bottom line

bottom line

If the above tips seem so hard to implement on your own, don’t fret because you are just other plumbing contractors we have helped over the years. Your primary focus should be on running your plumbing business and leaving the rest to us. If you need help getting more leads and sales from your new plumbing business, kindly schedule a free strategy session with our growth experts for assistance today!

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Roofing SEO

What Are Backlinks for Roofing SEO?

Search engine optimization backlinks, what are they? How do they help us and our websites? Many people question the use of SEO backlinks. This article clarifies and discusses the importance and uses of search engine optimization (SEO) backlinks.

Backlinks

Get more backlinks

Backlinks are links from another website, and these links help direct the users from another website to a different website. The backlinks are known for different names, they are sometimes called hyperlinks, inbound links, and many more names, all meaning the same thing. These hyperlinks are attached to websites and blogs, enabling these websites to be discovered by search engines amongst thousands of sites.

Why Are They Important?

Why are backlinks important?

Backlinks are a major deal concerning visibility. Simply put, if a user wants their website to be discovered by various search engines, they can rely on these links. Depending on the backlink quality, search engines can display them as a search result or make them discoverable by taking into consideration their ranking and originality in the first place. There are thousands of pages online all over the world that the search engines collect and display, all being connected by these links.

Quality of the Backlink

Links for SEO

Backlink quality is also a huge factor in dealing with SEO. The method in which the backlinks are obtained can also determine the website’s SEO ranking. Simply put, the more you have relevant backlinks pointing to your website, the higher the chances of your website SEO ranking increasing. Although this doesn’t mean you should start by going out and obtaining backlinks from every website you come across. The quality of the backlink is what determines your website being discovered. 

Content of the Backlink

SEO link building

Backlinks also help in the prominence and ranking of websites and blogs. The worldwide web is connected to so many different links, all containing different contexts, backlinks, or hyperlinks found in those different websites that help improve those websites’ SEO rankings. Backlinks are a very integral part of a website, and that’s why using the proper choice of keywords will also increase the chances of a page being discovered by search engines.

Examples: 

Backlinks play a very important role in your website discovery and ranking.

Suppose a user gets a new website that he wants to be discovered by the Google search engine, but he doesn’t link it or has a backlink from another website or blog. The chances of his website becoming discoverable are very, very low. But backlinks enable this new website to become discoverable by search engines and readily available to people.

Let’s say site A is a marketing blog, and site B is a shoe vendor. So when site A is being discovered as a marketing site, then the possibility of site B being discovered is high because site B obtained a backlink from site A. As the backlink is under a marketing category, it can easily be discovered based on what the users want. The factors determining site B being discovered are based on ranking, originality, and context.

Backlinks play a very important role in your website discovery and ranking. They help prominent search engines like Google make web pages grow by increasing traffic, purchases, and many more.

Categories
Plumbing SEO

How to Create a Plumbing Landing Pages That Converts Leads Into Paying Clients

Promote your Plumbing Services with the Best Landing Page That Generates Qualified leads

Best Plumbing Landing Page

When looking for plumbing contractors, most homeowners have one objective: finding a reasonably-priced and trustworthy plumber-someone they can rely on.

Naturally, this implies plumbing landing pages should have a straightforward objective: to convince prospects they are reliable, a plumber they can trust, and one that charges an affordable price.

You can easily attain all this with a landing page designed to scream that you are 100% reliable.

This post will help you build a trust-earning, high converting plumbing landing page for your business.

Without further ado, let’s dive into our post.

What is a plumbing landing page?

A static webpage that works like a catalyst

A plumber landing page is a static webpage that works like a catalyst to help prospects or leads through the buying journey and closer to becoming paying clients. It is a single-page destination URL after clicking your plumbing PPC ads or any other online promotion. Unlike other pages on your plumbing website, a plumbing landing page has only one goal; to convince website visitors to take a specific desired action.

Why Does Your Plumbing Business Need an Effective Landing Page for PPC Campaigns?

Business Need an Effective Landing Page for PPC Campaigns

Some plumbers opt to send potential clients who click their paid ads to their site’s homepage. While this will direct them to a page with crucial information about your business, it is not the most effective option when conducting search marketing.

Instead of sending prospects to a generic homepage, it’s more advisable to develop a custom plumbing landing page with an offer and information tailored to the verbiage in the paid search ad. While landing pages can serve multiple purposes, one of our techniques is to create one for plumbing PPC ads.

Here, we will look at the many advantages of building an effective landing page for plumber PPC and what features go into developing a winning page.

  • Increase Conversion Rate

Increase Conversion Rate

Creating a custom plumbing landing page is one of the keys to skyrocketing the conversion rates on your paid search ads. Your ad copy should be for specific plumbing service or offer. When a prospect clicks on the ad’s link, they want to understand more about a particular plumbing service, not to be directed to a page that’s generally about your plumbing business.

When visitors are directed to your website’s homepage, it is now up to them to search for relevant details to what they came across on your paid search ad. Even if you have a professionally designed plumbing website, it’s easy for prospects to become impatient and frustrated, searching for the information they wish they got right in front of them instantly. That makes them more likely to give up their search and look to the SERPs.

However, a custom landing page that addresses the message from your ad directly presents the prospects with all the details they want to know. This is a lot more to generate immediate positive feedback from viewers.

  • Reduce the Cost per Click

Cost per Click

A highly converting plumbing landing page also helps to keep the cost per click at low levels. When more prospects convert, you are generating more income from your PPC ad campaign, which implies that you are getting more bang for your advertising dollars along the way.

  • Get a Good Ads Quality Score

Get a Good Ads Quality Score

There is yet another benefit to designing an effective landing page for your PPC ads. When you obtain higher conversion rates and keep prospects on your plumbing website for long, Google takes notice. They consider that your site’s content must be relevant to searches and so in turn, increase your standing on the website. They reward quality ads with higher placement and display them more frequently.

Tips for Building a Great Plumbing Landing Page

Tips for Building a Great Plumbing Landing Page

Since you understand all the benefits that a solid plumber landing page can offer, let’s talk about how to build one.

1. Focus on a Single Call to Action

Prospects or visitors are coming to your landing page because of your offer or the plumbing service you cited in your PPC ad. Your plumbing landing page should have one call to action, and it should be directly related to the service or offer from your ad.

Let’s say, for instance, that you own a plumbing business. Your plumbing PPC ad touts your business as offering same-day service. Prospects clicking on your ad may not be interested in the projects you do install eco-friendly plumbing systems as part of home remodeling. They probably have an emergency and are in dire need of emergency help. Your landing page should have one call to action that directs them to your online booking platform so that they can obtain on your calendar ASAP.

2. Keep the Page Simple and Clean

Simple and Clean Landing Page

Since visitors are landing there with one express goal in mind, they don’t require many details to convert. Instead, use one relevant, bold image, a simple image, and a clear description of the service you are expecting you will do.

Let’s revisit our previous plumbing example. Begin with a headline that says something like “same-day plumbing services, 365 days a year”. The picture should be a hero image-one of a plumbing technician in front of his truck and a pose that says explicitly, “Am ready to solve all your plumbing issues or problems!”

3. Make Your Offer Valuable

Generally, landing pages incorporate a lead form to get contact details. Lead exchange their details for your plumbing offer, providing you a new name to market to or additional data on an existing lead so you can customize or personalize your plumber marketing to them.

No homeowner will offer their contact details in exchange for something that doesn’t have a tangible value. Ensure your plumbing offer gives real value or helps to resolve a common problem.

4. Include a Compelling Header

Include a Compelling Header

Your page header is often the initial thing that prospects or clients see, and this offers you a great opportunity to hook them right when they land. Make sure your header is clear so that your target audience isn’t confused by it. Don’t attempt to be overly clever, or you will lose prospects.

5. Make Your Contact Information Prominently Visible

Contact Page

NAP is a short form for Name, Address, and Phone number. The first reason for making your contact details prominently visible is that they can help with your plumbing SEO. They signal to Google or other search engines that your plumbing company is legitimate since your listings are consistent. Secondly, NAP citations are crucial since not all prospects who make it to your landing page will be at a stage in your sales funnel where they are ready to convert.

They might be interested in your plumbing services but may have some concerns about them before buying decisions.

NAP citations, preferably in form of a contact link, will make it simple to reach out to you.

6. Use Bullets to Convey Key Points

Bullet points

Utilizing bullets is an effective way to convey the key points of your plumbing offer in a short-form web copy. Consider the most crucial points you wish to convey and develop punchy bullets that communicate your major points in as few phrases as possible.

7. Promote it on social media

Use social media to increase the reach of your plumbing landing page offer.

You should use social media to increase the reach of your plumbing landing page offer. You can create regular posts for your brand followers. You can boost your social media posts to increase your reach. Or utilize social media advertising, like Facebook ads, to place your offer in front of wallet-out prospects.

8. Leverage PPC ads to Generate Traffic

PPC ads

Pay-Per-Click advertising for plumbers pushes your ad on top of search engine results for a plumbing-related keyword. Utilize this tactic to place your offer in front of new customers looking for that term. Plumbing landing pages produce more conversions than those that are not advertised or promoted, so utilize PPC ads to generate more traffic.

Plumbing Landing Page Optimization Services from Blackstorm Design + Marketing

Blackstorm Design + Marketing offers high-quality plumbing landing pages

The tips offered above revolve around one main thing: persuading a prospect to take your desired action once they come to your plumbing landing page.

Think like your prospects or clients. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what would engage you more if you visited a landing page.

A well-designed plumbing landing page can be the difference between a mediocre advertising campaign and a gold mine. The good news is that by using the tips in this post for your landing pages, you can design landing pages that can develop incredibly compelling pages for your plumbing company.

Incidentally, if you would like some assistance creating some high-quality plumbing landing pages or would like to revise your existing landing pages, schedule a free discovery call with Blackstorm Design + Marketing to get a conversion-focused landing page for your plumbing business today.

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