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Plumbing SEO

The Ultimate Plumbing SEO Guide: Best Practices and Tips to Get Clients Online

Improve Organic Rankings, Increase Leads and Profitability with SEO for Plumbers.

As a plumbing business owner, it’s not sufficient to only have a company website. Head over to Google and type “plumbing contractor near me” or “plumbers in [your city]. If your plumbing website is not ranking on the first page of Google, then you are losing new business to your competition, guaranteed.

There is no secret that ranking higher than other plumbers on search engines like Bing or Google is crucial. But what if you don’t know the plumbing SEO tips and tricks that will help your website rank higher on Google or Bing? If you are not getting more clicks on your website, you are losing sales/leads to other plumbing contractors online.

SEO is a short form for Search Engine Optimization.

Blackstorm Design + Marketing has come to be known as the best SEO for plumber’s destinations. Search engine optimization provides a unique advantage for local plumbing contractors. This post will provide an introduction and overview to search engine optimization and how you can leverage it to get a consistent stream of clients online.

In this ultimate SEO for plumbing guide, you will learn:

  • What is plumbing SEO, and why is it important
  • How does SEO for plumbers work?
  • What is included in plumbing SEO services?
  • Keyword research and targeting best practices
  • On-Page Plumbing SEO best practices
  • Information architecture best practices
  • Technical Plumbing SEO Best Practices
  • Implementation stage
  • How long plumbing SEO takes
  • How to track and monitor SEO results for plumbers

Without further ado, let us dive in!

What is Plumbing SEO and why is it important?

If you have ever discussed about internet marketing strategies, you might have heard the synonym SEO tossed around. You may have heard that plumber SEO is crucial and has something to do with Google or Bing. But what exactly is plumbing SEO? Read on to get an in-depth overview of SEO and why your plumbing business needs it.

SEO is a short form for Search Engine Optimization. At its core, plumbing SEO focuses on improving the visibility of your plumbing website in the search engine results pages online. This implies that more prospects visit your plumbing website, thus increasing your online traffic and giving you a higher chance of selling your plumbing services to many people on the internet. Simply put, SEO for plumbers aims to improve two things; rankings and online visibility.

"Plumbing Near You" keyword

A homeowner notices that they have a broken pipe or a leaky faucet. Understanding very well that they can’t fix the problem on their own, they turn to search engines like Bing or Google to look for nearby plumbers.

If you are not investing your time and effort to optimize your plumbing website for Google, then prospects or clients will not be able to find your business in the local search engine results. Worst of all, you are likely to lose new business to your competitors if you continue with an approach to plumbing marketing.

If a prospect or client types in a keyword relevant to what your plumbing business can offer, don’t you want to be on that first page of search results alongside your competition? Of course, every plumber wants to be seen at the coveted top position on Google.

There are several reasons why Local SEO is crucial for plumbing contractors. Plumbing SEO can be one of the most cost-effective internet marketing strategies when correctly done.

Here is why;

Plumbing SEO is Affordable

plumbing marketing

Do you know that SEO for plumbers can minimize other advertising markets? Figure out what you may spend on local magazine ads, direct mailers, and other forms of conventional marketing.

Plumbing SEO minimizes advertising costs when you start ranking on top of the search engine results page. When you rank high on Google, you don’t require to pay for clicks or advertise your page. Your ranking will show up above the rest as long as you continue to work on your SEO strategy.

Overall, this will bring more money into your wallet and less than you require to spend on conventional advertising and other forms of plumbing marketing.

Sure, time is money (and plumbing SEO takes time to master), but all factors are kept constant. Still, the process is less expensive compared to the revenue it generates for your plumbing business.

Local SEO Attracts Qualified Plumbing Leads

Local SEO

The promise of high organic traffic won’t be of great help if the traffic is irrelevant or of low quality. It’s crucial to attract clients who intend to hire your company for plumbing services, and those clients must be within your service area.

How do you attract leads who are interested in your plumbing services online? It starts with your plumbing SEO strategy. Incorporating a wide range of keywords on your plumbing website will generate the right kind of traffic for your business.

Based on your keyword choice and targeting options, plumbing SEO can generate qualified leads that are essentially more than 90% near closing when you talk to them over the phone.

Let’s say you are a plumbing contractor in Murfreesboro, TN.

Figure out the difference between cold calling a nearby homeowner versus a potential client looking for a “plumber in Murfreesboro, TN” and coming across your plumbing website.

They are looking for something specific-one that your business can offer them instantly, and it’s clear from the keywords they are typing in on Google search.

  • Consideration: Low-ranking plumbers will not even obtain consideration when prospects want to book plumbing jobs.
  • Discovery: Getting a higher placement on search engines like Google or Bing affects the ability of local homeowners to find your plumbing business.
  • Growth: Organic search impacts each aspect of your plumbing marketing, making it easier to spur growth.
  • Reputation: Ranking on top of organic search results affects the way potential clients see your plumbing brand.

SEO for plumbers Improves Your Visibility on Search Engines

Organic search

If you have not optimized your plumbing website for local search, now it’s time to begin. Plumbers who invest in SEO experience first page rankings on Google and the advantages that come with it.

There are multiple ways to optimize your plumbing website for local search. You can achieve that by including keywords on your website that contain geographical terms, and including these keywords with your plumbing services will assist enhance your visibility on Google.

Other optimization techniques include off-page plumbing SEO. You can improve search engine rankings by claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile and backlink strategies like guest blogging.

Other reasons why local SEO is crucial for plumbers include:

  • SEO improves user experience on your plumbing website
  • Builds local authority
  • It creates connection and trust with clients
  • Helps you remain on top of client’s minds
  • SEO helps you reach your target audience
  • It is trackable unlike other conventional marketing strategies
  • SEO benefits other plumbing marketing strategies like online reputation management or PPC.
  • Brings more clients through organic search.
  • Plumbing SEO helps you to stay ahead of the competition.

How Does Plumbing SEO Work?

Steps on how search engines work

What drives organic traffic from search engines? How do search engines like Google or Bing work? Search engines are utilized when they have a query and are turning on the internet such as Google or Bing for the answer. Google algorithms are computer programs that search for clues to offer prospects the exact results they are searching for.

Search engines depend on algorithms to find pages and determine which ones to rank for a specific keyword. There are three steps to how search engines work: crawling (otherwise known as the discovery phase), indexing (filling stage), and ranking which is the last retrieval stage.

Step 1: Crawling

The initial step is crawling.

The initial step is crawling. Search engines send out crawlers to identify new webpages and record details about them. These crawlers are also known as ‘robots’ or ‘spiders.’

The primary function of these crawlers is to help discover new web pages that exist and also to regularly check the content on pages that they have visited previously to check whether they have been updated or changed.

Google crawls web pages by following links that they have previously discovered. Therefore, if you have a blog post and it’s linked from the homepage when Google crawls your homepage, it will afterward search for another link and might follow the link to your new blog.

Step 2: Indexing

Indexing occurs after crawling.

This is the second step that search engines use when ranking plumbing websites. Google or Bing use indexing to store content from the Internet and showcase it via search results. Indexing occurs after crawling. Most pages will enter a Google index, but blocked, duplicate or spam pages cannot get indexed.

Once indexing and crawling happen, Google will analyze pages against its numerous factors such as:

  • Backlink profile
  • Speed
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • Usage of keywords
  • And more.

Step 3: Ranking

Ranking only occurs after the indexing, and crawling phases are complete.

Ranking only occurs after the indexing, and crawling phases are complete. So once Google has indexed and crawled your plumbing website, your website can be ranked.

There are hundreds of ranking signals that Google uses to rank and sort content, and they are all classified under three main pillars: on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and technical optimization. Some of the factors that search engines use to rank plumbing websites are:

  • Presence of the keyword in the title tag – Whether the keyword was used on the page and within the title tag.
  • Page loading speed – Whether the web pages load faster and are optimized for mobile devices.
  • Website reputation – Whether the web page and site are regarded as credible or reputable for the topic being looked for.
  • High-value content on your plumbing website
  • Relevant links – from high-quality websites.

The good news is that you don’t have to look for a search engine expert to rank for crucial plumbing keywords in the organic search results. This post will take you through proven SEO best practices for optimizing your plumbing website that can assist drive targeted traffic through search without compromising the integrity of your website. If you want to learn how Google work, there are tons of valuable resources, including:

Now, back to the fundamentals of plumbing SEO. Without further ado, let’s dive into  Plumbing SEO tactics and strategies that will help your plumbing company obtain more clients and traffic from organic searches.

Best Plumbing SEO Keyword Research Practices

Keywords

Without the right plumbing keywords, your plumbing SEO campaign cannot succeed. You can think of keywords as the vehicle of your marketing campaign, and internal links are synonymous with your fuel. Much of your results and success will be driven by every keyword targeted.

Simply put, keywords are the phrases and terms your prospects use when searching for plumbing services you offer online. They reveal crucial information, including the mindset of prospects when they attempt to locate what you provide, and can affect the success of your plumbing business.

Successful plumbing keyword research achieves two things, and it assists the right prospects to find your plumbing business and boosts the ranking of your pages and posts on search engines.

Poorly selected keywords, on the flip side, leave your plumbing website in obscurity. Worse still, they lower your rank if they don’t match the client’s intent.

Using the right plumbing keywords in blog posts, articles, or service descriptions can help you rank higher in search engine result pages and can generate new leads and traffic for months or years after you have published those pages.

The first step in plumbing SEO is knowing what you are optimizing your plumbing website for. This involves identifying keywords that people are searching for that you wish your plumbing website to rank for in search engines such as Google or Bing.

There are various elements that you need to consider when determining the keywords that you want to target in your plumbing website including;

Keyword Search Volume

search volume

Obviously, if no prospect is looking for a phrase or keyword related to your plumbing business, optimizing for it would not help. It is crucial that you research search volume and ensure your choice of keywords will generate the much-needed traffic.

You might end up ranking on the first page of Google for a particular keyword, but if no prospect search for it, it will not generate relevant traffic to your plumbing website. This is synonymous with opening a shop in a ghost town. Keyword search volume is measured using MSV (monthly search volume), which implies the number of times the term is searched per month across all the target audiences.

Relevance

Your content must be the best guide or resource out there for the search query

Search engines like Google or Bing rank content based on its relevance to search queries. This is where the idea of search intent comes into play. Your plumbing content will only rank for a search term if it meets the needs of searchers.

Furthermore, your content must be the best guide or resource out there for the search query. After all, why would search engines rank your content in the top spots if it offers less or no value than other posts that exist on the web?

Keyword Competition

You need to understand who your ideal clients are and what they will look for.

This is one of the crucial factors in keyword research for plumbers but is normally overlooked. You don’t want to target a plumbing keyword if you can’t handle the competition. There are two factors that you need to consider when you want to know how competitive a keyword is for a specific keyword:

  • How many plumbing websites are you competing against?
  • How strong are these competing web pages?

Just like with any other business opportunity, you need to assess the chances of ranking for particular plumbing keywords.

First, you need to understand who your ideal clients are and what they will look for. If you don’t understand who your potential customers are, think of this as a great place to start marketing your plumbing company in general and plumbing SEO.

Next, you want to know:

  • What kind of plumbing services are they interested in?
  • What are their pain points?
  • What type of language do they use when describing the services they need?

Authority

Google will offer more weight to content sources it classifies as authoritative.

Google will offer more weight to content sources it classifies as authoritative. That implies you must do all that you can to become an authoritative source by improving your site with informational, helpful content and promoting that content on social media platforms and backlinks.

If Google doesn’t deem your plumbing website as authoritative, then you can’t compete with authoritative sites unless you have exceptional content.

On-Page Plumbing SEO Best Practices: Tips to Improve Your Rankings On Search Engines

Tips to Improve Your Rankings On Search Engines

On-page plumbing SEO has the ability to bring countless wallet-out prospects and clients right to your plumbing website. Best practices for plumbing on-page SEO refers to tasks designed to assist improve your website’s ranking on Google or Bing.

We originally wrote this as a guide just for Blackstorm Design + Marketing customers, but later we figured out “Hey, who doesn’t love a great checklist for plumbing SEO? That’s why we decide to share it with the world. So here we come.

Here are our ten tricks on SEO best practices for plumbers that you need to know. Without further ado, let’s get started.

Title tags

You should have unique title tags for every page.

Assuming that you have successfully done your keyword research, this is one of the most crucial on-page SEO elements. Title tags tell search engines like Google or Bing what your page is all about and that the page on your plumbing website is relevant for the search phrase or keyword. You should have unique title tags for every page. In organic search results, Google will highlight the keyword if a prospect or client looks for those terms. This boosts click-through rate and visibility.

Let’s say you are trying to rank for “Murfreesboro local plumbers” your title tag might look like this:

Murfreesboro plumbers

Best Practices:

  • You should write your title tag like this: Primary keyword-secondary keyword|Brand name
  • Utilize a dash in between your keyword and a pipe at the end of the name of your brand
  • Avoid duplicating your title tags.
  • Make sure your title tags have 55 characters or less, including the spaces. If you want to know more about title tag best practices, read this post done by Dr. Pete.

Meta Descriptions

Include your keyword in the description.

Meta descriptions are typically the short page descriptions that show up under your title in organic search results. Although they are not classified as a ranking factor by Google, it can impact whether or not prospects click on your page-so-it is just as vital when doing on-page plumbing SEO.

Here is our list of best practices for meta descriptions:

  • Make sure that your meta description is under 160 characters
  • Include your keyword in the description.
  • Use a compelling, full sentence (or two)
  • Avoid alphanumeric elements like -, & or +

Image Alt tags

Image alt-tag is synonymous with SEO of your plumbing website’s images.

An alt tag is typically the name of an image, and your site images should utilize the correct alt tags. Image alt-tag is synonymous with SEO of your plumbing website’s images. It tells search engines what your image is about, which is crucial because search engines nowadays deliver image-based organic results just like they do with text-based organic results.

That implies consumers may discover your plumbing website via images. For them to do this, you need to add an alt tag to your images.

Here are some image alt tag best practices you need to follow:

  • Make it as specific and descriptive as possible.
  • Keep it short than 125 characters.
  • Use keywords in a sparing manner and avoid overstuffing them.
  • Make it relevant to your page content.

High-quality content with targeted plumbing keywords

The page content is typically the heart of your on-page plumber SEO.

The page content is typically the heart of your on-page plumber SEO, and it tells Google and readers what your plumbing business and website are all about. With all the recent Google Panda updates, it is extremely crucial that your page content is relevant and unique. If you have several pages that have the same content, then you are likely to be penalized by Google for duplicate content, and your Google rankings will suffer.

The initial step to crafting unique and relevant content is to select the right plumbing keywords and topics. Perform comprehensive keyword research by looking at Google phrases and seeing what works for your competitor’s websites. You can also use tools such as AnswerthePublic, UberSuggest, and Ahrefs.

Here are our surefire tricks for writing high-quality page content:

  • Include short and long-tail keywords organically
  • Add relevant and engaging visual content
  • Write content that resonates with your specific buyer persona(s)
  • Optimize for conversions with a call to actions (CTAs) to service pages and offers
  • Create content that people will love to share and link to.

Structured Markup

Structured markup is crucial if you want those knowledge panels.

Structured data or structured markup is simply the process of marking your plumbing site source code to help search engines like Google or Bing understand and find various elements of your content.

Structured markup is crucial if you want those knowledge panels, featured snippets, and other content elements you see when looking for something on Google. It’s also how your particular page information appears so neatly when a visitor shares your content on the social media platform.

Note: Structured markup is classified under technical plumbing SEO, but we included it here since optimizing it creates a good on-page SEO experience for users.

Keep your Page URLs descriptive but short

Page URLs

Your website URL is another prime place to insert plumbing keywords. According to studies, incorporating keywords in your site URL appears like a ranking factor.

But that doesn’t imply you should be crazy to add tons of search terms to your URL. Use the same restraint and discretion you applied with your meta descriptions and title tags.

In fact, it is common for a URL to appear shorter than that of those title tags.

Here are our best practices for your page URL:

  • Include your primary keyword in the URL
  • Keep your URL descriptive and short
  • Use hyphens to separate words
  • Use lowercase letters.
  • Remove the unnecessary, extra words
  • Use HTTPS if possible, as Google has already added security as a ranking factor

Internal Linking

It is the process of hyperlinking to other valuable pages on your plumbing website.

Internal linking describes any link on your plumbing website that links to another page on your site. It is essentially the process of hyperlinking to other valuable pages on your plumbing website.

Internal linking is crucial for on-page plumber SEO since internal links send visitors to other pages on your plumbing website, keeping them around longer and thus showing Google your plumbing website is helpful and valuable.

Besides, the longer prospects are on your plumbing website, the more time Google has to index and crawl your website pages. This consequently helps search engines get more information about your website and rank higher on the Google search results pages.

Make your plumbing website mobile responsive

Making your website mobile responsive is extremely crucial.

Google began favoring websites that are optimized for mobile devices even for those searching on desktops. So, making your website mobile responsive is extremely crucial.

It’s important to select a web hosting service, site theme, and design and layout of content that’s navigable and readable on mobile devices. If you are not sure about your plumbing website’s mobile readiness, utilize Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Optimize your website speed

your website should load quickly

Whether accessed on a desktop or mobile device, your website should load quickly, possibly in less than three seconds. When it comes to on-page plumbing SEO, page speed comes in big time.

Google loves sites that have a good user experience. If your website loads slowly, it’s likely your visitors will not stick around for long, and Google notices that.

Information Architecture Best Practices

Information architecture is typically an overlooked area of plumbing website design.

Information architecture focuses on how you organize or plan the pages of your plumbing website. The way you plan your plumbing website and interlink your pages can impact how different content types on your site ranks based on user searches or queries.

Information architecture is typically an overlooked area of plumbing website design. Without having a good understanding of how information architecture work, you can end up building a plumbing website that is more confusing than they require it to be or worse still, make your plumbing content inaccessible.

Quality content is the reason why prospects visit plumbing websites. We all know how crucial it is to create quality content, but what is more crucial is to ensure that your content is easy to find.

Search engines like Google or Bing perceive links as “votes of trust” and a great way of understanding what your page is all about and how vital it is (whether credible or not).

Google also pays attention to the text you use to link to web pages, commonly referred to as the anchor text which helps Google to know what your plumbing website is all about.

Likewise, a link from CNN shows that your plumbing website could be important if you link specific pages for numerous areas on your site that portray to search engines that a particular page is crucial to your website.

Besides, the pages on your plumber site have more external votes (from credible sources) and have the ability to help other pages on your site rank higher in search engine result pages.

This idea is called “PageRank.” However, PageRank doesn’t operate the same way it used to when it was first introduced, if you want to understand more about it, read the following good resources below:

Information architecture can be a daunting topic, especially for large plumbing websites, and there are numerous resources that have particular answers outlined at the end of each chapter.

Some of the best practices for information architecture include:

Keep your most important plumbing search pages. This means linking to them occasionally in navigation elements and where possible linking them from a page that has the highest number of links.

You need to understand your most linked-to-pages (use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic SEO).

Generally, you need to adopt a flat information architecture for your plumbing website, implying that you keep any plumbing page and most linked-to plumbing web pages. If you want to understand how you can flatten your plumbing website information architecture, click on this video to read more.

Header Response

Header response tags are important technical plumbing SEO issues

Header response tags are important technical plumbing SEO issues, and this can be a daunting topic if you don’t have the skills and expertise. Still, you want to make sure that your plumbing website pages are returning the right code to search engines (200) such as Google, and pages that cannot be found are returning code (400), indicating that they no longer exist. If you get those codes wrong, you could be indicating a “page not found” as a functioning page, which may make it look like a thin or duplicated page. You can use a server header checker to know the status code that your plumbing website pages are returning when search engines like Google or Bing crawl them.

Link Building and Content Marketing

Link building is another important plumbing SEO strategy.

Link building is another important plumbing SEO strategy. Since Google’s algorithm mostly depends on links, having many valuable links is essential in generating organic search traffic. Links are generally like “votes of confidence”- the more quality links you have pointing to your plumbing website, the higher you will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

There are a few methods you can use to build links to your plumber’s website. One practical and sustainable approach to building links is focusing more on content marketing efforts like creating and promoting quality content that includes specific keywords you want to rank for and engage in conventional PR for your plumbing business.

As you write your content for your plumber marketing strategy, it is also essential to link to other credible websites to offer additional information on topics that you did not exhaustively cover.

The process of creating and promoting content that will offer you social links and shares is a challenging assignment. But, you will obtain a step-by-step guide to various aspects of plumbing content marketing below, and there are numerous ways to develop content, help it get discovered and rank higher in the organic search results.

Another way to get links to your plumbing website is through guest blogging. This process involves creating blogs in exchange for a link back to your plumber’s website. A third way is to develop plumbing resources (like eBooks and guides) and then contact plumbing blogs and request them to promote them.

Link building can be a time-consuming plumbing SEO strategy, but it’s helpful if you want to see results.

Identify and Understand Your Linking and Sharing Audience

Understand who is likely to link to and share your content.

The first important thing you need to do to obtain traction for your plumbing web content is to understand who is likely to link to and share your content. Several tools can help you know influencers with the plumbing niche, but the most powerful one is Buzzsumo.

Similar tools include follower wonk, little bird, and Ahrefs. The concept of leveraging such tools is to identify potential thought leaders and linkers in your plumbing space and understand what they link to and share. Identify what issues they are experiencing and the kinds of content they generally share, and start to figure out how you can develop something valuable to share with their potential clients (Who would regard it as vital too).

As you go through this process, start to think of how you can help out these influencers. What you can do to assist them to attain their objectives or what could you provide that can be valuable to their target audience? If you can consistently outsource smart content creators within the plumbing niche, you will no doubt start to establish a powerful relationship as you begin creating valuable content.

Choose the Plumbing Content You Can Develop and How You Can Promote it

Focus on creating various kinds of content that will have great value

The next step is to know the kind of plumbing content you can create that can be promoted and shared by others. Here are some tips to help you create plumbing content that will generate a high number of shares:

Develop plumbing content that identifies and resolves your client’s pain points or problems.

According to Mathew Woodward, you can identify great plumbing blog content by listening in on social media forums and media.

  • Check on what works by examining what already works and creating content that is of a similar level, you can minimize the risk and make your content as fail-proof as possible.
  • Make others appear great: state the type of tools you use daily.

Focus on creating various kinds of content that will have great value, promote such types of content, and don’t be afraid about informing people whose target audience would take advantage of such content if they knew it existed.

Map Your Content to specific Plumbing SEO keywords

Last but not least, don’t forget to plug in your keywords! That doesn’t mean that you need to stuff a keyword that is irrelevant any time you create great content. It implies that you can use keyword research as a way of developing the pain points (if prospects are turning to Google to search for services or products, they want plumbing content that responds to their queries).

Schema and Markup

After sorting all the fundamental plumbing website design elements, you will be able to go further and make it easier to obtain more traffic to your website using schema.

Schema is a code that helps search engines understand the meaning behind your plumbing company’s website. It offers them additional information about what your plumbing company does, where you are situated, and how people can reach out to you.

To add schema to your plumbing website, simply insert the code in the back end of your website. If you are not experienced to do this on your own, you can always hire a plumbing SEO agency or developer to do it on your behalf.

Technical Plumbing SEO Checklist

Technical plumbing SEO is an important part of your plumbing SEO strategy

Technical or off-page refers to the process of optimizing the indexing, crawling, and rendering phase of your plumbing website to attain higher search rankings on Google. Technical plumbing SEO is an important part of your plumbing SEO strategy, which is why the website needs to meet all the recommendations of search engines. It refers to search engine techniques that are not related to the content on your website.

Now that you know the fundamentals of plumbing SEO, here are some tricks you can utilize to improve your off-page plumbing  SEO and boost your organic search rankings:

Mobile Friendliness

Having a mobile-friendly plumbing website is more crucial than ever.

Let’s begin with this most basic off-page plumbing SEO tip.

One of the major Google algorithms in 2015 was to offer more preference to responsive, mobile-friendly websites. Back then, Google penalized websites that were not mobile-friendly. Fast forward to today, having a mobile-friendly plumbing website is more crucial than ever.

If your plumbing website is driving relevant traffic from mobile searches, this will impact your rankings on mobile devices, a fast-growing segment.

With the skyrocketing usage of mobile devices, a responsive website has become valuable. Your plumbing website must adapt to different mobile devices and operate optimally on each one of them. Many prospects looking for plumbing services conduct a search on Google using their smartphone.

Today, Google shows results based on the proximity of the user to your plumbing business location. Plumbers can enhance mobile SEO via the following tactics:

  • Seamless navigation: URL hierarchies and internal links are more important on mobile.
  • Responsive design:  A design tactic that helps plumber websites adjust to the accessed device.
  • Test your mobile plumbing website: You can use any of the following tools Google’s Mobile-Friendly test to make sure that your website is responsive.

Speed your plumbing website

Website speed is more crucial than ever.

When it comes to plumbing SEO, website speed is more crucial than ever. Make no mistake. If your plumbing website is slow and takes more than three seconds to respond, Google will put a penalty on your site.

That means even if your plumbing content is pure gold for that specific topic, your plumbing website will rank lower on Google than it would if your site had fast loading times.

This is an off-page plumber SEO aspect that you cannot afford to overlook. You can use any of the tools listed below to test your plumbing website speed:

If your plumbing website is taking more than three seconds to load, it can seriously affect your user experience. Fortunately, you can use the following tips to speed up your plumbing website:

  • Optimize your site’s images: Utilize a compressed image format such as JPG in most of your posts. Use tools like TinyPNG to compress your image files.
  • Enable browser caching: This will help you store visitors’ data temporarily on a computer so that they don’t have to wait for your site to load every time they visit.
  • Utilize a content delivery network: Utilize a content delivery network to boost your website’s speed.

Redirects

Plumbing contractors should regularly explore ways to improve your off-page SEO. If you don’t implement redirects correctly, this can have great effects on your organic search results. Here are some reasons why your plumbing website may want to redirect to another page as discussed below:

  • Duplicate content: Say, for example, your plumbing website has a page about “drain cleaning,” but you want to upgrade to residential drain cleaning. You want to redirect the low-value page to the high-quality one.
  • Search Optimization: If one of your plumbing URLs is optimized for search engines, a 301 redirect will help you to achieve that.
  • Rebranding your website: If your plumbing business rebrands or obtains a new website, you need to redirect the top pages to their counterparts.

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps help search engines to locate and index your plumbing webpages.

XML sitemaps help search engines to locate and index your plumbing webpages. Ensuring that you don’t add irrelevant pages and submitting your page for sitemaps does not warrant that your website will rank high for a specific keyword. There are cons to having an XML sitemap, and implementing one can have a positive benefit to your plumbing SEO.

Sitemaps are particularly crucial if:

  • Your plumbing website is not well structured or linked
  • Your site has no external links
  • Your plumbing website contains a lot of archived posts

Migrate your plumbing website from HTTP to HTTPS

Google included HTTPS protocol as one of the ranking factors.

Back in 2014, Google included HTTPS protocol as one of the ranking factors. So, if your plumbing website is still HTTP, it’s time to make that switch. HTTPS will safeguard your visitor’s information to make sure that the data offered is encrypted for data leaks or hacking.

Avoid Duplicate Content

Duplicate content dilutes the value that your content offers to users.

Thin and duplicated content is another area that was solved by the recent Google Panda updates. Google aims to offer high-quality plumbing content. Duplicate content dilutes the value that your content offers to users, thus minimizing the chances of ranking for competitive keywords. Having large quantities of duplicate content makes your site show up like it is cluttered with low-value content in the eyes of search engines.

Meta No Follow, Robot.txt file, and MetaNoindex

You can instruct search engines on how to crawl and index your plumbing content.

Lastly, you can instruct search engines on how to crawl and index your plumbing content. For instance, you can tell Google not to crawl a specific section of your plumbing website in a robot.txt file. The file may exist at your plumbing website at yourwebsite.com/robot.txt file. You need to make sure this file doesn’t block any content that you want to be indexed on your website. You can utilize the meta unfollow or meta no index tags for similar purposes, although each operates independently.

Off-page SEO can be challenging on your own; you should seek assistance from a reputable plumbing SEO agency.

How Long Does Plumbing SEO Take?

Plumbing SEO campaigns can take several months before you begin seeing significant results.

It is normally said plumbing SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, which implies that you should not expect to see desired results in short term. Plumbing SEO campaigns can take several months before you begin seeing significant results.

This is because Google needs time to crawl your website and monitor users’ interaction and behavior with your plumbing website. A good plumbing SEO campaign leads to a high ranking in the SERP but more essentially an influx and steady increase of new clients. It can take a while before you begin to see the results of a plumber SEO strategy, but the average is normally between three to six months.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQs

What is SEO for plumbers?

SEO for plumbers is a systematic process of editing and creating the website content and code of your plumbing company to help it rank on search engines like Google or Bing. To help your plumbing website rank higher on Google, it needs to be secure, mobile-friendly, fast, and full of valuable content.

Do I require a plumbing SEO audit?

A typical plumbing SEO audit includes software and analytics implementation, which is designed for the plumbing industry, competitor analysis, keyword research, and evaluation of your site structure, code, and content. A plumber SEO audit review assists you to understand your campaign results.

What is included in plumbing SEO services?

In your plumbing SEO package, you will obtain an online competitive analysis, code optimization, local SEO, new website or blog content, tracking and measurement reporting, and continuous tweaking to refine your campaign results.

Should I work with a plumbing SEO campaign?

An SEO agency deals with the day-to-day tasks of boosting your plumbing company’s online presence. If your company doesn’t have the time or resources to go through stacks of rankings, analytic data, and traffic patterns, you need to partner with a plumbing SEO agency.

Is Blackstorm Design + Marketing a certified Google partner?

Blackstorm Design + Marketing is a Google premier partner. When you hire us, you work with a team of professional web design experts, SEO experts, and more.

Do your plumbing SEO packages include social media?

Yes, our experts will manage your social media accounts. We will make your brand get in front of your ideal clients and manage your social media presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. Our team can assist you to capture the attention of your target audience with social proof, measurable goals, and social proof.

Grow Your  Business by Getting Your Plumbing SEO Strategy Right from Blackstorm Design + Marketing

We make your plumbing website visible on search engines by using our business expertise.

Search engine optimization is a sure way of getting consistent new clients, and if you want to compete in the local plumbing industry, you need to ensure that your plumbing business appears when potential clients look for a plumbing contractor in your location. Local SEO for plumbers can help you achieve that, which is why it is the most important investment that you can make in your plumbing business nowadays.

However, there are two ways to do SEO for your plumbing business including white-hat and black-hat SEO strategies. Black-hat Plumbing SEO is where you use illegal ways to trick Google or Bing to rank your website higher in search results without following the laid down best practices. While Black hat SEO strategies can seem effective in the short term, it doesn’t abide by the rules and can make your plumbing website to be penalized.

On the other hand, white hat plumbing SEO, which we practice here at Blackstorm Design + Marketing, plays by the rules and can last for many years, making sure that you obtain value for your money and time. By developing links from relevant and legit sites and improving your presence on social media, we can generate more leads and traffic to your plumbing business.

If you want to leverage all the benefits of plumbing SEO, we can help!

We make your plumbing website visible on search engines by using our business expertise.

At Blackstorm Design + Marketing, we bring years to search engine optimization for plumbers. With our personalized digital marketing strategies, combined with our passion for generating real results, we will offer your plumbing business more phone calls, quote requests, and revenue.

We hope this definitive guide has offered important information to rank your plumbing website higher on the search engine result pages. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to book a free strategy session to learn more about our award-winning plumbing SEO strategies today.

Categories
Plumbing Public Relations

How to Improve Online Reputation Management for Plumbers: 5 Things You Are Doing Wrong (and How to fix them)

The world of internet reputation management may seem overwhelming especially to your family-owned, local plumbing business, but it should not be overlooked as being crucial for millennials only.

If you are a plumbing contractor, your online reputation is something that you should consider with the seriousness it deserves. This is because your plumbing business depends on good reviews from clients. Gone are the days when plumbers would solely depend on word-of-mouth recommendations or advertising, and today it is crucial to consider the effects of online reviews.

Without further ado, let us dive into our post.

Why is Online Reputation Management for Plumbers Important?

Internet Reputation Management Impacts Branding

Branding

Your brand is synonymous with its message, and it helps prospects understand what your business is all about. Digital branding is a great trend that is typically beneficial as long as your branding encapsulates the value of your plumbing company. When you invest in online review management, by monitoring reviews about your business and responding to them professionally and politely (whether it’s positive or negative), you will also realize that you will also enhance your overall branding message.

Digital branding and online reputation management are two moving parts of a successful plumbing marketing and advertising strategy. Both require careful attention, and every element affects the other, for good or worse.

Name Recognition

Brand recognition

This is a huge one. The more well-known your plumbing business name, the more you can influence the opinion of potential customers. You can influence homeowners to hire your plumbing business with the right online reputation management and communication strategy. And if you begin working on a positive brand ahead of time, you will be able to maintain your name in the unfortunate event of a mistake or accident.

Increases Your Business Visibility Online

Online visibility

In the modern world, it’s more essential than ever for plumbing contractors to have a vibrant presence online. A well-designed plumbing website and business blog can assist to make sure that your company is obtaining the attention of your target audience.

Besides, social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook can offer excellent advertising or marketing channels. Utilizing these platforms, you can reach a wider audience and improve your brand perception. It is important to create exciting, engaging, and positive content. If you can achieve this, you will be well on your way to building a solid internet presence for your plumbing brand.

Boost Sales

Increase sales

Excellent online reviews are important for plumbers that want to attract more clients through search engines like Google or Bing. In the modern digital world, potential clients are more likely to peg their buying decisions on online reviews than personal recommendations. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that plumbing contractors with positive online reviews experience increased sales.

Online Reputation Management for Plumbers: Things That are Portraying your Business in Negative Light

When it comes to your plumbing online reputation management, there are things that you can do to enhance your presence, and there are things that can hurt it. Here are the five things that you should avoid when trying to manage your online reputation as a plumber:

1. Not Claiming Directory and Social Media Listings

directory listings

There are numerous social media and online business directory listings out there, and you must claim your listing on as many as possible as a plumbing company owner. One of the major reasons for such is that any listing is regarded as “real estate” for your company’s online presence. Additionally, by claiming your business profiles online, you are preventing your competitors from claiming your listing and utilizing it to their advantage.

2. Updating Your Social Media Platforms and Plumbing Website Once a Month

Update your website

One of the reasons that prospects and clients return to your plumbing website is because they desire to view or read fresh content. If you don’t create and publish new content, however, customers cannot return back which implies that you cannot make sales to those clients. By updating your social media platforms and plumbing website, you are keeping clients engaged and increasing the chances of booking more jobs.

It’s also crucial to remember that when you update your social media profile or plumbing website, you should do so with authentic content that is both relevant and interesting to your plumbing niche.

3. Allowing Unqualified People to Manage Your Online Profiles

error warning on web page

Whether we are discussing your business website or social media platforms, never let unqualified individuals in charge of your online presence. By so doing, this can lead to many problems, most of which cannot be solved easily. These include:

  • You can ruin your internet reputation by showcasing your plumbing business in an unprofessional manner
  • You can destroy your online profiles by deleting or editing the wrong thing
  • You can isolate customers and prospects if posts are shared that have a questionable theme.
  • You can deter clients by presenting your business as one that isn’t responsive or doesn’t care about clients’ needs.

Simply put, you should never give someone a chance to manage your online presence unless they have experience with online reputation management, as this could ruin your company.

4. Not Responding to Recommendations and Suggestions from Clients

It's important to listen to client's suggestions

One of the major keys to online review sites and feedback forums is that it offers you the means to gather client feedback and perform client research without incurring a ridiculous marketing budget. By listening to your client’s suggestions as well as their recommendations, you can enhance your company model and boost sales by paying attention to what your clients want rather than what you perceive they want.

5. Wearing Blinders When It Comes to Happy Clients

Wearing Blinders

There are numerous online review sites out there, and they act as a great avenue for funneling clients to your plumbing company. Unfortunately, many plumbers don’t want to leverage these review sites since they are busy focusing and responding to negative comments and reviews.

While it is crucial to respond professionally to negative comments and reviews, it’s equally crucial to respond to positive reviews as well. Clients who leave positive feedback will feel unappreciated if you only respond to negative reviews. What is the essence of leaving a stellar review if no one recognizes such a review?

Take time to thank the commenter for their review, and this can make a huge difference in your plumbing company. Responding to positive reviews also helps future customers understand that they are valuable.

How Can You Manage Your Plumbing Business Reputation Online?

The key to internet reputation management is prompt action. Bad or negative reviews can travel fast online, so you require to be just as swift to neutralize the negative news. These strategies will make it possible to keep your digital reputation intact.

  • Respond to Online Reviews in a Professional and Timely Manner

Online Reviews

A lousy review on an obscure website may seem harmless until a famous blogger gets to hold it and share it with the audience. If your reputation management software catches an unflattering article or review, respond to it the right way.

Address a customer compliant with an offer and an apology to resolve the issue. Reply to unflattering articles and blog posts with clarifications, an apology, and updates if you made an error. The sooner you respond to negative reviews; the less damage your online reputation will suffer.

  • Leverage Positive Reviews

Positive Reviews

When you don’t respond to negative press right away, it can ruin your brand’s reputation online. One story follows another, till such stories are the initial things that come to your mind when a homeowner thinks of your business. In fact, they can even appear when someone searches for your plumbing company-unless there are other reports or stories to counteract them.

If you showcase good reviews, glowing testimonials of recently completed projects, and other content that displays your business in a positive light, you can show that the negative stories are not representative of your company.

Is Your Plumbing Business in Need of Online Reputation Management Services? Blackstorm Design + Marketing can Help

Online Reputation Management Services

It takes time and effort to build a solid reputation for your plumbing business. One negative experience can cost your plumbing business, which is why it’s crucial to monitor your reputation and act promptly when a threat arises.

Don’t wait until something negative happens to your online reputation, be proactive and begin managing now. If your plumbing company is in need of online reputation management services, our professional and experienced team can help.

Schedule a free strategy session with Blackstorm Design + Marketing to see how our public relations experts can help you today.

Categories
Graphic Design Plumbing

How to Rebrand Your Plumbing Business for Success

In the cut-throat world of the plumbing business, it’s crucial to establish a strong brand that will remain relevant and help you to rise above your competitors. When your plumbing brand is not working, you need to go back and ask yourself these questions:

Are you reaching your target audience? Is your business growing beyond its initial goals? Are you considering presenting a modern, fresh image to keep up with your client’s culture? 

Perhaps, you want to explore new customer opportunities and ideas through a free plumbing inspection to supplement your current service offerings. Maybe you have changed your plumbing company mission and, thus, the need to rebrand your plumbing business. 

When any good plumbing business innovates, your visual appeal should also adapt and change. It is an excellent time to rebrand your business if you have made changes in your plumbing company to improve operations, team culture, strategy, or services.

This post will discuss why and how to rebrand your plumbing business for success. 

Begin by Identifying Major Reasons for Rebranding your plumbing business

Reasons for Rebranding

If you have built a trusted, well-loved plumbing brand yet you feel your brand needs to be revamped, you need to look at your clients and social media followers to know what is happening. To avoid losing loyal clients and rumors, let your audience know about the exciting changes you are about to make. Communication is an important step, as the reason behind rebranding your business will paint a clear overview of the type of changes that you are about to make in the plumbing business. 

Tell them about your business’s aspirations and goals, along with the visible, practical actions you are undertaking to implement them. You can wait for clients to accept the changes after they have been implemented, but it is crucial to foster a sense of excitement to get them on board first. 

Tactfully Consider the Kind of Demographic You are Trying to Attract

select group of homeowners

Concentrating your marketing efforts on a select group of homeowners is better than trying to appeal to everyone. Different plumbing styles, décor, and materials attract different kinds of people, which is alright.

Assess Your Budget and Determine the Kind of Changes You Are Willing to Make

budget calculation

Some examples of rebranding your plumbing business might include changes in the logo design, targeting new clients, optimizing your plumbing website for search engines, increasing your plumbing brand visibility on social media through paid promotion, and creating high-quality content.

Involve Your Clients and Employees

monitor the successes and mistakes of your competitors

You could conduct anonymous surveys on social networks to obtain your clients’ opinions and at your office to get your employees’ input. It is also good to monitor the successes and mistakes of your competitors. Even following them on social media will give you a clear overview of what’s working for them and what’s not.

Remember that Clients Always Want to Know How Your Services/products can solve their problems

How Your Services/products can solve clients' problems

Some clients may worry that their favorite plumbing brand will become worse after rebranding; thus, you need to reassure them by discussing the changes you are making and how they stand to benefit from your new image and explain your long-term and short-term goals to them. 

Create a buzz using your social media profiles, and make your plumbing company rebranding a special event. For instance, you could offer a free plumbing estimate for the first few clients who book jobs after the rebrand. Encourage clients who have had a pleasant experience with your plumbing company to leave positive reviews on directories such as Yelp or Google reviews. 

Why Should You Rebrand Your Plumbing Business?

Rebranding

It can be difficult to maintain a fresh image in an industry where trends keep changing. Rebranding is an option that most plumbers tend to overlook, but keeping your plumbing company’s feel and look current and fresh can be crucial to staying ahead of your competitors online. 

Here are the top reasons why you need to rebrand your plumbing company:

Connect With Your New Target Clients

Target Audience

The biggest benefit of revamping your plumbing brand’s feel and look is to reach new property owners who need your services. Your clients will notice when you concentrate on new aspects of your plumbing brand and promote them properly. Rebranding can provide the stimulation your plumbing company requires to grow in an ever-evolving industry.

Differentiate Your Business from the Competition

exceptional

As you grow your plumbing brand, you may find that your capabilities contend with those of the industry’s competitors. Rebranding is one of the most effective ways of setting your plumbing services and products apart from those of your competitors. Differentiating your plumbing brand shows prospects that your services are exceptional and that you are an expert in the industry. Rebranding your business to have its fresh look, feel, and voice will help establish your brand as an authority with a personality that appeals to your clients.

Rebranding Helps Your Plumbing Business to Stay Current

Rebrand your business successfully

Rebranding has one major aim; to keep your plumbing brand current. Graphic design trends play a crucial role in how prospects/clients perceive your plumbing brand and all it has to provide. Ensuring that your visual appeal is always ahead of your competitors shows your clients that you stay abreast of what is happening in the industry.

Reflect New Products, Services, or Goals

Reflect and improve

It isn’t easy to showcase how your plumbing business has grown over the years if your brand does not reflect it. If your business has expanded to offer more services or set new objectives for your company, then rebranding is an excellent way to show that your business is evolving.

Improve Your Bottom Line

The businessman solves the company's obstacles

The advantages of rebranding will not only affect your inbound marketing strategy, but they will make your plumbing business more profitable. Reaching new prospects, standing out from competitors, and showing your expertise are excellent ways of maximizing your profits by giving your plumbing brand a new look.

Partner With Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing for All Your Graphic Design Needs

A design specialist can establish and elevate your brand

A great plumbing brand deserves an opportunity to achieve its full potential through aggressive internet marketing campaigns. Stand out from the crowd and amplify your brand’s message with our professional graphic design services. Our team will work with you to create a versatile color pallet, custom logo, and other marketing materials that convey your goals and the importance of your plumbing brand. Schedule a free strategy session with our experts to start your plumbing graphic design project 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!

Categories
Plumbing SEO

Slow Plumbing Websites Doesn’t Work: Tips On How To Speed Up Your Plumbing Website

Increase Prospect Engagement And Conversion Rates, And Book More Jobs With A Faster Plumbing Website.

Are you wondering why your plumbing website loads so slowly? Or are you searching for tips to help your plumbing company website load faster? Does the speed of your site affect conversion rates and SEO?

These are concerns that plague the minds of our prospects and customers. Website visitors today have become more intolerant of slow-loading websites, and even search engines like Google are rewarding faster-loading plumbing websites with a higher ranking than those without.

Increase conversion rate

So if you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you must take advantage of the abovementioned situation. Fortunately, this post will discuss crucial tips to speed up your plumbing website and improve conversion in 2022 and beyond.

If you are dealing with a slow plumbing website, keep reading for more information on fixing it.

Why Does My Plumbing Website Load Slowly?

website loads slowly

You might have come across the old age cliché that says “slow and steady wins the race,” but when it comes to your plumbing website’s overall performance, that is undoubtedly a direct ticket to failure.

Improving your plumbing website’s loading time is a win-win approach to keep the web users of your site happy and increase the revenue generated by your plumbing business.

Here are our top reasons why turtles are moving faster than your plumbing website:

Non-Optimized Images

non-optimized and optimized image

An image is considered unoptimized when it has a large file size, undescriptive file names, and the site with no alt tags, which ultimately slows your plumbing website’s performance.

Images created using software like Photoshop are saved as large files. Even though they contain a substantial amount of quality and detail, they can slow down your plumbing website because of that excess detail.

Besides, Google does not see your images. Instead, Google reads the three or four-word descriptive terms to understand what the icon is all about. But without that description, Google does not know what your image is all about.

Excessive Usage of Ads

too many ads

Google AdSense can be an additional revenue source for your plumbing business, but it can also slow down your website.

The most apparent effect of overloading your plumbing website with adverts is more HTTPS requests that make your website unresponsive.

Mainly the rich media ads such as auto-downloads, pop-unders, and interstitials may create hundreds of such requests, making your plumbing website slow down its speed.

Failure to Use a Content Delivery Network

CDN

If you don’t use a content delivery network, then your plumbing website will load slowly.

Content Delivery Networks (CDN) makes sure that your plumbing website is served to a user from a nearby location. That helps your plumbing website load faster because the data travels a shorter distance between your user and the server.

High Plumbing Website Traffic

Website Traffic

A surge in plumbing website traffic is another reason for the slow loading website.

Even if the information is conveyed super-fast, a plumbing website can only hold a certain number of users each time.

Bandwidth is a technical terminology used to refer to the information an internet connection can handle at any given time. Broadband (large bandwidths) deliver information very fast and accommodate more users. “Mbps” refers to the amount of data that can be transferred per second.

Inefficient Web Hosting

Web Hosting

You need to have a web hosting provider to display your plumbing website online.

A web host is synonymous to a vacant unit in real estate – It is the space where you create your plumbing website.

When a prospect types your plumbing website’s name into their browser, the web host serves your plumbing website from their server. 

Some web host providers are better than others. If you choose an inefficient and cheaper web host for your plumbing website, you will lose valuable clients because of your slow-loading website.

Use of Unclean Code Slows Down Your Plumbing Website

Coding

Unclean coding is another common culprit for the slowness of your plumbing website. When you create your plumbing website, inline stylings, excessive new white spaces, unnecessary comments, and empty new lines can make your site’s stylesheet bigger, thus hampering its loading speed.

Your Plumbing site CSS is not Optimized Properly

CSS

Like Javascript, CSS is responsible for styling its pages and can delay it if left unoptimized.

Excess Social Sharing Buttons

Social Sharing Buttons

It is crucial to let your prospects/clients quickly share your pages on social media; it can reduce your page loading time if you have too many social sharing buttons.

For such buttons to correctly do their job, you need to add them as plugins to your site. Such plugins will require retrieving data from their respective social media pages every time they are used.

Javascript Issues

Javascript

JavaScript is the code that makes your plumbing website interactive and functional for users. Without it, your plumbing website will be so dull. However, if not appropriately optimized, JavaScript can slow down your site’s loading when prospects try to load it in their browsers.

When a browser attempts to display your plumbing website, it must stop and first load the JavaScript files it comes across. Render-blocking JavaScript slows down your plumbing website loading speed.

Numerous elements on your Plumbing Web Page

Web Page Elements

Your plumbing page’s size is affected by various factors, including HTML, stylesheets, scripts, images, videos, and other items that may be on your website pages.

When you have lots of elements on your page, the page will load more slowly, which leads to a slow plumbing website overall.

Too Much Flash Content

Adobe flash

Although flash is an excellent tool for making your plumbing website more interactive, it is more likely to slowly build your website load. Flash content usually is bulky in size and thus will make your plumbing website load slower than usual.

What is the Ideal Loading Time of a Plumbing Website?

That is acceptable if your plumbing website loads in less than 3 seconds. However, anything beyond three seconds will make your bounce rate increase sharply.

If your plumbing website loading time exceeds 3 seconds, you must make speeding up your website your priority. But before you start this process, you must measure your current plumbing website loading speed.

How to Speed up Your Plumbing Website in 10 Simple Steps

Optimize all Images used on Your Plumbing Website

Optimize images

With a vast selection of free photo tools available online, optimizing images found on your plumbing website can be a breeze.

To optimize your website images, you need to compress them first.

Large images are often very bulky, and as a consequence, they load slowly.

The compression of such images helps lower the bandwidth of those images, consequently reducing HTTPS requests.

Check Your Web Hosting Provider

Web hosting provider

Your web host provider can have a significant impact on your plumbing website speed. You need to select a web host provider with servers near where your prospects/clients are. If you are an American client having to access your site via a server in Northern Europe, that will affect your site speed.

Many plumbers opt for cheap web hosting after starting a website or blog, so they select shared hosting. Over time, they publish more content, and their website grows, thus slowing down their websites. In such a case, they can upgrade their hosting plan and boost the speed of their website. Be sure to select the best hosting Service Company for your plumbing company website.

Enable Browser Caching

clear caches

Enabling caching improves your plumbing website speed significantly and gives your prospects a more rewarding user experience. Caching usually involves the storage of static files like HTML documents, media images, and JavaScript and CSS files for faster and easier access. The database does not have to retrieve information every time there is a new request. The more applications loaded on your server, the more time it will take for your plumbing website to load.

Remove unnecessary plugins

Every plugin you add needs resources to run effectively. However, more resources mean a slow-loading plumbing website. If you have unnecessary or unused plugins on your site, you should delete and deactivate them to give your website speed the required boost. Removing unnecessary plugins can enhance your page loading time and, consequently, your plumbing website’s speed.

Reduce HTTPS Requests

HTTPS Requests

Plumbing websites can be slow because of excessive HTTPS requests. When potential clients visit your plumbing website, they ask for specific files, and their browser requests such data from your server using the HTTP protocol. These files include CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files. If you have a lot of HTTPS requests, the performance of your plumbing website will get slowed. 

You can minimize such requests by:

  • Combining JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files.
  • Use CSS instead of images where possible.
  • Minimize the number of elements per page.
  • Add a caching plugin.

Only use Social Media Platforms that Perform the Best

Social Media

If you know that your posts don’t get shares on Reddit or Pinterest, you can delete those buttons from your plugins. Reduce the number of social sharing buttons to three or four per page. That will help you target high-value social media networks like Twitter and Facebook without overloading your users. It will also save your site from loading pages that are barely used. Your clients will not even miss them!

Reduce or Eliminate Third-Party Advertisers

Third-Party Advertisers

If ads cause your clients to bounce back from your site and reduce the loading time, you will lose valuable clients who are far much worth than your ads revenue.

If ads are your primary income source, you stand to lose clients by placing too many ads on your plumbing website. Limit your ads to one or two per page and increase your plumbing website speed. That will help keep your prospects glued to your plumbing website for an extended period.

Reduce the number of elements per page

To minimize the load on your plumbing website:

  • Reduce the quantity and size of items on your plumbing website. 
  • Consider whether you can attain the desired outcomes with few photos, details, or videos overall.
  • If you want to know whether you have too many elements on your page, perform a heat map test to understand what your clients/prospects are clicking and clicking. 

Increase Bandwidth to Cater to an unexpected Traffic Surge

Bandwidth

High traffic is an excellent problem-every plumber should welcome it.

But to keep your plumbing website loading faster, you need to increase your bandwidth.

It is a pretty straightforward process as you only need to call your web host and instruct him or her to increase your bandwidth. 

Use a Content Delivery Network to speed up your plumbing website

A CDN hosts your plumbing website’s static files to deliver them effectively and minimize your server load and bandwidth. With a CDN, the requested content can be achieved much faster since the server will be closer to the target end-users. As a result, there will be no latency, but your plumbing website will load much faster. So, using a CDN will save a lot of bandwidth and significantly improve your plumbing website’s speed. 

Hire a Professional to Optimize Your Plumbing Website Page Speed Today!

Various factors make your plumbing website load slowly, and this implies that several steps can help your site load faster, as expected by clients. As a plumber, you don’t have enough time to run your business and speed up your plumbing website.

page speed

Hiring a seasoned plumbing website design professional is an easy way of making your plumbing website load faster. Professionals have the resources, expertise, and time to ensure that your plumbing website loads in no time. 

If your plumbing website loads slowly, Blackstorm Plumbing Marketing can help.

We have an experienced team of web designers who are committed to optimizing your plumbing website’s speed and helping you enjoy the best loading times ever.

Schedule an appointment online with one of our growth experts to learn more about our website speed optimization services.

Categories
Plumbing SEO

Why Your Plumbing Business Needs More Google Reviews (And How To Obtain Them)

10 Simple Ways to Get More Google Reviews for Your Plumbing Company

Testimonials, referrals, and online reviews (particularly Google reviews) are crucial to growing the plumbing business. In fact, Google reviews are the foundation upon which a plumbing company can establish a good working relationship with their community. Google reviews are incredibly crucial-more 80% of customers trust online reviews just like they do with personal recommendations, and 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a plumbing business.

More google reviews

More positive reviews = more qualified leads, higher search rankings, and increased revenue.

If you are struggling to enhance your online presence, read on, in this post, we will give you 10 ways to obtain more Google reviews and practical strategies on how to pull off negative reviews.

Without further ado, let us dive into our post!

Why Do Google Reviews Matter in Your Plumbing Business?

Google review gif

While the possibility of opening up your plumbing company to Google reviews can generally be daunting, it’s something that should not be overlooked. It’s true that you never understand how clients feel about the plumbing services you provide. However, it’s crucial to remember that people will review your plumbing company online regardless.

If you are hesitant to take the plunge and begin engaging with clients on review websites such as Yelp, consider this. Oftentimes, Google reviews found online can sway opinions, and they can lead to new clients that you may not have otherwise had-or they can turn people away and give your plumbing business a poor reputation. As a plumbing company that probably depends heavily on word of mouth, Google reviews are an important aspect of your online presence.

Here are three reasons why you should enhance plumbing company online reviews:

  • Google Reviews Impact Your Client’s First Impression

Client’s First Impression

Prospects or clients tend to perceive online reviews as a good indicator of how well your plumbing company has performed in the past. If your plumbing company has mostly great reviews, the one who reads your review sees that you have satisfied clients and is probably more likely to contact your plumbing business. Plus, if you have a higher star rating than other plumbers on a review website like Yelp, the user may instantly assume you offer better service.

Let’s face it: if you had to select between two similar plumbing businesses and one had a 3-star rating and the other had an average of a 5-star rating, which would you select? Probably the one with a higher star rating.

  • Google Reviews Impact Your Paid & Organic Rankings in Search

Organic Rankings

Do you know your online reviews actually affect how visible your plumbing business is at the top of the Google search results page? First, let’s examine the local map results. When you Google a plumbing service in a particular city, you will come across a map on the SERP with the top three locations. These listings typically the number of Google reviews and a high star rating based on your user experiences.

The better reviews your plumbing business has, the more likely it can be featured on the top of coveted three listings-as online reviews are a crucial ranking factor for your local SEO.

  • Google Reviews Help Attract New Clients

Attract New Customers

Once clients have clicked through your page, you are almost near the main goal. Prospects or clients who come to your plumbing website should be enticed to book jobs with your company. While a user-friendly website experience is crucial, Google reviews can be powerful alone to increase your conversion rates alone. For this reason, any plumbing company with a strong rating should be showcasing that review all over their website. This review will increase client trust even if they have never come across your reviews online.

Proven Ways to Get More Google Reviews and Rank your Plumbing Business Higher in Local Search

Local SEO

Any local plumber will tell you that launching and growing a plumbing company is hard work. Creating a unique plumbing service is challenging enough, but then comes the job of spreading the word about your plumbing company and building a client base. Word of mouth recommendations remains one of the best methods of plumbing marketing today.

The major difference today is that word about your plumbing business spreads faster through client reviews, and the most famous review website in the world is Google-particularly for local home service businesses like roofing or plumbing. The more positive Google reviews your plumbing business has, the higher you will rank in local searches. That said, getting online reviews is not easy, so read for the effective ways to get Google reviews that actually work.

Without further ado, let’s look at the proven tips for boosting your number of positive reviews on Google.

1. First, Understand the Process

It takes a few seconds for a client to write a Google review. Simple enough, right? Well, there is a process to get here. The client has to:

  • Open up Google Maps
  • Look for your plumbing business
  • Click on it to showcase your Google Business Profile
  • Scroll down to the reviews section on your profile
  • Click to leave their review

Homeowner: You have been amazing. How can I review your plumbing company online?

Would you rather say: A Google review would be awesome! Just head to our plumbing website, and there’s a link right there to help you leave a review.

2. Ask and You Shall Receive

Asking previous clients to review your plumbing business.

It is easy for clients to forget, especially in this modern and hectic world, so even a superior service doesn’t warrant a positive review on Google. They may leave smiling after service, but once they are out of your door, they have mentally moved on to other things. Find those clients who simply forgot how wonderful you are by reminding them.

A good plan starts by asking previous clients to review your plumbing business. This is normally achieved through an email in which you offer a direct link to your Google My Business listing. Keep the process as simple as possible, and the client will be likely to follow through.

To get more Google reviews going forward, figure out setting up an automated thank-you email to be sent to your clients three to five days after completing your plumbing project.

3. Add Your Google Review Link to a Business Card

business card

One of the best ways to ensure your clients know they can review your plumbing business is through a business card. You can post the direct link, but it is highly recommended that you create a separate page for online reviews on your plumbing website, and it will be easier for clients to type in the address.

4. Claim, Verify and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Google Business profile helps obtain more reviews but also makes those reviews public. GBP is one of the most visited review platforms on the internet just by the virtue of being a Google service. Because Google owns a major share of the search engine market, more prospects or clients see Google Business Profile and normally read Google reviews more than other review platforms.

Google Business Profile

If you have not claimed your plumbing company on Google Business Profile, you should register for it ASAP. To help your business get more reviews on Google, ensure that you retrieve your Google review short link and add it to your email correspondence. Include it on your plumbing website and social media ads or posts as well. Visible links will make it easier, and more probably that people will leave a Google review.

5. Add a Review Button to Your Plumbing Website

Review Button

Most clients expect your plumbing business to have a professional website. So, one of the good places for a Google review is your plumbing website. Simply login into your Google My Business and click on the button to display your review link. Copy that link, and then include a button on your plumber’s website.

6. Respond to Reviews

Replies for reviews

Homeowners will be more responsive to plumbing companies that value their input. To obtain more plumbing reviews, make sure you reply to the reviews you already have. Replies will help gain the trust of more new clients, generate qualified leads, and earn new clients who can, in turn, offer your company more reviews.

Don’t just respond to the positive reviews, either, and replying to negative reviews is as, if not more essential.

7. Ask for Google Review By Email

Composing an email

Another way is that you can wait until you finish the job and ask for the Google review through email at the end of the day. Ensure your email request consists of links directly to the Google Business Profile and or your Facebook page reviews section.

The email is probably going to be less effective since you don’t have that interpersonal exchange with the client, and you didn’t obtain a commitment to write a review. Besides, emails are easy to park or ignore.

8. Post Your Review Link to Social Media Pages

Review Link

Social media is a great way to interact with your clients. Whether you are using organic social media (aka free) or using paid social ads (such as Facebook ads), utilizing social media posts to request feedback is an efficient way to obtain more reviews on Google.

9. Make it Easy for Customers to leave a review on Google

Google reviews

No matter how wonderful your customer experience is, making the Google review process easier will generally improve your chances of success.

Make the process of writing Google reviews as easy as possible.

10. Obtain Google Reviews from Partners and Vendors

Reviews from Partners and Vendors

Partners and vendors may not be clients, but they can attest to what it feels like to work with you consistently. They also may be more willing to leave a Google Business review if you leave one review for their business first.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google Reviews for Plumbers

Figure balances question marks

What is the best way to obtain Google reviews for my plumbing company?

Let your Google reviews bring in new clients while you operate your plumbing business. Blackstorm Design + Marketing will instantly generate new Google reviews from those new customers. Do this before your competition.

How do you get clients to leave Google reviews?

There are a few ways to get clients to write a review on Google but the simplest one is to:

Utilize an email campaign: send out emails to clients after you have completed a project, requesting them to leave a review on your Google Business profile.

How do I get negative Google reviews removed?

If you have a negative, defamatory or fake review on your Google Business profile, you can also attempt to have it eliminated:

  • Request the reviewer to remove it themselves
  • Requesting Google to eliminate it
  • Reporting it as spam

How do I get more Google reviews?

There are multiple ways you can encourage clients to leave reviews, such as:

  • Ask them outright in person
  • Send out regular follow-up emails
  • Include review links on your plumbing website or in email signatures
  • Running Google Ad campaigns
  • Create social media posts

Increase Google Reviews with Blackstorm Design + Marketing

Digital Marketing

Your plumbing business can benefit greatly from Google reviews. Such reviews not only inspire new and repeat business but also improve your search engine results and SEO. More positive reviews on Google will drive your plumbing company to the top. However, the process of creating a steady flow of Google reviews in your plumbing company isn’t easy. That’s why we highly recommend that you partner with a reputable online reputation management agency like Blackstorm Design + Marketing.

The more proactive you become towards collecting more Google reviews, responding to reviews, and also deal with negative reviews, the more confident your team will be in handling this crucial aspect of internet marketing.

If you would like to leave your Google review generation to experts, our team at Blackstorm Design + Marketing is here to help. Schedule a free discovery session with Blackstorm Design + Marketing to learn more about our wide range of internet marketing services designed to help plumbing companies like yours obtain as many qualified leads and sales as possible.

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