Keyword Tips for Plumbers

Truth talk: It’s incredibly easy to spend marketing dollars in the wrong place. And there’s no shortage of advice out there about the “best” ways to spend your money. Have a killer website. Buy social ads. Invest in a billboard. Do vinyl wraps on your service trucks. Budget for Google AdWords. Be sure Angie’s List and Home Advisor know who you are. Have company swag to give away. If you have any money leftover (yeah, right) do a direct mail coupon and purchase a radio spot.

There’s some value in all of these ideas, but if you’re like us, all you can hear is “ cha ching ” when you read through them. It’s tough to know what combination of tactics will get you the results you need—which brings us back to the first sentence: It’s easy to waste money on advertising.

We don’t want you to waste money, so we’re going to give you our best advice. Unless you have an unlimited ad budget, focus your marketing efforts in two directions: exceptional, referral-worthy customer service and a website that brings you business. Today, we’re going to focus in on your website. In particular, we’re going to share some tips on how to make sure your potential customers can find you online through the magic of search engine optimization (SEO).

Here’s the gist of SEO:

• You make intentional decisions about the content on your website
  
• that increase the chances of a search engine finding it
  
• and showing it to someone who’s looking for a company who does what you do.

Easy peasy, right?

Nope. Not easy peasy. SEO is complex and, because the fancy math (logarithm) that runs in the background changes constantly, there’s simply no magic, set-it-and-forget-it formula. Making SEO work for you requires diligence and vigilance. But it’s certainly beneficial to understand the basics, and it’s worth partnering with an expertto manage the whole complicated process for you.

The foundational SEO principle to understand deals with words, so let’s start there.

Note: Google is the undisputed king of search , so when we write search or search engine just assume we’re talking about Google.

1. Use the right words. You may have heard the term keywords. That’s just marketing-speak for “words or phrases people search for.” Keywords for plumbers include things like: leaking faucet, clogged drain, how to fix a garbage disposal, best water heater, plugged toilet, emergency plumbing service, and so on. You’ll want to include keywords all over your site—on landing pages and in blog posts—but only in meaningful ways (see #2). Making sure your website is (appropriately) keyword-rich makes it easier for search engines to match someone’s question with your answer.
   
   Protip: Make sure you include “plumber [name of your town]” on your homepage and services pages. When someone types in that phrase, they’re most likely ready to hire someone right now. So, it’d be good for your shop to show up in their search results.
   
   Pro, protip: If someone’s searching “plumber [name of your town]” chances are good they’re standing in front of a disaster-in-the-making and using a mobile device, not a desktop computer. For that reason, part of making sure your site is search-optimized is making sure it’s mobile-friendly.
   
   
2. Do not overuse keywords. Once upon a time, marketers tried to trick search engines by stuffing websites with keywords—literally repeating keywords randomly in the middle of sentences in completely nonsensical ways. They didn’t care that the copy didn’t read well; all they cared about was that Google found their website and showed it to potential customers.
   
   It wasn’t long before Google waved its finger at marketers all “nuh-uh-uh”-like and made it clear that keywords aren’t the end-all-be-all of SEO. Good content is. Google wants to make sure it’s serving consumers well by providing them with helpful information, not keyword-stuffed gibberish. So when it comes to the keyword part of your SEO strategy, think quality over quantity every time.
   
   
3. Use keywords in your headers (H1 and H2) . Breaking your web content into scannable bits, otherwise known as “chunking” your copy, is helpful in two ways. First, it allows potential customers to see quickly if you’re the solution they’re looking for. Second, it helps Goggle tell if you’re a good result for someone’s query—but not in the way you might think.
   
   Whether Google cares about H1 and H2 tags has long been debated. But what we do know is Google ranks sites based, in part, on how long people stay on them. The longer they stick around, it reasons, the more valuable your content must be. Well, because we consumers are an impatient bunch, if a website’s content is arranged in long paragraph after longer paragraph with nothing breaking up all those words, we’ll likely hit the back button and try another site. Google keeps an eye on those bounces, and too many of them will hurt your site’s reputation.

Volumes have been written on keywords and SEO, so these tips are certainly only scratching the surface. Still, thinking strategically about keywords on your site is a great start— and it’s free. (Also, we have a great list of the most popular keywords for plumbers.)

Need help? We’re happy to help you think through your SEO strategy—with keywords and more. Give us a call (also free).