Plumber SEO: All About Backlinks

When it comes to plumber SEO (search engine optimization), most people immediately think keywords for plumbers. While it’s true that a solid keyword strategy is a hugely important element of effective SEO, there’s more to it than that. Lots more.

Today, we’re going to focus on one aspect of plumber SEO that’s often overlooked: backlinks .

When another website links back to your website, that’s called a backlink . In search engine world, backlinks are a big, big deal. Why? Because if other people are linking to your content, that signals to Google that you’re a trusted source of information. And that means Google’s going to feel better about including your website on a search engine results page (SERP).

OK, let’s take a time out here. Yes, I’m anthropomorphizing Google just a bit. There’s really no “feel better about” anything, here, because Google doesn’t have feelings. What Google does have is math —algorithms that help the search giant see your site and “decide” to show it to someone (or not). Relevant to today’s conversation is an algorithm known as PageRank.

PageRank counts how many links point to a website and assesses the quality of each of those links. Having lots of quality links means a higher rank on the SERP. This cannot be overstated. Researchindicates the number of quality domains linking to a page correlates with search rankings more than any other SEO factor .

Here’s a plain-language recap:

• Things like structured data and site architecture help Google see your website: “Oh, hey! There’s a website here!”
  
• Keywords help Google know what your site is about: “Okay, so this site is about water heaters and sewer lines.”
  
• Next, Google asks, “But do these people actually know anything about water heaters and sewer lines? Let’s see what other sites have to say about that.”
  
• Then, Google puts its feelers out, looking for validation that your site is legit. If other sites link to yours, it tells Google you have some authority on the topic being searched. Backlinks are the strongest indication of authority, and authority is foundational to SEO.
  

It’s important to note that not all backlinks carry the same weight with Google. In fact, there are more than 40 factors that may impact the relative worth of backlinks . As with most Google-y things, it’s complicated.

For example, as you might expect, links from larger, more well-known sites carry more weight than links from tiny, obscure sites. For example, if you’re a restaurant, Google gets much more excited about a link from Zagat than it does about a link from a food blogger who has four followers.

Here’s another one: Some links include HTML code that tells search engines the link doesn’t “count.” These are called no follow links and they look like this: <a href=” http://www.website.com/ ” rel=” nofollow ”>Link Text</a> . If you’re a nice person (and I believe you are), you’re probably thinking, “Well, that’s just terrible! Why would someone link to my site but tell Google to ignore it?”

Long story short? The nofollow tag exists to cut down on spam. See, once people figured out how important backlinks are to getting higher search rankings, they started dropping their links all.over.the.place—even in places that had nothing to do with their site’s content. Well, Google don’t play like that: Spammy backlinks hurt both the linker and the linkee. So webmasters started implementing automatic nofollow tags for, for example, blog comments.

It’s important to note that no follow links aren’t worthless. While they won’t garner you a bunch of authority “points” with Google, they’ll nevertheless get you some referral traffic.

First, let’s talk about how not to get healthy backlinks: Don’t pay for them . What a pleasant surprise, right? The best backlinks are free ! In fact, sponsored links must include that nofollow tag I mentioned earlier; otherwise, Google sees them as “link schemes” trying to game PageRank, and that makes the search engine super cranky.

Instead of paying for links, here’s how to earn them:

• Be patient . If you’re just beginning to ramp up your plumber SEO efforts, it’s going to take some time to develop street cred on the internet. Rightsize your expectations so you’ll stick with your backlink strategy. And, in the meantime, invest some marketing resources in more short-term efforts like AdWords for your plumbing shop.
  
• Do competitive backlink research. If there’s a plumber in your service area that keeps blowing you away on SERP, it’s likely they have more and better backlinks than you do. You need to find out what they are, so you can build a competitive plan. (This is a bit complicated, but we have specialized tools to help you.)
  
• Create great content. No one’s going to link to your website “just because.” Rather, they’ll link to your site if you have valuable, entertaining, and/or timely information to offer to people who visit their site. Great blog content is a good place to start, but you can also create infographics, videos, quizzes, and step-by-step guides.
  
• Answer the question, “Who cares?” When you have good content to offer, figure out who’ll care about it and reach out to let them know it exists. For example, if you have a post comparing different brands of water heaters, reach out the manufacturer of your #1 choice and let them know you’re talking them up.
  
• Offer to do guest posts. Build relationships with relevant companies and organizations in your community, and offer to write guests posts for their websites. You can be super creative with this:
  
  • For a local hardware store, offer a post comparing PVC to copper pipes.
    
  • Write a piece about adding safety features to senior adults’ bathrooms, and provide it to a local veterans’ organization.
    
  • Contact some apartment complexes in the area and see if they’ll let you share some advice about saving money on water bills.
    

Not sure where to start? Let Levergy work with your Plumbing shop's SEO strategy , and watch the results start pouring in!