If you own a plumbing company, you get the calls. “We can get you to page one.” “We noticed your site has errors.” “We only work with one plumber per city.” Some of those companies are fine. Many are not. And plumbing is one of the trades where a bad SEO company can burn a lot of money fast, because the calls are worth so much.
Here is how to tell the difference, and the mistakes I see plumbers make over and over.
Mistake 1: Paying for a website that is really a brochure
A pretty homepage with a services list is not SEO. If the company cannot show you the separate pages for emergency plumbing, drain cleaning and water heaters, they are selling design, not rankings. Ask to see the page list before you sign. The seven pages guide is the checklist.
Mistake 2: Ignoring the Google listing
Most plumbing calls come from the map box, not the website. If the SEO company never asks for access to your Google Business Profile, they are working on the wrong thing. The listing guide shows what they should be doing with it.
Mistake 3: A long contract with no numbers in it
You should be able to see, every month, which searches you rank for, how many people called from Google, and what changed on the site. If the report is a page of green charts with no phone numbers on it, ask for the call tracking. If they cannot provide it, that tells you something.
Mistake 4: Buying “SEO” that is really ads
Ads work for plumbers. But ads stop the minute you stop paying, and they are not SEO. Some companies run ads, call it SEO, and charge for both. Ask plainly: “When I stop paying you, what do I keep?” With real SEO, you keep the pages, the reviews and the rankings.
Mistake 5: Letting them own your stuff
Your domain, your Google listing, your website files and your reviews should all be in accounts you own. If the company says the site is “theirs” or the listing is “managed through their platform,” walk away. Plumbers lose years of reviews this way when they switch.
Mistake 6: Expecting it to work in a month
Real SEO takes time. A new page needs a few weeks for Google to find it and longer to trust it. Reviews build week by week. Town pages take months to settle in. Anyone who promises page one in thirty days is either running ads and calling it SEO, or planning to be gone before you notice. A fair timeline is a few quick wins in the first month or two, from the Google listing and the emergency page, and steady growth after that.
What to check on your own first
Before you hire anyone, do three things yourself. Search “plumber” plus your town on your phone and see if you are in the map box. Search “water heater replacement” plus your town and see if any page of yours shows up at all. Then read your last five reviews and check whether anyone replied. Those three answers tell you most of what a good SEO company would tell you in the first meeting, and they help you judge whether the proposal in front of you is aimed at the right problems.
Four questions to ask before you sign
- Can I see a plumbing site you rank right now, and search it myself?
- Which pages will you build in the first 90 days, and what will each one target?
- Who owns the website, the listing and the content if I leave?
- How will I see the phone calls that came from Google?
A good company answers all four without flinching. A bad one changes the subject.
What a fair deal looks like
Month to month, not a year locked in. A clear list of what gets built and when. Access to everything. A report you can understand without a meeting. And someone who actually knows plumbing, who can tell a slab leak from a sewer backup, because the pages have to be written by someone who can.
Want this done for you?
I run a plumbing site in Tampa Bay myself, so you can search it and judge for yourself before you ever talk to me. If you want a second opinion on your site or on a proposal someone sent you, the audit is free.