What should a plumbing company website have?

A plumbing company website needs seven things: a phone number that dials when tapped, a line for each service people search for, the license wording your city requires, the towns you drive to by name, six real photos of the truck and the work, a link to your Google reviews, and a short form. The visit that matters most is from someone standing in a wet basement at eleven at night with a phone in one hand, so the number goes first. That person wants a number that works when they tap it, a town that matches theirs, and a photo of a truck that looks like it could be parked outside. This is what goes on the page, what the license line has to say, and when one page is enough.

There are two visitors. The first has water on the floor, a water heater that quit on a Sunday, or a sewer backing up into the shower. They search on a phone and call the first result that looks local. The second is planning: a water heater that is getting old, a bathroom remodel, a slow drain they've lived with for a month. That person reads a little more, checks the reviews, and might fill out a form. The emergency visitor pays for the site. Build the top of the page for them, and the planner gets what they need on the way down.

On a phone, the top of the page is all anyone sees before they decide. Put the phone number there as a button that dials when tapped, in text large enough to hit with a wet thumb. Under it, the business name, the towns, and a plain line about hours. If you answer at 2am, say so. If you don't, say when you do; a page that says 24/7 and goes to voicemail at midnight earns a one-star review in the morning.

• A tap-to-call phone number, the same one that's on the truck and the Google listing
• The business name as it appears on the invoice
• The towns you drive to, by name
• Hours, including when the phone gets picked up on nights and weekends
• One photo of the truck or the crew, taken on a job

A lot of people search for the thing that broke, not for "plumber". Water heater repair, water heater replacement, drain cleaning, sewer line repair, sump pump, leaking pipe, gas line. Each one of those is a search someone types, and each one should be a line on your site with a sentence under it that says you do it. A list of services with a sentence each does more for a search engine and for a nervous customer than a paragraph that says "full-service residential and commercial plumbing".

• Water heater repair and replacement, tank and tankless
• Drain cleaning: kitchen, bathroom, floor drains, the main line
• Sewer line repair, camera inspection, and replacement
• Sump pumps and battery backups
• Leak repair, burst pipes, frozen pipes in January
• Fixture installs: faucets, toilets, disposals, water softeners
• Gas lines, if you hold the license for them

Leave off the services you don't want. If you never want another sewer job, don't list it; a website that lists it will get you the calls.

Where the city licenses plumbers, put the license line on the page, near the phone number or in the footer, and write it the way the city writes it. A customer who is about to let a stranger into the basement wants a reason to trust you, and a license number is one they can check.

In Omaha, or any other city, go to the city's plumbing licensing page for what the license line should say and which number goes on it, and copy their wording. Don't type a number from memory onto a page that will be live for years. Check it against the license the city issued you when it renews, and note the date you checked.

Lincoln is a worked example of how specific a city gets. There, the Building and Safety division of Planning and Development Services handles plumbing registration and lists the plumbing categories on its site: Master Contractor, Master, Journeyman and Apprentice (gas fitter and water conditioning are listed separately), with the minimum requirements in Chapter 24 of the Lincoln Municipal Code. The renewal window runs March 1 to May 31, and the city's page says that if you don't renew by May 31 you are no longer licensed to do certain plumbing work in Lincoln. The details are on the city's plumbing trade registration page (opens in a new tab).

"Serving the Omaha metro" tells a customer in Gretna nothing. Name the towns: Bellevue, Papillion, La Vista, Gretna and Springfield on the Sarpy County side, then Ralston, Elkhorn, Plattsmouth, and Council Bluffs if you cross the river and hold whatever Iowa requires for plumbing work there; check with the state before you put an Iowa town on the list. Use the same list you gave Google when you set up the listing; that setup is its own guide. The list is for the customer first, so they know you'll come, and for search second, so the town names are on the page. A town you'd only drive to for a big job doesn't belong on it.

A stock photo of a smiling model in a clean uniform tells the customer you didn't have a photo. A phone picture of your truck in a driveway in Papillion tells them who is going to show up. You need about six: the truck, a tech at work, a finished water heater install, a before and after of a drain, the crew, and the shop if there is one. Take them in daylight, hold the phone level, and don't worry about the mud. Every photo on the site should be one you could point to on a job. If the truck isn't lettered yet, that decision is here; a lettered truck is the photo that gets used most.

Don't paste reviews onto the site. Link to the Google listing, where a customer can read them and see they're real, and where a new one can be left. A "Read our reviews on Google" link near the phone number does more than a carousel of quotes with first names. If you're just starting and have three reviews, link to them anyway. Getting the first ten is its own guide.

Yes, a short one, and it's for the planner, not the emergency. Four fields: name, phone, town, and a box for what's going on. Don't ask for an address, a preferred appointment window, or how they heard about you; every field you add is a reason to close the page and call somebody else. Put a line above it that says when you reply, and mean it. If you only check email at the end of the day, say so, and put the phone number next to the form for anyone who can't wait that long.

Make sure the form lands somewhere you read. A form that emails an inbox nobody opens is worse than no form, because the customer thinks they've reached you. Send yourself a test the day the site goes live and once a month after that.

A one-page site covers everything above: the number, the services, the towns, the license line, the photos, the reviews link, and a short form for the planner. For a plumbing company with one or two trucks that's usually the whole job, and it's easier to keep true.

1. 01

   One page is enough when

   Every service fits on one list, the service area is one metro, and the person updating the site is the person answering the phone. It's cheap to change and there's nowhere for stale information to hide.

2. 02

   Five pages earn it when

   You do enough water heater or sewer work that each deserves its own page with its own photos and its own questions answered. Or you have a commercial side that wants its own page. Or the company has grown to the point that the About page has actual people on it.

3. 03

   What doesn't earn it

   A blog nobody will write, a Gallery page with four photos, and a Services page that repeats the home page. Every one of those is a page you'll forget to update, and a stale page reads worse than no page.

What a one-page and a five-page build include, and how the build runs, is on the web design page.

• Tap the phone number from a phone and make sure it dials
• Send the form to yourself and check it lands somewhere you read
• Read the hours line out loud and ask whether it's true on a Sunday
• Check the license line against the license the city issued you
• Look at the page on a phone in bright daylight, on the truck's data plan
• Make sure the name, the number and the towns match the Google listing and the truck door
• Confirm the domain is registered in your name, not the web company's

The last one gets missed. If the web company registered the domain in their name and you fall out with them, they keep the domain and the site goes with it. On our builds the domain is in your name and billed to you, and the site lives in your own account; the FAQ says how.

On our price sheet a website is $100 a page, so a one-page site is $100 and a five-page site is $500. Local SEO is $50 a page on top. Ignition, at $375, is the logo, the one-page site with its SEO and the Google Business Profile setup together, which is usually the right buy for a new company with nothing built yet. The price sheet has the rest, and every line includes the files.

WEBSITES ARE $100 A PAGE ON THE SHEET, SEO $50 A PAGE. IGNITION IS $375 WITH THE LOGO AND THE GOOGLE LISTING.

The business name as it's registered, the phone number you answer, the towns, the list of services you want calls for, your license wording if your city requires one, whatever logo you have, and six phone photos of the truck and the work. If you'd rather write the copy, send it; if not, we write it from what you send and you approve it before it goes live. The whole thing runs by email, and you get a price and a date back.