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Plumber Internet Marketing & SEO Checklist for Plumbing Contractors

by Josh Nelson on January 9, 2012

2012 – Plumber SEO & Internet Marketing Check List

This is your complete Internet Marketing & SEO checklist for your Plumbing or HVAC business. If you tend to each of the items on this list you will be WELL on your way to dominating the search engines for your plumbing services in your market, more new customers & even more repeat & referral business.

¨ Optimize your Google Places Listing (Google Map Strategy)

Claim you Google Places Listing – www.google.com/places
Fill in all of the fields and place an emphasis on the cities you service & the services you offer (plumbing, emergency plumbing, drain cleaning, water heater repair, bathroom remodeling, etc)
Upload 10 photos & 5 videos to your listing
Be sure the listing is properly linked to your website
Establish your NAP (Name, Address & Phone Number Profile) across the web with consistent references to your company name, address & phone number (remember, the idea here is to have the SAME EXACT data on each of the major data providers). Make sure that you are listed on:
- Bing Local
- Yahoo Local
- City Search
- Yelp
- Angie’s List
- Judies Book
- Yellow Pages (yp.com)
- InsiderPages
- Kudzu
- HotFrog
- Manta
- Merchant Circle
- Magic Yellow
- Brownbook
- InfoUSA
- Superpages
- Local.com
Get Reviews listed on your Google Places Page
- Send an email to your current customers, past customers & family members (who have used you in the past) asking them to write a review of you. Be sure to send a link to your Google Places Listing with the eMail
- Print out Review Request cards and start leaving them with customers after service
- Send an email to your customer after every service call thanking them for their business and requesting a review
  
  Reviews play a critical role in placement on the Google Map. Don’t Skip this step!

¨ Optimize Your Website for Search (SEO Strategy)

Be sure that you have updated the “Title Tags” on each of your website pages for a specific service / city combination. Each page on your site can only be optimized for 2-3 keyword combinations.
- Home Page title tag = “City Plumber | Company Name Plumbing | Contractor in City”
- Emergency Plumber page title tag = “City Emergency Plumber | Emergency Plumbing Contractor in City”
- Be sure to use a title like the ones listed above for each of the pages on your site
Add pages to your site for each of your services & each of the sub-cities that you service.
- Services
  - Water heater repair
  - Water Heater Installation
  - Drain Cleaning
  - Emergency Plumbing
  - Commercial Plumbing
  - Boiler Repair
  - Water Softener Installation
  - Etc
- Service Area
  - City 1 Plumber
  - City 2 Plumber
  - City 3 Plumber
  - City 4 Plumber
  - Etc

By having a specific page on your site for each of your services & each of the cities that you operate in you can effectively add a place holder on the search engines for each of those different keyword combinations.

Get Inbound Links (This is the MOST important component of SEO)
- Be sure that you have a link to your website from any associations & groups that you are affiliated
  - Chamber of Commerce, Local PHCC Chapter Site, BBB, Industry Association, etc
- Research your competition & identify links that you get for your site (go to Yahoo and search “site:yourcompeitor.com”). This will show you who is linking them.
- Create Content & distribute on the Major Article Sites as well as your competition.
  - Write 4-5 articles per month 400 – 500 words each & be sure to add a link to your site at the bottom of the article.
  - You can then submit your articles to multiple online directly sites & create many inbound links back to your website with each article. Some article sites you can post to:
    - EzineArticles -The big daddy of article directories. This would be a good choice. PR6
    - Submit Your Article -High-quality article directory PR4
    - Suite101 – Another monstrous article site. PR7
    - Helium – An up-to-date article site. PR6
    - ArticleDashboard -Another staple in article directories. PR5
    - ArticleBase -This article directory has grown to a PR6 with lots of content and praise from article syndication experts.
    - GoArticles -This one claims to be the largest, but I’m pretty sure #1, #3, and #4 give it a run for it’s money. PR4
    - WebProNews -You have to be selected to get into this one but it’s well worth the trouble. Old and respected. PR6
    - SearchWarp -Free to submit and serves a lot of articles. PR5
    - Buzzle -A strong article directory. PR6
    - Isnare -Also a submission service, iSnare is another strong article directory at PR6.
    - American Chronicle -Actually part of a network of article sites. PR6
    - ArticleCity -Pretty much your standard article directory. PR5
    - IdeaMarketers -A giant, this is much more than a simple article directory. It is a newsletter builder and management system PR5
    - Site Reference -This is a content portal with article submission built-in. PR5
    - Article Alley -A standard article directory. PR5
    - TheWhir -Another strong article site. PR6
    - Articles Factory -Mid-level article site. PR4
    - SelfGrowth -Won’t find this one in auto-submission software. Must become an “expert” first to then get access to submit articles. PR6
    - Amazines -Pretty standard. Nothing fancy here. PR3
    - Article Snatch – It’s pretty popular, but is a “no-follow” directory. PR5
    - Create video’s and upload them to online video site (Grab a camera and answer your most frequently asked questions. Explain what you do on a daily basis – how to unclog a drain, which drain cleaner you recommend, how to unclog your disposal, etc). Save each question as a separate video & post it to YouTube, Vimio, MetaCafe, Viddler & Daily Motion.
      - Be sure to add a link to your website in the description of each video. Also, name your video with your keywords “City Garbage Disposal Repair” or “Your City Water Heater Installation”, etc.

¨ Get active with Social Media. Start by setting up profiles for your plumbing or HVAC company on:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Google Plus
LinkedIn
Send an email blast to your existing email list (if you have one) letting them know that you want to connect with them on Social Media & that you now have social profiles. Offer them some incentive to Like You, Follow You & / or subscribe to you.
- Discount off next purchase
- Discount for their friends & family
- Something of value for FREE
Add Social Media to your day-to-day business practices & systematically invite your customers to engage with you online.
Add links to your social media profiles on your business cards, brochures, marketing materials, website & email signature
Be sure to invite all of your customers to engage after service via Follow Up Email or as an insert in your invoice
POST VALUABLE CONTENT – This may be the most important component of your Social Media Strategy. If you have thousands of fans & followers but don’t add value…you will have accomplished nothing. You need to post relevant updates, tips, ideas, techniques, news & special promotions on a daily basis. Try to keep 90% of your posts informational & 10% (or less) promotional.
Engage with your customers – You need to stay on top of your social media profiles & engage with your fans / followers when / if the post or reply to your profiles.

Get through this checklist and you will be well on your way to dominating the search engines in your market, more inbound calls from new customers and more repeat & referral business.

If you get stuck or need help with any of these steps give us a call at 866-610-4647. Our team can execute all of these steps on your behalf and ensure you obtain Page One placement for your most important keywords and that you are leveraging the web to its fullest in order to get new customers and more business in 2012!