Advertising for plumbers: 10 ways to get found and win more work

Advertising for plumbers works best in a set order: fix the free Google listing first, collect reviews second, and only then pay for clicks or leads. On 19 September 2026 we checked what Google actually shows when someone searches for a plumber in eight towns across the UK and Ireland: 160 Google Maps listings and 16 pages of search results. All 24 plumbers in a top-three Maps spot had a rating of 4.5 or higher. Three of those 24 had no website at all.

The same order holds for marketing for plumbers more broadly, and the biggest surprise was the difference between the two countries. Under the map, in the ordinary results, all eight UK searches opened on a lead platform or directory, six of them on Checkatrade. All eight Irish searches opened on a plumber’s own website.

We sell some of what follows (local SEO, Google Ads management, websites, customer follow-up systems), and we link to those pages where they come up. Everything on this list can also be done yourself, and several items cost nothing but an evening.

The tradespeople I talk to about getting more work use the same few phrases: get found on Google Maps, be more visible on Google, attract more clients. As they see it, the problem is their Business Profile or not having enough of an online presence, and social media is the fix they reach for first. Some know that no website, or an out-of-date one, is part of it. This list is my answer to that conversation, checked against what Google actually shows.

The 10 ideas at a glance

Cheapest and most important first. If you only do the first three, do those properly.

1. Claim your Google Business Profile and fill in every field

When someone searches for a plumber, Google shows a map with a short list of local businesses above the ordinary results. That map appeared on all sixteen searches we ran, in every town and for both “plumber” and “emergency plumber”. The businesses in it come from Google Business Profile, the free listing Google offers businesses.

The plumbers at the top of Google Maps itself had done the basics. Of the 24 in a top-three spot when we searched Maps in our eight towns, 23 had claimed their profile and all 24 showed their opening hours. Eight of the 24 showed no street address at all. They are set up as service-area businesses, which Google allows for trades that go to the customer. You do not need a yard or a shopfront to rank in the map.

Google says local results are based on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is “how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for”. Distance is how far you are from the person searching, which you cannot change. Prominence is “how well-known a business is”, and reviews feed it (Google Business Profile Help, read 19 September 2026).

What to do this week:

• Claim the profile if you have not, and verify it
• Pick “Plumber” as the main category, and add the others that fit your work
• List every service you do, in the words customers use
• Set your service area to the towns you actually cover
• Add your hours, including out-of-hours if you really answer then
• Add real photos of real jobs, and add more every month

This is the part of local SEO that costs nothing.

2. Ask every customer for a review, the same day

Ask every customer for a review on the day of the job. Reviews were one of the clearest differences between the top of Google Maps and the rest of it. The 24 top-three plumbers had a median of 54 reviews. The plumbers in places eleven to twenty had a median of 18. None of the top three was rated below 4.5.

Reviews are not the whole story, and the data shows that too. Dublin’s number one had 11 reviews, ahead of a number two with 1,208. Manchester’s number two had one review. Google’s distance factor is the likely reason: the map moves with the person searching. So reviews will not win you every search, but a thin review count can cost you the searches where you are otherwise close enough to win.

In my experience, tradespeople do not come to me asking about reviews. Some do notice that a thin review count is holding them back, probably because they read reviews themselves when they hire someone. The real problem is time: most of the tradespeople I have spoken to do not have the hours to chase customers for a review after every job. So the answer is a routine, not a good intention. Set up a text with your review link that goes out after each job, so the ask happens without you remembering it. A reviews routine is part of what we set up in local SEO, if you would rather not build it yourself.

How to ask so it actually happens:

• Send the link by text: Google Business Profile gives you a link and a QR code customers can use to leave a review (Google’s review tips)
• Ask every customer, not only the ones you think will be kind
• Reply to every review, good or bad, briefly and politely

One hard rule. Google says offering “free of cost or discounted goods or services” in exchange for reviews “is considered fake engagement and is strictly prohibited”. No discount for a five-star review, however tempting.

3. Make your phone number dial from your website

Make the phone number on your website dial when someone taps it on a phone. It is one of the simplest fixes on this list, and it decides whether a visitor can ring you in one tap. You do not need a website to appear in the map: three of the 24 top-three plumbers in our Google Maps check linked no website at all, and two more linked a directory profile instead of their own site. The map ranks the profile.

But the website does two jobs the map cannot. It is what appears in the ordinary results under the map, which is where item 4 comes in. And it is where a customer goes to check you before they ring, from your profile, from an ad or from a recommendation.

On that second job, the only thing that matters is the call. When we reviewed nineteen plumbers’ websites in August, two of the sixteen Irish sites showed a phone number that did nothing when tapped on a phone.

The five-minute test for your own site:

• Open it on your phone and tap the number: it should dial
• Check the number is visible before you scroll
• Check the towns you cover are written on the page as text
• Check it says what happens after someone calls or fills in the form

If your site fails the first check, fix that before you spend a cent on advertising. Ads and listings send people to it. We build plumbing websites around the call, and a number that dials is a small change on any existing site.

4. Build a page for each service and each town

A page for each service and each town you cover is what competes for the ordinary search results under the map, and this is where the UK and Ireland split sharply.

In the UK, the platforms own the top of page one. In all eight UK searches, the first ordinary result was a lead platform or directory: Checkatrade in six, TrustATrader in one and a trade directory in one. Platforms, directories and other pages that were not a business’s own website held 42 of the 80 top-ten places across the UK searches, and nine of the ten in Manchester for “plumber”.

In Ireland, a plumber’s own site came first in all eight searches. Directories, platforms and social pages still held 31 of the 80 Irish places, but the top spot went to plumbers.

What wins those places is pages that match what people search. Someone looking for a plumber in Cork searches “plumber cork” (about 880 searches a month in Ireland, by Google’s own figures) or “boiler repair”, not your business name. A page for each main service, and a page for each town you really cover, gives Google something to match. Write each one properly: what you do there, the towns, the credentials, the number. A page per town with the town name swapped and nothing else changed is the lazy version, and Google’s spam policies name it: “pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page” count as doorway abuse (Google Search Central, read 19 September 2026).

This is the slow item on the list. New pages can take months to settle in the results, and in the UK you are competing with platforms that have far more authority than a plumber’s site.

We build service pages for nearly every client, and which pages depends on the business. Where a trade covers several towns, we add a page for each town inside the catchment where the work is and where we can see demand for it. That is the work our local SEO and general SEO services do.

5. Get on the registers customers already search

Some of the free listings worth having are the official ones, and customers can use them to find a plumber, not just to check one.

• Gas Safe Register (UK). “By law all gas businesses must be on the Gas Safe Register”, in the UK, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Its homepage lets anyone search for an engineer by postcode (gassaferegister.co.uk, read 19 September 2026). “Gas safe register” is searched about 49,500 times a month in the UK.
• WaterSafe (UK). WaterSafe calls itself “a free, industry-backed online directory” of approved plumbers, searchable by postcode (watersafe.org.uk). It appeared in the top ten results for all four UK “plumber” searches we ran. If you qualify as an approved contractor, being on it puts you on a site that sits on page one of your town’s search.
• Registered Gas Installer (Ireland). Using a Registered Gas Installer for gas work in the home “is the law”, according to the regulator (CRU). Put your registration on your Google profile and your website, where customers can see it before they ring.

What to do this week:

• Check your registration details are current, including the areas you cover
• Put your registration number on your Google profile and your website
• Set a reminder for each renewal date, so a lapsed registration never takes you off the list

6. Test one lead platform, with a stop date

A lead platform such as Checkatrade or MyBuilder is worth testing for a fixed period, then judging on the jobs it wins against what it costs. In the UK, the platforms sit where customers are searching. Checkatrade was in the top ten for all eight UK searches we ran, and more people in the UK search Google for “checkatrade” (about 135,000 a month) than for “plumber near me” (about 90,500), though Checkatrade covers every trade, not just plumbing. In Ireland, Golden Pages showed in six of the eight searches and plumbersinireland.ie in five.

The Irish directories are easy to underrate. I added one Irish client’s business to Golden Pages and then told them. They had not seen the point of directory listings at all, and thought social media was the better place to spend their effort. That is the listing that sat on page one for them.

The platforms charge in two ways, and the difference matters:

• A monthly membership. Checkatrade says there is no joining fee and its most basic plan “starts from £30 + VAT per month”, but on that plan “We don’t provide you with sales leads”. Plans that send you leads cost more and vary by trade and area (Checkatrade, page last updated 19 December 2024).
• A fee per lead. MyBuilder is free to join and to express interest in jobs, and charges when a homeowner shortlists you. It is honest about the catch: “we cannot guarantee you will always make contact, get to quote or win the job” (MyBuilder support).

Either way, you are paying for a chance at a job, not for the job. And the reviews you collect there sit on the platform’s site, not on your Google profile.

So treat any platform as a test. Pick one, set a stop date three months out, and count the jobs it actually won you against what you paid. If it does not pay, that money goes further on items 1 to 4.

7. Run Google Ads on the jobs worth paying for

Google Ads puts you at the top of the page today, and you pay each time someone clicks. How much depends on the search. Google’s own estimates, pulled on 19 September 2026, put the price of a click on “emergency plumber” at about three times a click on “plumber” in the UK, and a little over twice in Ireland. “Leak detection” came out at nearly three times “plumber” in the UK. On all eleven general plumbing searches we priced in both countries, from “plumber” to “leak detection”, the Irish click was the cheaper one.

The volume is there. “Plumber near me” is searched about 90,500 times a month in the UK and about 6,600 in Ireland, and “emergency plumber” about 12,100 and 880.

What we would set up first:

• Pick the jobs you want most, not every plumbing search. If boiler work pays better than blocked sinks, spend there.
• Only show ads in the towns you cover, and only in hours you answer. An emergency click at 2am that goes to voicemail is money gone.
• Block the searches that are not customers. People search for plumbing jobs, courses and prices; add those words as negative keywords so you do not pay for them.
• Send the click to the page for that job, not your homepage, with the number at the top.
• Count calls, not clicks. Google Ads can track calls from the ad; turn that on before you judge anything.

Start with a small daily budget and look at what came in after a month. We run Google Ads for small businesses, and we treat the first month as a test.

8. Check whether Local Services Ads run in your area

Local Services Ads are a separate Google product, a block Google says is “shown prominently in Google Search results”. You pay per lead rather than per click: Google’s words are “Pay only for leads related to your business”. Leads arrive as calls and messages through the ad.

Plumbers are one of the categories Google lists, and Google runs help pages for Local Services Ads in both the UK and Ireland. Before a listing goes live, Google checks the business, and the ones that pass carry a badge Google’s help pages now call “Google Verified” (Local Services Ads Help, read 19 September 2026). Whether the ads run in your exact area is something Google makes you check with its own eligibility tool, so check it before you plan around it.

What to do this week:

• Run Google’s eligibility check for your trade and postcode
• If it is available, read the screening requirements before you commit to a start date
• Decide who answers the leads, because Google watches that (below)

One line from that page matters more than the rest: “If you regularly fail to answer calls or respond to messages, your ad ranking may be affected.” Google is paying attention to whether you pick up. That leads to the last item.

9. Remind past customers when their boiler service is due

The cheapest new job is one from a customer you already have. “Boiler service” is searched about 14,800 times a month in the UK and 880 in Ireland, and it is a job that comes round every year. Each of those searches is a customer who had to go looking. A reminder from you means they do not.

When I talk to tradespeople about follow-up, the job that slips is the one they mean to come back to “in a month or two, perhaps to check up on a boiler or a refrigeration unit”.

The simplest version is a list: name, number, address, what you did, and the date the next service is due. What does not work is relying on memory, because the reminder that depends on you remembering is the one that never gets sent.

What to do this week:

• Go back through last year’s jobs and list every boiler you serviced, with the date
• Add the date each one is next due
• Put a reminder in your phone’s calendar two weeks before each date
• Text the customer then, with a line saying you can book them in

When the list gets too long to run by hand, that is what a customer database is for. We wrote about what happens to follow-ups that depend on memory, and we set up simple customer systems for small businesses that want the reminder to send itself.

10. Answer the phone, or ring back fast

Answer the phone, or ring back fast: every idea above ends in the same place, a phone ringing in a van. If it goes unanswered, the profile, the reviews, the pages and the ads have all done their job and the customer rings the next name on the list.

I have been on the other end of this. When I have rung a tradesperson and got no answer and no voicemail, I moved on to the next number. When there was a message saying someone would ring back, I held off, and most of the time they did call back. The voicemail is what kept me from ringing someone else.

You cannot answer while your hands are under a sink. What you can do:

• Put a clear voicemail on the phone: your name, that you are on a job, and when you will ring back
• Ring back missed calls at set points in the day, not at the end of it
• If you use a form on your website, answer it the same day
• If calls are regularly missed, that is the sign you need help on the phone, not more advertising

The top three plumbers on Google Maps, town by town

The table below lists who sat in the top three when we searched Google Maps for “plumber” from the centre of each town on 19 September 2026. It is a snapshot: the map moves with where the searcher stands, and it will have moved since. We list them as found, without judgement.

Three patterns stand out across the 24. All were rated 4.5 or higher. Review counts ran from 1 to 1,208, so no single number buys the top spot. And five of the 24 had no website of their own on the listing, which puts the profile, not the site, at the centre of the map.

How we checked

On 19 September 2026 we ran three checks through DataForSEO, the data service we use for search research, in eight towns: Manchester, Bristol, Leicester and Norwich in the UK, and Dublin, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny in Ireland.

• Google Maps: the top 20 results for “plumber” from each town centre, 160 listings in all, with rating, review count, whether the profile was claimed, hours, website and address.
• Google search on a phone: “plumber” and “emergency plumber” in each town, 16 results pages, recording what appeared on the page and who held each of the top ten ordinary results. We sorted those ten by hand into businesses’ own websites and everything else (platforms, directories, registers, social pages and one encyclopedia entry).
• Google’s own search figures: monthly searches and the estimated price of a click for 27 searches in the UK and Ireland, from Google Ads.

The limits, plainly. It is one day and one point in each town, and the map changes with where you stand. An automated check is not a person’s phone, so we have not reported which ads appeared. Click prices are Google’s estimates, shown here as comparisons rather than amounts. And this is a snapshot of eight towns, not a survey of every plumber.

What about social media, referrals and the van?

Social media is where the tradespeople I talk to want to start, and our data gives it a narrow but real role. A Facebook page appeared in the top ten ordinary results on 7 of our 16 searches, as a listing, the same way a directory does. So a Facebook page with your number, your area and your services is worth keeping up to date. What posting on social media does not do is put you in the map: that runs off your Google Business Profile, item 1.

Referral schemes and a branded van are left off this list for a simpler reason. Our check measured what Google shows a customer searching for a plumber, and neither shows up in that data, so we have nothing first-hand to add. Word of mouth deserves its own piece rather than a paragraph here.

Where to start if you have one evening

1. Open your Google Business Profile and fill in every empty field (item 1)
2. Save your review link and text it to your last five customers (item 2)
3. Tap the phone number on your own website, on your own phone (item 3)

That is an evening, it costs nothing, and it is the ground every paid option on this list stands on. When those three are done, pick one paid item, set a budget and a stop date, and count what comes back.

If you would rather hand some of it over, that is what we do. Get in touch and tell us where you work and what jobs you want more of.