How To Make Your Plumbing Business Sit at the Top of Google Local Pack

Did you know 81% of consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2021? Moreover, 56% of people relied on the internet to find local businesses each week last year.

(Source)

Thus, it’s pretty clear there’s a paradigm shift happening in the discovery of nearby local businesses. If your plumbing business is not optimized enough to rank in local searches that too in Google 3 pack or local pack, trust me, you are missing out on a lot of potential customers.

Local SEO for plumbers forms a central role for plumbing companies to rank and sit at the top of the Google local pack. But what is Google Local Pack for plumbers and what features does it have? Let’s get to know more about it:

What is Google Plumbing 3 Pack?

Google 3 pack or Google local pack for plumbers is a list of three plumbing companies that are presented to a searcher based on certain local ranking factors. Google picks out these listings in a way that best satisfies the users’ intent. Here’s an example of the same:

This result shows 3 local plumbing companies and is known as Google 3 pack or local pack. Now the question is, how can your business rank in this?

How to Get into the Google 3 Pack?

Any well-known SEO expert or marketer knows that Google never reveals parameters or algorithms for ranking at the top of the search engine or in the local pack. However, it does provide some best practices that help webmasters optimize their business listings.

For ranking your plumbing company at the top of the local pack, you must focus on the following three factors:

1. Increasing Relevance

Relevancy of the business appearing in the Google 3 pack with search terms is a paramount factor affecting the rankings. When someone searches for “plumbers near me”, or “plumbing services near me” your business listing will show up and not when someone searches for a supermarket.

In a nutshell, focus on improving the relevancy of your business listing with search terms your target audience majorly uses.

2. Optimize for Proximity

Proximity, or the distance between searchers and your business, has a great influence on Google 3 pack listings. While it’s not something in your hand to optimize, the closer you are to the searchers’ location, the higher chances your plumbing company has to rank in the Google plumbing pack.

3. Develop Prominence

Prominence is all about how well established and renowned your plumbing company is offline and online. Higher the amount of respect and recognition you have in the community, the higher your chances of ranking at the top.

Prominence can be developed for your plumbing company through higher content, business profile, and social media engagement, local link building, and also using local influencers.

Why is Google Business Profile Optimization Important to Rank in Plumbing Pack?

The only way for Google to rank your plumbing business in the local pack is to get your listing from Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business). Thus, it holds the utmost importance for ranking at the top of the Google plumbing pack.

Without optimizing the Google Business Profile (GBP), you’ve limited chances to sit on the throne (top of the Google pack). Now let’s see some tips to optimize your GBP:

Tips to Optimize Your Google Plumbing Business Profile to Rank at the Top of Local Pack

Tip #1: Add or Claim Your Plumbing Profile

To add or claim your listing, sign in to Google Maps or Search to create and manage your Business Profile. From there, follow the below steps to know how to add/claim your Google plumbing listing:

How to Add Your Listing:

Now there are two methods to add your business listing on Google. Let’s see each one:

Option 1: Registering through Google Business Profile

• Visit the Google Business Profile creation page and click on the Manage Now button from either of the places highlighted in the below image.

• You’ll be taken to a page where you can search your business listing if it already exists and claim it or click on Add Your Business to Google option.

• Follow the on-screen instructions to add your business profile.

Option 2: Adding Profile through Google Maps

• Visit Google Maps on the computer and search for your business’s address. On the next page, you’ll see an option to Add Your Business or right-click to get an option as highlighted in the image below.

• You’ll be taken to a page where you can create a profile for your plumbing business.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the registration process.

How to Claim Your Listing:

• As mentioned, you can claim your business by visiting the Google Business page or searching your business name on Maps.
• Select the correct business and click on it.
• Next, click on Claim this Business > Manage Now.

• Follow the on-screen instructions and select the verification option to be done with it.

Tip #2: Get Your Profile Verification Done

Google used to send direct mail postcards to verify any business. But now it often provides many options to verify a business via phone, text, or email and even through the Search Console.

Let’s see the steps involved in the verification process:

• After you have added or claimed your profile, pick a type of verification from the available methods. You may have to verify with over one method sometimes.
• Verification methods include phone or text, email, video recording, live video call, and postcard. Availability of these methods depends on the business category, region, public info, support hours, and volumes of queries.
• Moreover, there’s an option to instantly verify with Google Search Console if your website is already verified.
• Also, companies that manage over 10 profiles of the same business can bulk verify all the locations.

Once your profile has been verified, it will start to appear for relevant search terms.

Tip #3: Optimize Categories & NAP of Your Google Plumbing Profile

Now that you have verified your profiles, start adding and updating information, such as categories and NAP. Here’s how you can optimize them:

• Search for your business name or “My Business” term on Google. It’ll show your plumbing profile, from where you can edit directly.

• Click on the Edit Profile button to see the below dialog box to edit your profile information.

• Click on the “Business information” to assign a primary category i.e. “Plumber”. Doing so makes all the difference for your Google plumbing 3 pack ranking. It describes your business to Google and helps it position your listing appropriately on the local pack.

• You can also assign the below-mentioned secondary categories to appear for relevant searches.
  • Bathroom Renovator
  • Drainage Service
  • Kitchen Renovator
  • Pumping Equipment & Service

• Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) information should be treated the same as you treat backlinks for your website. Not only should they be accurate and present on your Google plumbing profile, but also be the same throughout the web.

Tip #4: Keep Other Information Accurate and Up-to-Date

Other information, such as location served, business hours, photos, products, and others, should accurately reflect your plumbing company. Here’s how to optimize it:

• Update the business working hours frequently and include open/close hours along with special hours for holidays and events.

• Just after you verify, you’ll find an option to add locations where you provide your plumbing services. This will ensure your plumbing listing will appear when users search from those areas.

• If you are selling plumbing items, then you can show nearby shoppers what products you offer by adding in-store products to your profile.

• Further, you can add so much more and showcase photos, logo, cover photo, etc. Accurate and appealing photos will add value to your Google plumbing profile.

Make sure you keep all the information up-to-date whenever fresh changes happen.

Tip #5: Encourage Customers to Leave a Review

The number of reviews, your response rate to reviews, and the overall sentiment of the reviews will give the necessary boost to your plumbing rankings. Here’s how you should approach this aspect of local pack ranking:

• Ask your customers directly to rate your business and leave a review to best describe your services.
• Try to get as many 5-star reviews as possible.
• Make a practice to respond to reviews, even the negative reviews and handle them effectively. Doing so sends a signal that you value your customers and their feedback.
• This can increase the engagement on your GBP and more engagement will mean higher rankings.

Plumbing Website Optimization Tips for Ranking at the Top of Local Pack

You may wonder, “is there a relation between optimizing a website and higher local pack rankings?” A well-optimized website can act as a lead-generating machine for your plumbing business and increase the chances of your Google profile ranking at the top.

Here are steps to optimize your website:

• Localize your website content with location-specific keywords to reflect that you offer plumbing services at locations mentioned in the GBP profile.
• Optimize for page load speed and mobile-friendliness and enhance the security of your website with HTTPs for higher organic rankings.
• Integrate the location map widget in your website’s footer as well as at the contact page to make it easier for visitors to find you.
• Maintain NAP consistency throughout your website as well as the external directories.
• Add as many testimonials and reviews of customers in text, video, and other formats as you can to build trust around your plumbing business.
• Focus on building local backlinks to get a higher-ranking boost.
• Implement technical SEO such as sitemaps, structured data, robot.txt files, etc.
• Ensure that the URLs of your website pages have localized keywords.

Keep Up with Local Directory Listings

Now that you have optimized your Google plumbing profile and website, there’s still more ground to cover if you want to rank at the top of the plumbing pack.

There are plenty of other sources where users look for businesses like yours. These are called online directories and include websites such as

• Yelp
• Nextdoor
• Facebook
• Yellowpages
• Citysearch
• Bing Places
• Etc.

Often these profiles have space to describe the company details by using primary plumbing keywords to aid your local SEO efforts. So, building diverse online directory listings will help your rankings to top the Google local pack.

Final Thoughts

While it’s vital to rank at the top of the Google 3 pack for plumbing companies, what’s most important is to work on improving relevance, proximity, and prominence. These are simply the three pillars for local pack ranking that your local plumbing company should live by.

Besides, you should equally focus on balancing your Google plumbing profile, website, and directory listings optimization. This may sound overwhelming at first glance, but it’s important if you want the sit at the Google 3 pack table.

However, if you struggle to get your plumbing business to rank in the local pack, a team of experts like Ronkot can help you simplify the process. We are a full-service Dallas-based digital marketing agency helping small local businesses get the needed attention from Google.

Get in touch with us to prepare a detailed strategic plan for local SEO for plumbers optimization with a step-by-step process to rank at the top in the Google plumbing pack. See you till the next!