Plumbers with a website have a median of 39 reviews. Without one, 6. What to do this week
The website gap in plumbing is wide. What the number does and does not mean, and the simple site a plumbing company without one can put up this week.
If your plumbing company runs on referrals and a Google profile, you might think a website is optional. The phone rings, the trucks are busy, and building a site sounds like a project for a slow month that never comes.
Here is a number worth a minute of your time. In our data on 77,218 plumbing companies, those with a website have a median of 39 Google reviews. Those without one have a median of 6. And 28.7% of plumbing companies have no website at all.
What the number means, and what it does not
Be careful with this one. A website does not create reviews. A company with a website is often older, larger, or more organized, and those companies also tend to ask for reviews. So the gap is not proof that putting up a site will add reviews.
What it does tell you is who you are up against. When a homeowner with a leaking water heater compares three plumbers on Google, the ones with a website usually have more reviews too. A profile with a few reviews and no website link looks thin next to that.
There is also a practical side. A homeowner with a non-emergency job, like a water heater replacement or a repipe quote, often wants to check you out before calling. They tap "Website." If there is no button, many of them move to the next listing.
Why this matters heading into winter
Freeze season brings the year's most urgent calls. Burst pipes and frozen lines send people straight to Maps. But the weeks after a freeze bring the bigger tickets: water heater replacements, repiping, and repair work on lines that cracked. Those buyers compare. They read. And the website is where they read.
What to do this week
You do not need a big site. You need a simple one that answers the questions a homeowner has before they call.
1. Get the five pages up
- Home. What you do, where, and your phone number at the top with tap-to-call.
- Emergency plumbing. Whether you answer at night, and how fast someone calls back.
- Water heaters. Repair and replacement, brands you install, a price range if you are comfortable with one.
- Drains and sewer. Clogs, camera inspections, jetting.
- About and reviews. Your license number, your team, a few customer quotes, and a link to your Google reviews.
Common website builders can get this done in an afternoon. If you hire it out, a basic site like this often costs somewhere between $500 and $3,000 to build. The website guide lists what each page needs.
2. Link it from your Google profile
Add the website link to your Business Profile the same day it goes live. Make sure the business name, phone number and service area on the site match the profile exactly. The Google Business Profile guide shows where to add it.
3. Start asking for reviews on every job
Since you are working on how you look online, fix the review side at the same time. The median plumbing company has 21 reviews, and the top 10% have 358 or more. Ask at the end of every job, while the customer is still relieved. A text works well:
Thanks for having us out today. If you have a minute, a quick Google review really helps other homeowners find us: [link]
The reviews guide has more scripts and timing.
4. Make the site useful at 2 a.m.
The best plumbing sites answer the panicked question. Add a short section on the emergency page: how to find and shut off the main water valve. It helps the homeowner, and it is the kind of plain, useful answer AI search tools like to quote.
If you already have a website
Then check whether it is doing its job. Open it on your phone. Does the phone number show at the top and dial when tapped? Does it say what towns you serve? Does it say whether you take night calls? A site that exists but does none of these is not much better than no site at all.
What one extra job a week is worth
A hypothetical. Say a simple site helps you win one extra water heater replacement a month at $1,800, and one extra drain call a week at $250. That adds up to about $2,800 a month. Your numbers will be different. Put your own average ticket into the calculator, and check the full benchmark report to see how your profile compares on reviews, hours and website.
If you want help getting a simple plumbing site live before the first freeze, there is a free 14-day trial of any service, no card, text or call (346) 436-6274.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, plumbing companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor