SEO for plumbers and heating engineers

Service-area business setup

Most plumbers and heating engineers work from home or a yard that customers do not visit. Google expects these businesses to hide the address and set a service area. Showing a home address that customers cannot visit risks suspension.

Set a realistic service area. Google's guidance is that a service area should not extend much beyond about two hours' driving from where the business is based. Listing a huge area does not make you appear everywhere.

A business with a real trade counter or showroom that customers visit can show that address.

Categories and services

• Choose the primary category that matches the main work, for example "Plumber", and add secondary categories only for work you genuinely do, such as heating or boiler work.
• Fill in the services list with the jobs customers actually search for: boiler servicing, boiler installation, leak repairs, bathroom fitting, blocked drains, and so on, as applicable.
• Only mention emergency or 24-hour cover if you truly offer it, and make sure hours reflect it.

Reviews and photos from the job

• Reviews that mention the job help customers choose. Ask at the end of every job, for example with a text link, without incentives.
• Job photos (before and after, tidy work) uploaded regularly make the profile look active. Avoid customer faces, house numbers or anything identifying without permission.
• Directory and trade review sites are common in this trade. Keep business name, phone and details identical on all of them.

Spam and competitor listings

Map results for plumbing in many areas include fake or keyword-stuffed listings. We can watch for these and report clear rule breaches to Google through the normal routes. Google decides what happens; we do not promise that a listing will be removed.

Do not add keywords or town names to your own business name on Google. It breaks the rules and can get the listing suspended.

Area pages without doorway pages

Pages for the towns you cover can help, but only if each one says something real, such as jobs done in that area, travel times or local details. Dozens of near-identical "Plumber in [town]" pages are a risk, not a benefit.

Gas and other registrations

If the business holds registrations it must show, display them accurately on your site and profile. SearchSure does not verify registrations or advise on them.

Seasonality

Heating and boiler searches tend to rise as the weather turns colder. Plan profile posts and page updates ahead of autumn and winter rather than only when the phone is quiet.