What a plumber's website actually needs

A plumbing customer is rarely browsing. They are standing in a wet kitchen with a phone, and they will call whoever answers the two questions they care about fastest: do you cover me, and can you come now?

That is the whole design brief. Everything else on the site is secondary.

What they are searching

Not your company name. They are typing plumber near me, emergency plumber, boiler repair [town], blocked drain [town].

Two things follow from that. First, your site needs your service area written in plain text, because that is how you match a search with a town in it. Second — and more important — those "near me" searches are answered by Google's map listings, and a website alone does not get you into them. Set up a Google Business Profile. It is free, it takes an afternoon, and for a plumber it is worth more than the website. The site backs it up.

The first ten seconds

Put these above the fold, before any photo of a van:

• Your phone number, as a tap-to-call link. Not an image, not text they have to copy. Someone on a phone should be able to hit it with a thumb.
• The area you cover. "Covering [town] and 15 miles around" ends the question immediately.
• Your availability. "Same-day callouts" or "24 hours" or "Mon–Sat, 8–6". Say whichever is true.
• What you do. Emergencies, bathrooms, boilers, drains — the categories, not a paragraph.

If someone has to scroll to find your number, you have lost calls to the plumber above you who did not make them.

The pages

Home. Everything above, plus a short proof section and a form for people who would rather type than ring.

Services. One block per job type: emergencies, leaks, bathrooms, boilers, drains, whatever you do. Use the words customers use — people search blocked toilet, not sanitary drainage remediation.

Prices, or how pricing works. This is the page most plumbers skip and the one customers most want. You do not need a full price list. A callout fee and an hourly rate is enough, or "typically $X–$Y for a standard job". People assume the worst when nothing is stated, and the ones who call to ask are the ones you spend time on and lose.

Proof. Photos of finished work, a few customer comments with first names and towns, and your registrations or trade body memberships displayed clearly. For a plumber these carry real weight — you are asking someone to let a stranger into their home.

Contact. Number, email, area, hours. Again as a tap-to-call link.

Four to five pages. That is the whole site.

Photos

Take them on your phone, in daylight, and take more than you need.

What works: finished bathrooms, tidy pipework, your van with the livery, you in branded workwear. What works surprisingly well: a genuinely tidy job. Every homeowner has a story about a tradesperson who left a mess, and a photo of a clean finish answers a fear they will not say out loud.

What does not work: stock photos of a smiling man with a wrench. Everyone recognises them, and they quietly signal you had nothing real to show.

What to leave out

• A blog. You are not going to write it.
• A long history of the business. Nobody in a flooded kitchen is reading it.
• A photo gallery of sixty images. Eight good ones is better.
• A contact form as the only way to reach you. Emergency work is phone work.

The one thing that converts

Tap-to-call, visible without scrolling, on every page. Plumbing is an urgent purchase made on a phone, and every extra tap between the problem and your number is a chance for the customer to go back to the results and pick someone else.

What it costs

Ours is $499 to build and $49 a month to run, live in three working days once we have your text and photos. The monthly fee covers the domain, hosting, the certificate and small changes — which for a plumber usually means updating your area or your callout charge, and not having to think about it.

Set up the Google Business Profile first, though. Even if you never build a website, do that one.