Google Business Profile for plumbers
The free thing you have not finished.
Almost every plumber has a Google Business Profile. Almost nobody has finished setting one up. It costs nothing, it decides whether you appear in the three businesses Google shows on the map, and it is usually the fastest win available to a plumbing business.
- Primary categoryPlumber
- Secondary categoriesNone set
- Service areas1 of 9 suburbs
- Services listedNone
- Photos3, all from 2022
- PostsNever
- HoursNo after hours set
- Phone and websiteCorrect
Illustration, but this is genuinely what most profiles look like when I open them.
What does Google Business Profile management involve?
Managing a plumber's Google Business Profile means setting the right primary and secondary categories, listing every suburb you serve, adding your services, uploading real photos of your own work, keeping hours accurate, replying to reviews, and watching for public edits to your listing.
Why it matters more than your website
For emergency work, the map is the whole search.
Somebody with water coming through a ceiling does not read. They open Google on a phone, look at the three businesses on the map, glance at the star rating, and press call on one of them. The website barely gets a look in. That entire decision is made from information you control through your Business Profile.
Which means the profile is not a directory listing you tick off once. It is the storefront for the highest intent, highest value work you get, and it is the one asset where the difference between finished and half finished is measured in phone calls.
It is also the piece most often left alone, because it is free, it is not anybody's deliverable, and it does not produce an invoice. Plenty of plumbers pay a monthly retainer to someone who has never touched it.
Your profile stays in your name and your ownership throughout. I get added as a manager, and if you stop working with me you remove me and lose nothing. I do not hold accounts hostage.
What is usually missing
Six gaps I find on nearly every plumber's profile.
None of these cost money to fix. All of them cost you visibility while they sit there.
Only one category
Primary category set to Plumber and nothing else. Secondary categories like drainage service, gasfitter, hot water system supplier and bathroom remodeller each open you up to searches you are currently invisible for. Pick honestly, because categories you do not actually service will earn you the wrong calls and eventually bad reviews.
Service areas left as one suburb
If you cover nine suburbs and the profile says one, Google has no reason to show you in the other eight. This is a five minute fix that most profiles have never had.
No services listed
The services list inside the profile is a free place to say you do cylinder replacements, blocked drains, backflow testing and gas fitting. It feeds what you can appear for and it answers the question before somebody has to ring and ask.
Stock photos, or photos from years ago
Photos of your own vans, your own team and your own finished jobs do more work here than anything stock. They also quietly tell somebody you are a real operator rather than a call centre that will subcontract their job out.
Hours that do not match how you actually work
If you take after hours calls and your profile says you close at five, you are being filtered out of exactly the searches worth the most. If you do not take them, say so, so you stop getting woken up.
Nothing posted, ever
Posts are a weak signal on their own, but an account that has been touched this month looks different to one abandoned in 2022. It is a small edge that costs a few minutes.
What I do with it
Rebuild it once, then keep it alive.
The first month is the rebuild: categories, service areas, services, hours, a proper description, and real photos of your work. After that it is upkeep, which is the part everybody skips. Monthly photos and posts, replies to every review, and watching for the things Google changes without telling anybody.
Included in every plan, from NZ$600 a month.
FAQs
Profile questions.
The ones that come up on nearly every first call.
I work from home. Do I have to show my address?
No. Plumbers are a service area business, so you can hide the address and list the suburbs you travel to instead. Doing that properly is important, because a hidden address set up wrong can quietly stop you appearing at all.
Can I rank in suburbs I am not based in?
In the map pack, distance from the person searching is a heavy factor, so a long way out is hard. In the ordinary results below the map it is very achievable with a real page about that area. Both are worth doing, and they are different jobs.
Somebody left a review that is not even about my work.
It happens, and it is worth reporting, but Google removes fewer than people expect. The more reliable answer is a steady flow of genuine recent reviews, so one unfair one stops mattering. Replying calmly in public also does more for the people reading than the removal would.
Do I need a website if the profile does the work?
For emergency calls the profile carries most of the weight. For planned work, bathroom renovations, new builds and anything where somebody compares two or three plumbers, the website decides it. You want both, but if you are starting from nothing, finish the profile first because it is free.
Other services
The rest of what moves the needle.
Most plumbers need two or three of these, not all five. I will tell you which on the first call.
Get started
Let me look at your profile first.
Send me your business name and town and I will tell you what is missing from your profile, what your categories should be, and who is currently beating you in the map pack.