4 Questions to Answer on Your Website for a Dramatic Booking Increase

There are some basic necessities that any plumbing company should have prominently displayed on its website.

When someone visits your plumbing company’s website because they have a problem that needs to be fixed, they’re looking for the answers to the following four questions:

Do you provide the services I need?

Do you serve my area?

How can I contact you?

Why should I choose you?

These questions should all be answered before the customer even needs to scroll down the page.

Let’s look a little closer at each question.

1. Do you provide the services I need?

Customers may not know what services your plumbing company offers, so it’s important to have your services grouped and listed on your website’s navigation bar. For example, a navigation bar on the homepage could be listed like this: Water Heaters, Drains and Sewer, Plumbing, About Us, Careers.

Make sure that your main navigation bar doesn’t get too crowded with categories. Showing five or six categories is ideal. The categories should be listed in order of priority.

Take a look at your navigation bar. Is it too crowded? What can be consolidated?

2. Do you serve my area?

It is absolutely vital to tell customers which areas you service. There’s nothing more bothersome than when a potential customer takes the time to call your business and your customer service representatives have to turn them away or, even worse, have to send them to the competition. A good way to make sure someone knows which areas you service is to add a subtle location reference to your main headline near the top of your homepage.

For example: “Serving the Capital Region since 1944.” That brief sentence tells the customer which areas you service (using regional vernacular), and it also builds trust (your business has been around since 1944).

3. How can I contact you?

Do you have a phone number prominently listed at the top, in the middle and at the bottom of your homepage? Believe me: you should. People are looking for it! Do you offer chat? If so, does it pop up immediately? Is a human or a robot managing chat messages? Do you have a web form available for customers to complete? Are the information fields short enough that your customer service representatives can get the basics and call the customer back to book an appointment?

So many questions for you, but here’s the reason: the more ways you have for a customer to connect with you, the better. Allow the customer to connect with you in the way they feel most comfortable. When they do connect with you, ensure that you make it as easy as possible for them to book a service.

4. Why should I choose you?

Why should a customer choose you over a competitor? Answering this question on your homepage is how you get to showcase what makes your business special. Have you been in business a long time, and weathered economic crises before? Do you give a portion of proceeds to a nonprofit organization? Do you specialize in eco-friendly practices? Think about value propositions beyond just being licensed, background-checked and insured. How will a customer benefit by choosing you?

Your website walks a tightrope — it needs to serve both the customers’ needs and allow the Google data collectors to experience your site in a way that will put you at the top of the Google search results page. When push comes to shove, you should always make decisions based on how customers will experience your website. However, since 90% of customers use Google, it’s also important to play by Google’s rules, in order for your site to gain visibility when someone is searching for you. There are more than 200 different factors that affect Google’s definition of what a quality website is. It’s impossible to keep track of all of them, so focus on what matters — your customers.