# SEO for plumbers. > Most plumbing calls start on Google Maps, from someone who never opens your website. SEO for plumbers starts with the Google Business Profile and its opening hours. Source: https://b-sideprojects.com/industries/plumbing/ Most plumbing calls come from somebody standing in water with a phone in their hand. Instead of reading your website, they pick a shop on the map that says it's open, and call. SEO for a plumber is mostly about winning that map. [Book a 30 minute call](https://b-sideprojects.com/book/) The call is free, and I look at your Google Business Profile before we talk. ## Nobody reads a plumber's website at midnight. "Plumber near me" gets searched about 823,000 times a month in the US and 49,500 in Canada. "Emergency plumber" adds another 90,500 in the US. Those people aren't comparing anything. They look at the few shops on the map at the top of the screen and tap the call button on one of them. So for emergency work, the website comes second. Your Google Business Profile, the box with your hours and reviews that shows up on Google Maps, is the storefront, and the two things on it that decide the call are your hours and your reviews. Getting more reviews is its own article: [how to get more Google reviews](https://b-sideprojects.com/shop-talk/seo/get-more-google-reviews/). _Drawing: A phone at 11:42 pm showing the Google Business Profile for Hansen Plumbing in Red Deer, marked closed until 8 am with the call button greyed out. Below it, another plumber's Business Profile says open 24 hours, with a working call button._ ## Your hours are costing you calls. When somebody searches at night, Google shows which shops are open and can hide the ones that aren't. If your profile says you close at five, and you take emergency calls at midnight, Google tells the person with the burst pipe that you're closed. Advertisers pay about $75 a click on "emergency plumber" in the US, which tells you what an after-hours call is worth. A correct hours line gets you in front of the same person for nothing. It's the cheapest fix in the trade. If you answer the phone after hours, your profile should say so, and if you don't, it should say when you're back. ## The work changes with the season. US searches for frozen pipes go from about 1,000 in July to 40,500 in January. In Canada it's about 210 to 2,900. Summer runs the other way. Searches for sewer line repair in the US go from about 9,900 in the spring to 49,500 in July. The calls change with the season, and Google matches pages to searches. A website with one page called Services can't rank for a frozen line in January and a sewer line in July. A page for each kind of work you want more of can, and the frozen pipe page has to be up and ranking well before the first cold snap, not written in January. _Drawing: A dispatch whiteboard with two columns. July has two job tickets, a sewer line and a water heater. January has four, for frozen lines, a burst pipe at 6:10 am and no water. Under each column: page on the website for this? No._ ## Where to start. Your Google Business Profile first. It's usually free to fix, and it decides more plumbing calls than the website does. [The strategy](https://b-sideprojects.com/services/seo-audit/) tells you what else is worth doing and in what order. What the monthly work covers is on the [monthly SEO](https://b-sideprojects.com/services/seo/) page. If you're thinking about selling, the [plumbing sell-ready guide](https://b-sideprojects.com/shop-talk/sell-ready/plumbing/) covers what buyers pay for. ## Common questions. **Does a plumber need a website if the Google Business Profile does the work?** Yes, for a different job. The profile gets the emergency call. The website gets the planned work, like a water heater replacement, where people read before they call, and Google looks at it to decide what you do and where. **Should my Google Business Profile say open 24 hours?** Only if somebody answers. Saying 24 hours and sending calls to voicemail at 2 am earns one-star reviews quickly. **How do I get more reviews?** Ask at the end of every job, and send the link by text while the customer is still standing in a dry basement. **Do I need separate pages for drains and water heaters?** If you want more of that work, yes. Each kind of job gets searched on its own, and a page about one thing ranks better than a page about everything. **How long before the phone rings more?** Fixes to your Google Business Profile can show up within a few weeks. New pages take at least six to nine months to rank, and sometimes longer. ## Find out what the map shows. Thirty minutes on the phone, and I look at your Google Business Profile before we talk. [Book a 30 minute call](https://b-sideprojects.com/book/)