Like any industry, behavior of customers in plumbing industry has changed significantly over the years. They’ve had what they call “Google/Amazon mentality” of quickly researching for who pops up online when they research for potential companies to hire for. Prices, convenience, and other qualities of plumbing services are visible, and these can largely affect how customers book plumbing services today.
The idea is to get ahead of the competition and this is not possible online without search engine optimization. With proper activities in link building strategy and solid creative content marketing campaigns, one can drive potential customers, gain trust, and ultimately increase sales.
In this post, we’re going to discuss link building for plumbing websites. This is a billion dollar industry so it’s worthwhile to have conversations over how to create content and get links in the process.
EDUCATE YOUR AUDIENCE WITH YOUR CONTENT
This is very simple, yet many plumbing sites are stucked with producing landing pages with hopes of ranking highly for plumbing keyphases.
In last year’s Jobber Academy’s article on the state of plumbing industry, Standley Genadek from Dirt Monkey University asserted,
“In 2018, don’t be an estimator or order taker. Be an educator. Be a partner. Take the time to answer questions, explain what it all means, what needs to happen, and exactly what the outcomes are that can be expected. Building that simple trust that—yes—you are someone who can be relied upon, takes price out of the equation.”
To educate your customers is to sell. You start your selling process by educating them the right way. They may not quickly book your plumbing services right after you teach them, but you gain their trust and that itself is strong enough to build your branding in the space.
I’m constantly on the lookout for potential content ideas in the plumbing industry, and here are ones you should be creating:
- how to become a plumbing engineer
- how to become a plumbing inspector
- who invented indoor plumbing
- what is repiping?
Take a look at this example, “what is repiping?”. It’s a valuable topic for customers wanting to know what repiping means. A good rundown on the information that covers it, is a good deal for your content creation strategy.
Start by identifying technical plumbing terms that people in your industry would like to know about.
Create mini guides for each phrase. Add other content formats like videos and visual graphics to support readers with other learning styles.
Spend time on keyword research. Keep finding content ideas that is getting traction in terms of search volume. One phrase, for example, is “plumbing camera”. This isn’t staggering at first glance, but this phrase has 1,400+ in search volume and has very low competition.
FIND “INSTALLATION AND USAGE” CONTENT TOPICS
Aligned to your plumbing sites’ content strategy are two content themes: installation and usage.
In the plumbing content sphere, you see this popping up in every related sites you can visit. The reason is simple: people want to do DIY activities at home. This may sound contrary as to giving them information on the matter when they don’t have intentions to book plumbing services at the first place.
This is often the counter argument by marketers working with plumbing clients. The idea maybe contrary but it only speaks of the earlier stages of content marketing without considering the effect this information on installation and usage has for people who’ve known and seen the content.
Overall, you can create content pieces on any subjects that relate to installation and usage. A few examples are:
- how to install shower plumbing
- pump installation
- how to fix leaks
You can create a funnel and capture emails from people reading your content on above subjects. Educate them using an email series sequence and increase leads in your plumbing website.
TAP “GOING GREEN” LINKABLE MARKET
There is a linkable market that fits rightly to the plumbing industry. That is, going green market. These are environment enthusiasts who go after a green world. Their interests are in subjects of energy savings, recycling and environment restoration.
If you can create content assets that speak to this linkable audience, you can increase your monthly organic links through resource link building.
CHECK OTHER LOCAL PLUMBING BRANDS FOR LINK BUILDING IDEAS
Lastly, if you’re running out of link building ideas, you can check plumbing websites in other local cities. There you’ll find what sorts of pages they are getting links from.
For example, here’s a linking page that I’ve found on a backlink profile of a plumbing company in Texas.
Now, these arepretty much links or resource pages that lists down external links. But if you take a look at the description, it says about a membership called NAMA. NAMA is a leading voice of the Ayurvedic profession (medical field).
What does it tell you? It gives you a link building idea of profiling your employees, if they are part of any organizations. Check these organizations if they have dedicated profiles for active members. Reach out to them and get authority links.
FILL CONTENT GAPS
There are gaps in the plumbing industry content marketers and link building can take advantage of. Make due diligence to uncover them in your content creation strategy through competition analysis using tools like Ahrefs. Serve the market and it will serve you well in lead generation.