What to put on a plumber's website

A plumber's website needs six things to win the call. Your phone number in three places. Your Gas Safe number on the homepage. The postcodes you cover. Your call-out fee and hourly rate, listed. Three real Google reviews with names. Two or three before-and-after photos of recent work. That's the whole list.

This is for plumbers who don't have a site yet, or have one they're not happy with. Whoever builds it (you, us, a freelancer), the six sections below are what should be on it, in order, with the reasoning for each.

1. Phone number, three times over

Header. Footer. A big button mid-page. Add a WhatsApp link if you take WhatsApp.

When someone's washing machine has just leaked across their kitchen floor at 7pm on a Tuesday, they are not going to scroll your About page looking for a contact form. They want to call. Right now.

The phone number in the header is the one most people use. The one in the footer is for the people who scroll. The button mid-page is for the people who only read the bit about you before deciding. Put it in all three places so nobody has to go looking.

2. Your Gas Safe number, with the badge

On the homepage. Not buried in a Services page. Not as small grey text in a footer.

This is the single biggest trust signal for anyone hiring you to touch their boiler or anything attached to a gas pipe. People know to look for it. Some people only know to look for it. Make it obvious.

If you've also got WaterSafe, OFTEC, or APHC membership, add those too. One row of badges near the top, with your registration numbers underneath. Done in 30 seconds, builds trust for everyone who lands on the page.

3. The postcodes you cover

Be specific. “LS1 to LS17, plus LS25 and LS26” is good. “Leeds and surrounding areas” is okay. “West Yorkshire” is too vague.

The number-one reason a homeowner closes your site without calling is that they can't tell whether you'd actually come to them. List the postcodes. If you only do certain areas, say so. If you charge a different call-out fee past a certain postcode, say that too.

4. Your call-out fee, listed

List it.

Whatever it is. “£60 daytime, £120 out-of-hours, £80/hour labour after the first hour”is plenty. You don't need a complicated table.

People who hide prices look like they have something to hide. People who show them get more calls.

The most common pushback I hear: “but every job is different”. Sure. Nobody's expecting an exact quote on a website. They're expecting a number for the callout so they can budget. You give them that, they ring you. You hide it, they ring the next plumber on the list.

5. Three real Google reviews

Three reviews with real names and dates beats fifty star-ratings with no name. Pull them live from your Google Business Profile so they stay current.

Don't fake them. Customers can smell a fake review from a mile away. “Excellent plumber, very professional!” with no name and no date is worse than no reviews at all. It's a tell.

If you have a strong rating overall (4.7 or better with 20+ reviews), mention the number. “4.9 across 80+ Google reviews” works. People notice.

6. Before-and-after photos of real work

Two or three is plenty. A new boiler install, a finished bathroom, a fixed leak under a sink. Photos you took on your phone of jobs you actually did.

Stock photos of plumbing tools or generic kitchens are worse than no photos. They look like you bought a template and never finished it. A slightly out-of-focus phone snap of your real work tells the customer two things: you exist, and you actually do this.

What to leave off

Things plumbers add that don't help:

A long history of the business. Stock photos of spanners and pipes. Five different ways to spell “emergency” in your headline. A page called “Our Values”. A scrolling banner of every accreditation logo, none of them your own. A blog you'll never update.

The test

When the site is done, ask yourself: if someone's boiler has just died and they've been on this page for 60 seconds, do they know your call-out fee, whether you cover their postcode, and how to ring you?

If yes, you've got a good site. If no, simplify until they can.

We've also written about the five reasons customers Google a plumber and never call them - worth a read if calls are slower than you'd like.

One last thing

You don't need to build this yourself. We do it for £20 a month, including all the changes you ask for afterwards. See the dedicated plumber page for what's included. But whoever ends up building it, the six things above are what should be on it.