If you have searched this, you are probably not looking for advice on how to become a plumber. You already are one. You have your qualifications, your tools, and your van. What you need is a fuller diary and a steadier flow of leads — the kind that mean you are not wondering where next month’s work is coming from.
The good news is that there is no shortage of people who need a plumber. Every day, boilers break down, pipes leak, bathrooms need fitting, and drains block. The question is not whether the work exists. It is whether those people can find you when they need you.
Here is what actually works, starting with the methods you probably already know and building up to the ones that make the biggest long-term difference.
The traditional methods still work — up to a point
Word of mouth
This is how most plumbers start. You do a good job, the customer tells their neighbour, the neighbour calls you, and the cycle continues. It is the most trusted form of marketing because it comes with a built-in recommendation. Nobody is going to question a plumber their friend vouches for.
The limitation is that word of mouth does not scale. It depends entirely on your existing network remembering to mention you at the right moment. It is passive. You cannot control when referrals come in, and during quiet periods there is nothing you can do to speed it up.
Van signage
A well-signed van parked outside a house you are working on is a silent advert. Neighbours see it. People on the street notice it. Some of them will jot down your number or take a photo. This works especially well in residential areas where people talk to each other and notice trade vans coming and going.
Get your van done properly — your business name, phone number, and what you do. Keep it clean. A dirty van with peeling decals says more about your business than you might think.
Cards through doors
Leafleting can work in specific situations: when you are doing a job on a street and want to let neighbours know you are working locally, or when you are trying to break into a new area. A simple card that says “Your local plumber — just finished a job on this street” with your number can prompt calls from people who have been putting off a plumbing issue.
The conversion rate is low — you might drop five hundred cards and get two or three calls. But for a plumber with a quiet week, those two or three calls could be the work you needed.
Checkatrade and lead platforms
Platforms like Checkatrade, MyBuilder, and Rated People can generate leads, especially when you are starting out and have no online presence of your own. You pay a membership fee and get connected with homeowners searching for tradespeople.
The downside is that leads are shared. Multiple plumbers get the same enquiry and compete on price and speed. The homeowner often goes with whoever answers first or quotes cheapest, regardless of quality. Over time, the cost per job from these platforms adds up significantly. We have written a detailed comparison of Checkatrade versus having your own website if you want to see the real numbers.
The methods that build long-term lead flow
Everything above works to some degree, but none of it compounds. Word of mouth is inconsistent. Leafleting is temporary. Lead platforms charge you forever. The methods below build something that grows over time — so the work you put in this month is still generating leads six months from now.
Get your Google Business Profile right
When someone types “plumber near me” into Google, the first thing they see is the map pack — a cluster of three businesses shown on a map at the top of the results page. Getting into that top three is the single most impactful thing you can do for lead generation as a plumber.
Your Google Business Profile is the listing that feeds into those map results. If it is incomplete, outdated, or missing altogether, you are invisible to the people who are actively searching for a plumber in your area right now.
The basics: claim your profile at business.google.com. Fill in every field. Choose “Plumber” as your primary category. Add your service area, phone number, and opening hours. Upload real photos of your work — not stock images. Then keep it active with regular posts about completed jobs.
Our Google Business Profile guide for tradespeople walks through every step in detail. If you do nothing else from this article, do that.
Build a website that targets specific searches
Here is the uncomfortable truth: the plumber at the top of Google in your area probably has a website with thirty or more pages. You might have four or five. That is the gap.
Google matches search queries to web pages. When someone searches “boiler repair in Chelmsford,” Google wants to show them a page that specifically talks about boiler repair in Chelmsford. If your website has one generic services page that mentions boiler repair alongside fifteen other services with no location specifics, you will not rank for that search.
The plumbers who consistently get found on Google have dedicated pages for each service they offer and dedicated pages for each town they cover. A page for boiler installations. A page for bathroom fitting. A page for emergency call-outs. And then location pages for every town in their service area. Each page catches a different search query, and each search query represents a potential customer.
This is exactly the approach we cover in our local SEO tips for plumbers, and it is the structure we build for every client.
Collect Google reviews consistently
Reviews are one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide which businesses to show in the map pack. A plumber with sixty reviews averaging 4.8 stars will almost always outrank a plumber with eight reviews, even if those eight are all five stars.
But beyond rankings, reviews also determine whether someone actually calls you once they find you. Homeowners check reviews before they call. They look at the number, the average rating, and often read the most recent ones. If your most recent review is from nine months ago, it raises questions about whether you are still active.
The key is consistency. One or two new reviews every week is far more valuable than twenty reviews in a burst followed by months of silence. The simplest approach is to ask every satisfied customer at the end of the job. A direct link to your Google review page — sent via text right after the job — converts better than any other method. Our article on how to get more Google reviews covers the exact process.
Get listed in the directories that matter
Directory listings — sometimes called citations — are another trust signal for Google. When your business name, address, and phone number appear consistently across trusted websites like Yell, Thomson Local, FreeIndex, and Yelp, Google gains confidence that your business is real and established.
The key word is consistently. If your Google Business Profile says “J. Smith Plumbing Ltd” but your Yell listing says “J Smith Plumbing,” that mismatch can actually hurt your rankings. Google notices these inconsistencies and loses confidence in your data.
For plumbers, the most important directories in the UK include Yell, Thomson Local, Checkatrade, Trustatrader, Bark, FreeIndex, Yelp UK, 192.com, Cylex, and Apple Maps. There are another thirty or so smaller ones that add up. Building and maintaining these listings is tedious work, which is why most plumbers either skip it or do it once and never update it.
The compound effect
The reason these methods work better long-term is that they compound. A website that ranks for twenty search terms this month might rank for thirty next month and fifty the month after. Reviews accumulate, strengthening your Google Maps position. Directory listings build trust signals that make everything else work harder.
After six months of consistent effort, the plumber who invested in their online presence has a fundamentally different pipeline to the one who relies purely on word of mouth and lead platforms. The leads come in whether you are working or sleeping, whether it is a Tuesday or a bank holiday. And unlike Checkatrade, nobody else gets the same lead.
Where to start
If you are starting from nothing, this is the order that makes the most sense:
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Claim and optimise your Google Business Profile. This is free and has the most immediate impact on your visibility in local searches.
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Start asking for Google reviews after every job. Even without a fancy system, a simple text message with a link to your review page will start building your count.
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Get a website that targets your services and towns. Whether you build it yourself or get someone else to do it, the structure matters more than the design. You need individual pages for each service and each location.
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Build directory listings. This takes time but the trust signals are worth it. Start with the big five (Yell, Thomson Local, Checkatrade, Trustatrader, FreeIndex) and work outward.
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Track your progress. Check your Google rankings once a month for your target keywords. If you are moving up, keep doing what you are doing. If not, adjust.
If you would rather have someone handle the whole lot — the website, the directories, the Google profile, the review system, and the rank tracking — that is exactly what Localengine does. Everything is included for three hundred pounds per month with no setup fee, and we only work with one plumber per county so your competitors are locked out. Have a look at your area to see if the plumber spot in your county is still available.