Local SEO for Plumbers, Electricians and HVAC Contractors

A homeowner with water on the basement floor is rarely in the mood to compare ten websites. Many search, look at the map, and call one of the first few names they see. Local SEO for a plumbing, electrical or HVAC company is the work of getting onto that short list and making the call easy once someone finds you. Most of it means following rules Google publishes, and the shortcuts that break those rules can cost you the listing.

How does Google decide which contractors show up in local results?

Google names three factors in its Business Profile help article on improving local ranking: relevance, distance and prominence.

Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching. Prominence is how well known the business is, and Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help. The same article says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Distance is the one factor you cannot change, so the work goes into the other two.

What are the Business Profile rules for a service-area business?

If customers do not come to your address, hide it and list the areas you serve. Many plumbers, electricians and HVAC companies work this way.

Google's service area help page defines a service-area business as one that visits or delivers to customers but does not serve them at its business address, and it names plumbers as an example. A hybrid business serves customers at its address and also travels to them; it shows both. The same page allows up to 20 service areas, by city, postal code or other area, and says the overall area should not extend more than about 2 hours of driving time from where the business is based.

The Business Profile guidelines add the rules that matter most for contractors. A service-area business should have one profile for its central office or location, with a designated service area, and must not create more than one profile for each location. A rented mailing address you do not operate from, which Google calls a virtual office, is not eligible for a Business Profile, and the service-area section adds that a service-area business cannot list a virtual office unless it is staffed during business hours. P.O. boxes and mailboxes at remote locations are not acceptable either.

The name must be your real-world name as used on your trucks, website and paperwork. Google's examples of what not to add include service information, location information and phone numbers. "Smith Plumbing" is a name. "Smith Plumbing 24/7 Emergency Drain Cleaning Springfield" is keyword stuffing, unless that is genuinely the name on your license and your vans. The phone number must be under the direct control of the business, and should be a local number rather than a call center line whenever possible.

Google says it can suspend profiles that violate these guidelines. For the full setup, see our Google Business Profile guide.

What does a contractor website need to rank locally?

One page per service

Water heater replacement, drain cleaning, panel upgrades, furnace repair: each deserves its own page that says what the job involves and what happens on the visit. A single "Services" page listing twenty items gives Google nothing specific to match.

Service-area pages only where you work

Google's spam policies define doorway abuse as pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries, and one of its examples is multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page. A page for a town you serve is fine when it says something true about working there: the jobs you do most often in that area, the housing stock, the local permit office. A page that swaps one town name for another fifty times is the example in the policy.

Click-to-call on every page

Put your phone number in the header as a tel: link so a caller on a phone can reach you with one tap.

Emergency and after-hours pages only if true

If you answer at 2 a.m. and roll a truck, say so, and say how the price differs from a daytime call. If you do not, leave the page out. A customer who calls at midnight because your site said "24/7" and reaches voicemail will likely say so in a review.

Real job photos

Use photos of your own crew, trucks and finished work. Google's SEO Starter Guide recommends high-quality images placed near the text they illustrate, with descriptive alt text. A stock photo of a smiling technician in a spotless basement tells no one anything.

Licensing rules for advertising vary by state and trade; see your contractor license number on your website. Our local SEO guide covers citations and listing consistency.

How should a contractor get reviews without breaking the rules?

Google's Maps contribution policy prohibits offering incentives, such as payment, discounts or free goods or services, in exchange for a review. It also prohibits discouraging negative reviews, selectively asking only happy customers, and reviews written from a conflict of interest, which includes current or former employees.

The FTC announced a final rule on August 14, 2024, that bans fake reviews, including reviews by someone who does not exist or who had no actual experience with the business, prohibits incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, and lets the agency seek civil penalties against knowing violators. The FTC's guidance on the rule gives its effective date as October 21, 2024.

Text the review link after every completed job, not only the ones that went well. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, with the facts and without heat.

Which schema types fit plumbers, electricians and HVAC contractors?

Schema.org has a type for each trade: Plumber, Electrician and HVACBusiness. All three are subtypes of HomeAndConstructionBusiness, which is itself a type of LocalBusiness.

Google's LocalBusiness structured data documentation asks you to use the most specific subtype possible. It lists name and address as required, and recommends properties such as telephone, url and openingHoursSpecification. It also says Google does not guarantee that features using structured data will show up in results.

Do not mark up your own testimonials for stars. Google's review snippet guidelines say that when a business controls the reviews about itself, its LocalBusiness pages are ineligible for star review features.

What gets a contractor's listing suspended or a site demoted?

Fake locations

A profile at a virtual office, a mailbox store or a friend's house in a town you want to rank in breaks the eligibility rules above. So does a second profile for the same business.

Rank-and-rent sites

Some marketers build a website and profile under an invented local brand, rank it, and then sell or rent the calls to whichever contractor pays. Google's Business Profile guidelines require a phone number under the direct control of the business, and say not to provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business. If a vendor offers you calls from a site you do not own, ask what happens to those calls the day you stop paying.

Bought reviews and bought links

Reviews for sale are covered by both Google's policy and the FTC rule. Links bought for ranking purposes are link spam under Google's spam policies, unless they carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". So a paid directory listing does not break the link spam policy when the directory marks its link to you that way.

How should a contractor measure local SEO?

The number that matters is booked jobs you can trace to search. Two Google reports get you partway there. Search Console's Performance report shows which searches bring clicks to your website and which pages they land on. The Business Profile performance view shows calls from the profile's call button, website clicks and the search terms people used to find you; Google says that data is available only for verified profiles.

Our advice: a call tracking number on your website can show which pages produce calls, as long as the number is in your business's name, rings your office, and stays with you if you change vendors. Keep your own local number as the primary phone on the Business Profile. Google's guidelines say the phone number must be under the direct control of the business, and that additional phone numbers can be used on Business Profile websites and other local surfaces.

The rest comes from your own office. Ask every caller how they found you, write it on the job ticket, and count jobs by source each month.

Paid placement is a separate question; see Google Local Services Ads for contractors.

What does a 90-day local SEO plan look like?

Cleanup comes first, so that new town pages and review requests point to a listing and a site that already meet the rules.

Days 1 to 30

Claim and verify your Business Profile. Hide the address if customers do not come to it, and set no more than 20 service areas within about 2 hours of your base. Strip keywords and taglines out of the business name so it matches your trucks and paperwork. Delete any duplicate profile and any profile at an address you do not occupy. Put your own local number on the profile. Set up Search Console. Add a "how did you hear about us" field to every job ticket.

Days 31 to 60

Write one page for each service you sell. Replace stock images with photos of your own crew and work. Put a tel: link in the header of every page. Remove emergency or 24/7 claims you do not deliver. Add Plumber, Electrician or HVACBusiness markup with values that match the page and the profile. Merge or remove town pages that differ only by the town name.

Days 61 to 90

Write real pages for the towns you serve most, with something specific about working there. Start texting the review link after every completed job, with no incentive, and reply to every review. Ask any directory or sponsor you pay to mark its link to you rel="sponsored". Count jobs by source.

Common questions about local SEO for contractors

How long does local SEO take for a plumber, electrician or HVAC company?

Google gives no fixed timeline. Its SEO Starter Guide says some changes might take effect in a few hours and others could take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging a change. Google also says no one can guarantee a number one ranking. Be wary of any vendor who promises a position or a date.

Should a contractor who works from home show the address on Google?

No, not if customers do not come to that address. Google's Business Profile guidelines say a service-area business should hide its address, and its service area help page says to remove the address and enter only the service area when you do not serve customers at your location. Once the address is hidden, the profile shows only your service area.

Can I build a page for every town I serve?

Only for towns you actually serve, and only if each page says something true and specific about working there. Google's spam policies list multiple pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as an example of doorway abuse. Fifty pages that differ only by the town name fit that example.

Can I offer a discount in exchange for a Google review?

No. Google's Maps contribution policy prohibits offering incentives, including discounts, free goods or services, in exchange for posting a review. The FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, in effect since October 21, 2024, separately prohibits incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment. Ask every customer, and offer nothing for it.

Does schema markup help a contractor rank?

It helps Google read your business details, but Google says it does not guarantee that features using structured data will appear. Use the most specific type that fits, such as Plumber, Electrician or HVACBusiness, and make sure every value matches what the page and your Business Profile say.

Related reading: Google Local Services Ads for Contractors · Your Contractor License Number on Your Website · Local SEO Guide · Google Business Profile Optimization

Websites by trade: Plumber websites · Electrician websites · HVAC websites