Plumbers & heating engineers
Website design for plumbers
You have two completely different customers. One has water coming through a ceiling and will ring the first number they can tap. The other is choosing who fits a £3,000 boiler and will spend a fortnight deciding. Most plumbers’ websites are built for neither.
The two jobs your website has to do
The emergency. A burst pipe, no hot water, a leak under the sink. They search emergency plumber near me on a phone, and they are not reading anything. They are looking for a number, a sign you cover their area, and a sign you are awake. Whoever makes that easiest gets the job, and it is decided in seconds.
The planned job. A new boiler, a bathroom, a heat pump. This is where the money is, and it is the opposite process: they read, they compare three or four of you, they look for certifications and finished work, and they want to know roughly what it costs before they ring anyone.
A single homepage with “no job too small” and a contact form serves one badly and the other not at all. The fix is not a redesign, it is structure: an emergency route that takes two taps, and genuine pages behind the big jobs.
What we build for plumbers
- Tap-to-call fixed on screen. Always in reach, never below the fold, with your hours and whether you take out-of-hours calls stated next to it. If you don’t do 2am, say so — being clear beats being hopeful and saves you the calls you don’t want.
- Your Gas Safe number, displayed. Prominently, with your registration number, because anyone can call themselves a heating engineer and your customers have been told to check. The same goes for OFTEC if you do oil, HETAS for solid fuel, and MCS if you install heat pumps.
- A page per job, not a bullet list. Boiler installation, boiler repair, boiler servicing, landlord gas safety certificates, bathroom fitting, power flushing, unvented cylinders, underfloor heating, leak detection, blocked drains, heat pumps. New boiler [town] is a search you can win with a page and will never win with a bullet.
- Boiler prices, in ranges. Combi swap from, system to combi conversion from, full system from. Buyers at this stage are trying to work out whether to even ring you, and “every job is different” reads as evasive. A range with what changes the price is both honest and persuasive.
- Finance, if you offer it. For a £3,000 boiler, monthly payment options change who can say yes. If you have a finance facility it belongs on the boiler page with an example monthly figure, not hidden in the small print.
- Your coverage area, unmistakable. The towns and postcodes you actually travel to. Vagueness here costs you the emergency job, because nobody rings to find out.
- Photographs of your own work. Finished bathrooms, tidy pipework, a neat boiler install with the old one gone. This trade is judged on tidiness, and a stock photo of a chrome tap tells a customer nothing.
- Reviews where the decision happens. Your Google rating and recent reviews on the page, plus Checkatrade, Which? Trusted Traders or TrustMark if you’re on them.
- Correct
Plumberschema. Structured data covering your services, area and hours, so you have the best shot at the local map results.
The jobs worth building a page around
Not all plumbing searches are worth the same. These are the ones where a dedicated page tends to repay itself quickest:
- New boilers. High value, heavily researched, and the search volume is enormous. This should be your best page, with prices, brands you fit, warranty lengths and how long you need.
- Heat pumps. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant has made air source heat pumps a live question for ordinary households, and far fewer installers are MCS certified than are searching. If you are certified, that is a page and a half of advantage over everyone who isn’t — state the grant, what the survey involves and what a typical property actually needs.
- Landlord gas safety certificates. Annual, legally required, and the same customer books every year. One page, a clear price, and a reminder the year after is some of the steadiest work in the trade.
- Bathroom installation. Researched like a kitchen, decided on finished photographs. This page lives or dies on your gallery.
- Emergency call-outs. A page that states your response time, your call-out charge and your hours honestly. Publishing the call-out fee filters out the people who were never going to pay it.
The cold snap is your March
Every year the first hard frost produces a week of frozen condensate pipes, failed boilers and no-heat calls, and every year the same thing happens: more work arrives than can be answered, and a good share of it goes to whoever picked up.
Two things make that week pay. A site fast enough to load on a phone in a cold hallway, and a way of capturing the people you cannot get to — a short form that takes the address and the problem, so you can work through them in order rather than losing every call you missed.
The quieter opposite is worth planning for too. Boiler servicing, gas certificates and bathroom quotes are the work that fills autumn and spring, and they are bookable in advance if the site asks.
Content that brings in work
Your customers are worried about an expensive thing they do not understand, and they search in plain language. Answering them honestly earns both the ranking and the call.
- How much does a new boiler cost in the UK? With your real ranges and what moves them.
- Combi or system boiler — which do I need? Decided by bathrooms and simultaneous demand, not brand.
- Why is my boiler losing pressure?
- Do I need a magnetic filter, and is a power flush worth it?
- Am I eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?
- How long does a bathroom fit actually take?
Written properly, these pages keep working for years. Copywriting for them is included from the Business plan.
What it costs
Pay-monthly plans run from £45 a month for a five-page site up to £120 a month for a shop or membership site — design, build, hosting, support and monthly changes all included, with nothing to pay upfront.
Prefer to own it? One-off builds start at £1495.
Questions
Plumbing website questions
How much does a website for a plumbing business cost?
Plans start at £45 a month with nothing upfront. Most plumbers and heating engineers take the £75 Business plan, because the value is in having a real page for each job you take and the copywriting to go with it. Design, build, UK hosting, SSL, support and monthly changes are all included.
One-off builds start at £1495 if you would rather own it outright. Full detail on the pricing page.
Should I publish my prices?
For anything standardised, yes: your call-out charge, hourly rate, boiler service price and landlord gas safety certificate. These are the first things people look for and withholding them mostly sends the enquiry elsewhere.
For installations, publish ranges rather than fixed figures, and explain what moves the number — the type of swap, the flue run, whether the system needs a filter or a flush. That is more useful than a single price and more honest than “contact us for a quote”.
I get all my work from Checkatrade. Why do I need a website?
Because you are renting that position, you are listed next to your competitors on it, and the leads are shared. A directory is a reasonable way to fill a diary and a poor way to build something that is worth anything in ten years.
The practical argument is narrower: people who have been recommended you by name search for your name, and if nothing comes up but a profile they are back among the competition. A site of your own ends that, and the enquiries it produces cost you nothing per lead.
Can the site take bookings or deposits?
For emergency work, no — a form that promises a slot you cannot honour is worse than a phone number. For servicing, gas certificates and quote visits, a request form with the address, the job and preferred days works well and arrives instantly.
Taking deposits online is available on the Growth plan if you want it, and it is genuinely useful for bathroom work. For most plumbers it is not worth the friction.
I’m MCS certified for heat pumps. Does that change things?
Considerably, and it is the clearest advantage you have. Certified installers are in short supply, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant means households are actively looking, and the searches are specific and high value.
It wants its own page at minimum: your certification, the grant and what it covers, what the survey involves, what sort of property suits a heat pump and what you would tell someone whose property doesn’t. Being straight about the second part wins more work than overselling the first.
I’m a one-man band. Will the site make me look too small?
Only if it tries to look big. “We” language, stock photography and a fake office address are transparent and cost you trust. A sole trader who names himself, shows his own work and answers his own phone is exactly what a lot of customers are looking for after a bad experience with a large firm.
What does need to look professional is the site itself: fast, correct on a phone, properly spelled, with your Gas Safe number where it can be checked.
How long until it brings in work?
Calls from people already looking for you improve straight away, because the site loads fast and puts your number in reach.
Local search positions take longer — expect movement in six to twelve weeks and a fair verdict at three to six months, provided the Google Business Profile work and reviews are happening too. Anyone promising page one in a fortnight is guessing.
Other industries
We build for these too
Let’s build the site your trade actually needs
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