THE ANNUAL WEBSITE CHECKUP EVERY PLUMBER NEEDS. 10 THINGS TO REVIEW.

You service your work van every year. Oil change. Tire rotation. Brake check. Because if you don't, it breaks down at the worst possible time.

Your website is the same damn thing.

A website you built (or had built) 2 years ago and never touched since? It's rusting. The digital equivalent of bald tires and a check engine light you've been ignoring since March.

we've all been there with the check engine light

But unlike your van, your website doesn't make a weird noise when something's wrong. It just quietly stops bringing you leads. And you don't notice until one day you realize the phone hasn't rung in 2 weeks.

So here's the deal. Once a year, sit down for 30 minutes and run through this checklist. It could save you thousands in lost jobs.

1. Is Your Phone Number Correct and Clickable?

Sounds obvious. But you'd be shocked.

We audited 100 plumbing websites last year. 14 of them had the wrong phone number on at least one page. Old numbers. Numbers with typos. Numbers that rang to a disconnected line.

Pull up your website on your phone right now. Tap the phone number. Does it call you?

If it doesn't, you're literally paying for a website that can't do its one job.

Fix it today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Also make sure it's a tap-to-call link on mobile. If someone has to memorize your number and dial it manually in 2025... they won't. They'll hit the back button and call the next plumber.

2. Does Your Site Load in Under 3 Seconds?

Go to PageSpeed Insights and type in your URL.

If your mobile score is below 50, you have a problem. If your page takes more than 3 seconds to load, you're losing about 40% of your visitors before they even see your homepage.

Common culprits: massive images that were never compressed, cheap hosting, too many plugins (if you're on WordPress), and embedded videos that auto-load.

Speed is not a nice-to-have. It's a ranking factor. Google literally uses page speed to decide where to rank you.

3. Does Your Site Look Good on a Phone?

80% of people searching for a plumber are on their phone. If your site looks like a desktop page shrunk down to a tiny screen with text you need a magnifying glass to read... you're losing those people.

Pull up your site on your phone. Scroll through every page. Ask yourself:

1. Is the text easy to read without zooming?
2. Are the buttons big enough to tap with a thumb?
3. Does the contact form work on mobile?
4. Is the phone number visible without scrolling?

If the answer to any of those is no, your website needs a refresh.

4. Are Your Service Pages Still Accurate?

Do you still offer every service listed on your website? Did you add new services this year that aren't on the site?

A plumber we work with added tankless water heater installation to his offerings but never added a page for it. He was missing out on hundreds of monthly searches for "tankless water heater installation [his city]."

One new page. Written in an afternoon. Now it brings him 4 to 6 calls per month.

If you offer a service and it's not on your website, it doesn't exist to Google.

5. Are Your Photos Real and Recent?

Stock photos are a trust killer. That smiling model in the hard hat holding a wrench? Nobody believes that's you.

Check your website photos. Are they:

1. Actually you and your team? (Not stock photos)
2. Recent? (You shouldn't have a photo from 2018 when you had a different truck and 30 fewer pounds)
3. Professional enough? (Doesn't need to be a photoshoot, but shouldn't be blurry cell phone shots in bad lighting)

nobody needs to see the "before" version of you at 6am on a Monday

Take 10 new photos this month. You on a job. Your van. Your team. A finished installation. Use those.

6. Do All Your Links Work?

Click every link on your website. Every menu item. Every button. Every footer link.

Broken links (404 errors) make you look unprofessional and hurt your Google rankings. If you redesigned your site, moved pages around, or deleted old blog posts, you might have links pointing to pages that no longer exist.

Google Search Console will show you 404 errors for free. If you're not using Search Console, that's a whole separate problem. Set it up.

7. Is Your Google Business Profile Linked Correctly?

Go to your Google Business Profile. Click the website link. Does it go to your actual homepage?

You'd be surprised how often this gets messed up. We've seen GBP listings pointing to old domains, staging sites, or dead links. Every click to a bad URL is a lost customer.

While you're at it, make sure your GBP phone number matches your website phone number. And your address. And your business hours. NAP consistency (Name, Address, Phone) matters for local SEO.

8. Are Your Reviews Showing Up?

If you have a reviews section on your website, check that it's still pulling in your latest reviews.

Some review widgets break over time. API connections expire. Plugins stop updating. And you end up with a "Reviews" page that shows your 3 best reviews from 2023 while you've got 40 new ones on Google that nobody sees.

Your reviews are your most powerful sales tool. Make sure they're visible and current.

Also check: how many Google reviews do you have? If you're under 30, you need to start asking for more. Aggressively. Here's why reviews matter so much.

9. Is Your SSL Certificate Active?

Look at your URL in the browser. Do you see a padlock icon? Does your URL start with "https"?

If not, your SSL certificate has expired. Which means:

1. Google Chrome shows visitors a "NOT SECURE" warning when they visit your site
2. Your Google rankings take a hit
3. Homeowners see that warning and immediately leave

Nobody is going to enter their phone number on a website that says "NOT SECURE."

Your hosting provider should handle SSL automatically. If yours isn't, that's a sign you're on the wrong hosting.

10. Are You Showing Up on Google?

The ultimate test.

Google "plumber near me" from your service area. (Use your phone for the most accurate results since Google uses your location.)

Where do you show up? Are you in the map pack (top 3 local results)? Are you on page 1 of organic results? Are you on page 2? Are you... nowhere?

Then Google your specific business name. Does your website show up? Does your Google Business Profile pop up on the right side?

If the answers aren't what you want them to be, you've got work to do.

The 30-Minute Checkup

Here's the thing. This entire checklist takes about 30 minutes. Maybe 45 if you're thorough.

And it could be the difference between a website that generates 20 calls per month and a website that generates zero.

Your website is not a "set it and forget it" thing. It's a machine. Machines need maintenance. Skip the maintenance and the machine breaks down.

Schedule this checkup once a year. Put it on your calendar. First week of January. Or your business anniversary. Or your birthday. Doesn't matter when. Just do it.

Need a Professional Set of Eyes?

Look, you can run through this checklist yourself. Most of it is pretty straightforward.

But if you want a professional to do a deep audit (checking your SEO health, your page speed, your keyword rankings, your competitor positioning, and everything in between), that's what we're here for.

Grab a free website audit. We'll go through your entire online presence and tell you exactly what's working, what's broken, and what to fix. Takes about 15 minutes on a call. Zero cost. Zero obligation.

Think of it as a free inspection from a plumber who specializes in websites.

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P.S. If you ran through this checklist and found more than 3 problems... your website isn't just due for a checkup. It might be time for a full rebuild. Let's talk about what a new site would look like for you. You might be surprised how affordable (and fast) it is.