Industries · Plumbers
Web design for plumbers in Halifax and Nova Scotia
I build websites for plumbing businesses in Halifax and across Nova Scotia, built around how people actually call a plumber: some in a panic, most with a question about price. Before I built anything, I called 126 plumbing shops. I don't have a plumber client site yet, so this page says what I learned and nothing more.
How do people call a plumber?
Some calls are drop-everything: a burst pipe, sewage backing up, no heat in winter, frozen pipes in January and February, a water heater leaking on the floor. That caller needs a phone number they can tap before they finish reading.
Most calls aren't emergencies. They're tap swaps, fixture installs, reno quotes, and replacing old galvanized or cast iron pipe in older houses. Those callers are comparing, and they'll pick whoever answers their question first.
A water heater replacement nearly always starts as a price question. The calm caller who gets no answer, or a site that doesn't say what changes the price, just goes to the next result.
What should a plumbing website have?
One page for emergencies, with the call button at the top, and a separate page for each everyday job you want more of. The emergency caller and the reno caller want different things, and one page can't serve both.
A water heater page that answers the price question honestly: what changes the cost, what you need to know about the old tank, how soon you can do it.
Outside Halifax most homes are on a well, so water treatment and well pumps are a big share of the work. If you do softeners, iron or sulphur filters, UV or well pumps, each one deserves a page.
And seasonal work: cottage winterizing in the fall and opening up in May, on the South Shore and in Cape Breton. A page for it is found by exactly the people who own those cottages.
What did 126 calls to plumbing shops teach me?
That busy plumbers don't want more customers. As one told me: "I don't want any more customers. I gotta lean down to the few that we work for." The job of a plumbing website isn't more calls. It's the right calls, answered without you stopping work.
Some of the shops I called had voicemail boxes too full to take a message. A website that answers the common questions and catches the missed call with a text does the job that voicemail box can't.
What can I show you?
No plumber client site yet, and I won't pretend otherwise. My trades work so far is a landscaper's site in Liverpool and a moving company's site in Halifax, both live, and an electrician's site in build. Everything above comes from my own calls and research.
Questions plumbers ask
- Do you have plumbing clients?
- Not yet. My live trades work is a landscaper's site and a moving company's site, with an electrician's in build. What I know about plumbing comes from calling 126 plumbing shops.
- Should my plumbing website show prices?
- At least say what changes the price. Water heater jobs nearly always start as a price question, and a site that answers it gets the call that a site with no answer loses.
- I work outside Halifax. Does my site need anything different?
- Usually, yes. Most homes outside the city are on wells, so water treatment and well pump pages matter more than they would in town.
Where next?
See what a website costs on the pricing page, or read why a trades website needs a page for each service.
I work with trades in Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, Lower Sackville, Cole Harbour, Truro and Liverpool.
Other trades: Electricians, Landscapers, HVAC.
Want to know what I'd change on your site?
Send me your website and your Google profile. I'll reply within two business days with what I'd fix first. Free.