THE COMPETITOR GAP ANALYSIS EVERY PLUMBER SHOULD DO BEFORE BUILDING A WEBSITE

Don't Build Blind

Here's what most plumbers do when they decide to build a website.

They call a web designer. They say "make me a website." The designer asks "what do you want on it?" The plumber says "I dunno, the usual stuff." And the designer builds a generic plumbing website based on a template.

No research. No strategy. No understanding of the competitive landscape.

That's like showing up to a poker game without looking at your cards. (You can also track what your competitors do online on an ongoing basis.)

Before you spend a single dollar on a website, you need to know:

1. Who are you competing against online?
2. What are they doing well?
3. Where are they weak?
4. What gaps can you exploit?

This is called a competitor gap analysis. And it's the most important thing you can do before building or rebuilding your plumbing website.

Step 1: Identify Your Top 5 Competitors

Not the plumber down the street with a van and a prayer. Your online competitors.

Google "plumber in [your city]" and note the first 5 plumbing companies that appear. Do the same for:

1. "Emergency plumber [your city]"
2. "Plumber near me" (from your service area)
3. "Water heater repair [your city]"
4. "Drain cleaning [your city]"

The businesses that keep showing up across these searches? Those are your top online competitors. They're the ones stealing the calls that should be coming to you.

Write down their names and website URLs.

Step 2: Analyze Their Websites

Now, visit each competitor's website (on your phone AND desktop) and evaluate these areas:

### Design and First Impression

1. Does the site look professional or outdated?
2. Is it mobile-friendly?
3. How fast does it load? (Use PageSpeed Insights to check)
4. Is there a clear headline and call to action above the fold?

### Content Depth

1. How many service pages do they have?
2. Do they have individual pages for each service or one generic "Services" page?
3. Do they have a blog? How many posts? How recently updated?
4. Do they have location pages for different neighborhoods?
5. How detailed is their "About" page?

### Trust Elements

1. How many Google reviews do they have? What's their rating?
2. Do they display reviews on their website?
3. Do they show certifications, licenses, and insurance info?
4. Do they have before/after photos of real work?
5. Are team photos real or stock images?

### Conversion Elements

1. Is the phone number prominently displayed?
2. Is there a click-to-call button on mobile?
3. Do they have a contact form? Is it simple or complicated?
4. Do they have multiple CTAs throughout the page?
5. Is there a sticky header or floating call button?

### SEO Indicators

1. What does their title tag say?
2. What's their meta description?
3. Do they use schema markup? (Check with Google's Rich Results Test)
4. Do they have FAQ sections?
5. Do their URLs include keywords?

Create a simple spreadsheet. Competitor name across the top, evaluation criteria down the side. Score each one on a scale of 1-5 for each area.

Step 3: Find the Gaps

This is where it gets interesting.

grabs popcorn

Look at your spreadsheet and find patterns:

### Where Are ALL Competitors Weak?

If every competitor has a slow website, that's a gap. Build a fast one and you stand out.

If nobody has blog content, that's a gap. Start publishing and you'll rank for keywords nobody else is targeting.

If nobody has FAQ schema, that's a gap. Add it and your listings will be bigger and more clickable in search results.

These "everybody's weak" gaps are your biggest opportunities. You can leapfrog the entire field in areas where nobody is competing.

### Where Is Only ONE Competitor Strong?

If only one competitor has 200+ reviews and everyone else has 30 or fewer, you know what's giving them an edge. Now you can build a review generation system to close that gap.

If only one competitor has location-specific pages and they're dominating the map pack, you know what to do.

### What Services Are Under-Represented?

Maybe every competitor has a page for drain cleaning and water heaters, but nobody has a dedicated page for slab leak detection or sewer camera inspection.

Those under-represented services are SEO opportunities. Create detailed pages for them and you'll rank with little competition.

### What Geographic Areas Are Underserved?

If your competitors all focus their content on the main city but nobody mentions the surrounding suburbs and neighborhoods, creating location pages for those areas is easy pickings.

Step 4: Build Your "Beat the Competition" Plan

Based on your gap analysis, create a prioritized plan:

### High Priority (Do Immediately)

1. Fix any gap where ALL competitors are weak (easy to stand out)
2. Match the strongest competitor's best features (table stakes)
3. Address the #1 factor where you're most behind (usually reviews or content)

### Medium Priority (First 3 Months)

1. Create content for underserved services
2. Build location pages for underserved geographic areas
3. Set up the technical SEO elements competitors are missing

### Low Priority (Ongoing)

1. Outperform competitors in areas where they're already decent
2. Continue building content and reviews
3. Monitor competitors quarterly for changes

Real Example: What a Gap Analysis Revealed

We did this analysis for a plumber in Austin. Here's what we found:

Gap 1: 4 out of 5 competitors had no blog content at all. The one that did had 6 posts from 2021.

Action: We created 15 blog posts in the first 3 months targeting local long-tail keywords. Result: ranking for 23 new keywords within 6 months.

Gap 2: No competitor had dedicated pages for the suburbs of Round Rock, Cedar Park, or Pflugerville. They all just said "serving the Austin area."

Action: We created location-specific service pages for each suburb. Result: #2 ranking for "plumber in Round Rock" within 4 months.

Gap 3: Only 2 competitors had FAQ schema on their websites.

Action: We added FAQ schema to every service page. Result: Rich snippets appearing in search results within 3 weeks. CTR increased by 34%.

Gap 4: The top competitor had 310 Google reviews. Our client had 28.

Action: We set up an automated review generation system. Within 6 months, our client hit 89 reviews with a 4.9-star average. Still behind the leader, but gaining fast.

Combined result: 280% increase in organic traffic and 3.5x increase in monthly calls within 8 months. All because we knew exactly where to focus our efforts before building the website. If you want to go deeper on finding your competitor's keywords, our competitor keyword research guide walks through the exact process. And if you want to spy on their ads too, check out our post on how to see your competitor's Google Ads.

Why Most Web Designers Skip This Step

Because it takes work.

A proper competitor gap analysis takes 3-5 hours. Most web designers and agencies skip it because they're selling templates. They want to collect your money, plug your logo into a theme, and move on to the next client.

They don't care whether your website outperforms your competitors. They care about finishing the project.

That's the difference between a website builder and a strategic partner.

We don't start designing until the gap analysis is done. Because building a website without understanding the competitive landscape is like building a house without looking at the lot first.

Do This Before You Spend a Dime

Whether you hire us or somebody else (or even do it yourself), please do a competitor gap analysis first.

It takes a few hours. It saves you months of wasted effort. And it ensures that whatever you build is designed to win, not just exist.

Want us to do the gap analysis for you? We include a full competitive analysis with every website project. You'll know exactly where your competitors are strong, where they're weak, and exactly how to beat them.

Check out our pricing or see what other plumbers say about the results.

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P.S. Here's a free starting point. Google "plumber in [your city]" right now. Click on the first result. Spend 5 minutes on their website. Now ask yourself: "Is my website better than this?" If the answer is no (or if you don't even have a website), you know what needs to happen. Let's talk.