THE 5 WEBSITE METRICS EVERY PLUMBER SHOULD CHECK MONTHLY
Your website is either making you money or wasting it. These 5 metrics tell you which one. Takes 10 minutes to check. Could save you thousands.
Dear Plumber,
Your website isn't a set-it-and-forget-it thing.
I know. That's what the last web guy told you. "We'll build it and you're good to go." He took your money, slapped up a template, and disappeared like a fart in the wind.
Now your site's been sitting there for 18 months and you have no idea if it's actually doing anything.
Is it getting traffic? Is anyone calling from it? Is it showing up on Google? Is it faster than a snail on sedatives?
You don't know. Because nobody told you what to look at.
That changes today.
Here are the 5 metrics you need to check every single month. Takes 10 minutes. Could literally change your business.
Metric #1: Total Website Visitors
This is the most basic one. How many people visited your website this month?
You can find this in Google Analytics (which you should have set up... and if you don't, we need to talk). Here's our guide to setting up analytics on your plumbing website.
What to look for: - Is the number going up, down, or staying flat? - How does this month compare to last month? Same month last year? - Are seasonal trends showing up? (More traffic in winter for pipe bursts, more in summer for water heaters)
The benchmark: A healthy local plumbing website should be getting at least 200-500 unique visitors per month. If you're under 100, your site is basically invisible.
If you're over 1,000... you're doing something right and it's time to focus on conversion.
Why it matters: No traffic means no leads. Simple as that. If nobody's visiting your site, it doesn't matter how beautiful it is. It's a digital ghost town.
Metric #2: Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your site and immediately leave without clicking anything.
They showed up. They looked. They bounced.
Like a bad date where the person sees you and keeps walking.
What to look for: - A bounce rate between 30-50% is good - 50-70% is average (room for improvement) - Over 70% means your site is actively repelling people
Why it matters: A high bounce rate usually means one of three things:
- Your site loads too slow (they left before it even finished loading)
- Your site looks outdated or sketchy (they don't trust you)
- They can't find what they need (bad navigation, confusing layout)
If your bounce rate is over 60%, something is broken. And every person who bounces is a potential customer who just hired your competitor instead.
Metric #3: Phone Calls and Form Submissions
This is the one that actually pays your bills.
How many people called you or filled out a contact form from your website this month?
How to track this: - Use a call tracking number on your website (services like CallRail make this easy) - Count your contact form submissions - Check your Google Business Profile for "website clicks" and "call clicks"
The benchmark: A well-optimized plumbing website should convert 3-5% of visitors into calls or form fills. So if you're getting 500 visitors a month, you should be getting 15-25 leads.
If you're getting 500 visitors and 2 calls... your site has a conversion problem. The traffic is there but something is stopping people from picking up the phone.
Why it matters: This is the whole point of having a website. If it's not generating calls, it's not working. Period.
Metric #4: Page Load Speed
How fast does your website load on a phone?
Not on your desktop computer connected to fiber internet. On a phone. On 4G. In someone's kitchen while they're staring at a burst pipe.
How to check: Go to PageSpeed Insights and type in your URL. For a deeper dive, check our guide to free page speed tools. It gives you a score from 0-100 for mobile and desktop.
What to look for: - 90-100: Excellent. You're golden. - 50-89: Needs work. You're losing people. - Under 50: Your site is a slug. Fix this immediately.
Why it matters: 53% of mobile users leave a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Three seconds. That's it.
Your nephew's Wix site with the giant uncompressed hero image and 47 plugins? It's loading in 8 seconds. And by second 4, your customer has already called someone else.
Google also uses page speed as a ranking factor. Slow site = lower rankings = less traffic = fewer calls.
It's a death spiral.
Metric #5: Google Search Rankings
Where does your website show up when someone searches "plumber [your city]"?
This is the big one. The holy grail of local SEO.
How to check: - Open an incognito/private browser window (so your personal search history doesn't skew results) - Search for "plumber [your city]" and "plumbing services [your city]" - See where you show up
What to look for: - Are you on page 1? (Top 10 results) - Are you in the "map pack"? (The top 3 Google Maps results) - Are you anywhere at all?
The benchmark: You want to be on page 1 for at least your primary keyword. Ideally in the top 5. The map pack is where the real money is.
Why it matters: 75% of people never scroll past page 1 of Google. If you're on page 2 or beyond, you basically don't exist. Check out our SEO basics guide for tips on climbing those rankings.
And the difference between position 1 and position 5 on Google is massive. Position 1 gets about 30% of clicks. Position 5 gets about 5%.
That's 6x more potential customers just by moving up 4 spots.
How to Actually Check These (In 10 Minutes)
Here's your monthly routine:
- Open Google Analytics (2 minutes) - Check visitors and bounce rate
- Count your leads (2 minutes) - Calls + form submissions
- Run PageSpeed Insights (1 minute) - Check your mobile score
- Do an incognito Google search (2 minutes) - Check your rankings
- Write down the numbers (1 minute) - Keep a simple spreadsheet
Do this on the 1st of every month. Set a calendar reminder. Make it a habit.
In 3 months, you'll have enough data to see trends. Traffic going up? Great, keep doing what you're doing. Bounce rate climbing? Time to update your site. Calls dropping? Something changed and you need to investigate.
What If the Numbers Are Bad?
Don't panic. Bad numbers just mean there's room to improve. And improving usually isn't as hard or expensive as you think.
Most plumbing websites we audit have simple, fixable problems. Slow hosting. Missing calls to action. No mobile optimization. Terrible SEO. Broken contact forms.
Get a free website audit from us and we'll pull all these metrics for you. We'll show you exactly what's working, what's broken, and what to fix first.
No sales pitch. No pressure. Just data and recommendations.
See what our clients say about working with us.
P.S. Here's the uncomfortable truth. If you've never looked at your website metrics, you've been flying blind. And flying blind in business is how you crash. Ten minutes a month. That's all it takes to know whether your website is an asset or a liability. Let us pull the numbers for you. It's free and it takes less time than a coffee break.