---
title: Plumber playbook
description: What a plumber's customers look for before they ring, which pages carry
  it, and the worked site to start from; read `building` first.
sidebar:
  order: 6
---

What a plumber's customers look for before they ring, which pages carry it,
and the worked site to start from; read `building` first.

Most of it holds for electricians, heating engineers and other one-person
trades that come to the customer's home.

## What their customers are deciding

A plumber's customer is in one of two moods, and the site has to serve both
from the first screen:

- **Something is leaking now.** They want a phone number, whether anybody
  answers tonight, and whether the plumber covers their street. Nothing else
  on the page matters to them.
- **A job that can wait**: a new tap, a boiler service, a bathroom. They
  compare two or three plumbers on price, trust and whether they will make a
  mess.

Trust decides the second one: a real name and face, the registration a
customer in the owner's country checks (Gas Safe in the UK, for example),
insurance, a guarantee, and photographs of real jobs. Reviews count too, but
only real ones the owner can point at; never write any.

## Pages

- **Home.** The first screen says the trade and the area, shows the phone
  number as a button and as text, and gives the hours, emergency hours
  included. Then what they fix, each with a "from" price; how a job goes
  (call, fixed price, pay when it works); the areas served as a list of
  place names; recent jobs as pictures with a line each; who they are, with
  their credentials; and a call-back form. On a phone, a call bar stays at
  the bottom.
- **Prices.** Call-out fee, hourly rate, the common jobs with prices, what
  needs a visit before it can be priced, and the terms: VAT, parts, payment
  methods, guarantee. Most trade sites leave prices out, which is exactly why
  this page wins jobs.

A plumber rarely needs a blog, a team page or an "our values" page. One page
per big service (boilers, bathrooms) is worth adding later, only when the
owner has something specific to say about it.

The call to action is the phone number, as a `tel:` link in international
format (`tel:+441614960732`). The call-back form is the quieter half of the
same action, for somebody who can't talk right now. It writes to a public
`enquiries` table where the phone number is required and email is optional
(`vzk/tables`).

## The worked site

The `sites` topic carries one: `plumber/index` and `plumber/prices`, in the
`cobalt` look, English only, with an `enquiries` table for call-backs. Its
phone number is from a range kept for drama, and its prices are the example
owner's. Replace both with the real owner's, never with a guess. The same goes for
every sentence on it: "a fixed price before I start" and "I call back within
the hour" are Dan's promises, and they go on another site only if that owner
makes them.

Its picture slots name an asset key in a field and show a labelled empty
frame while the field is blank. Put the key from `list_files` in the field
once the owner has uploaded the picture.

## Ask the owner

On top of the brief in `building`:

- The phone number customers should ring, and who answers it.
- Working hours, emergency hours, and what an emergency call-out costs.
- The call-out fee, the hourly rate, and the prices of the jobs they do most.
- The places they cover, the way their customers name them, and how far out
  they will go.
- Registrations and insurance they hold, and the guarantee they give.
- Whether they do gas work, and anything they don't do.
- VAT status, and how customers pay.
- Photographs of real jobs, of themselves, and of the van if it carries the
  name.

## Copy

Write in the customer's words, not the trade's: "leak", "no hot water",
"blocked toilet", not "remedial works" or "sanitary installations". First
person for a sole trader. Every promise needs its number: "I call back within
the hour", not "fast response". The meta description carries the trade, the
area and the phone number, because that is what a search result shows.

## Pictures and look

- The hero is the owner at work, or a finished job they are proud of. Never
  a stock plumber.
- A job picture shows the work, not the customer: no faces, house numbers or
  paperwork in frame.
- Before and after pairs work well, taken from the same spot.
- `cobalt` is the default: plain, bright, and it keeps the phone number the
  loudest thing on the page. A trade with a brand on the van re-skins it with
  that colour.