How should you use this scorecard?
Open your website on your phone, not your laptop. That is how many of your customers will see it.
Give yourself one point for each item you pass. At the end:
16 to 18
Your site is doing its job. Focus on reviews and content.
11 to 15
Solid base, with gaps that are costing you enquiries.
6 to 10
Your site is working against you in places.
0 to 5
Time for a rebuild.
Section A: Can customers contact you in seconds?
1. Is there a tap-to-call number on every screen?
The best plumbing sites keep the phone number in a fixed header or bottom bar on mobile.
How to check: open any page on your phone and scroll. Is the number always visible? Tap it. Does it start a call?
2. Is the main call to action above the fold?
Within the first screen on a phone, a visitor should see what you do, where, and how to get you.
How to check: load your homepage on your phone. Without scrolling, can you see the service, the area and a call or quote button?
3. Is the enquiry form short?
Name, phone, postcode, what's wrong. Anything more can wait for the call back.
How to check: count the required fields. Every extra field is one more reason to give up and ring someone else.
4. Do you say when you'll respond?
"We reply to quote requests the same working day" sets expectations, if it is true. So do clear opening hours and whether you do emergency call-outs.
How to check: look near your form and in your footer. Is there a promise about response time, and do you actually keep it?
Section B: Do you look qualified and trustworthy?
5. Is your Gas Safe registration number shown as text?
If you do gas work, show the official logo from the Gas Safe toolkit and your registration number as typed text. HSE tells customers they can check a business by texting "Gas" and the registration number to 85080 (HSE, as of October 2026).
How to check: can you select and copy your registration number on the page? If it is only inside an image, it fails. Our guide to the Gas Safe logo on your website covers the rules.
6. Are you only showing logos you are entitled to?
Trading Standards guidance says the DMCC Act 2024 bans displaying a trust mark or quality mark without authorisation, and that you must remove logos promptly when membership lapses (Business Companion, as of October 2026).
How to check: list every logo on your site: Gas Safe, WaterSafe, APHC, CIPHE, MCS, OFTEC, manufacturer badges. Is each membership current?
7. Are your reviews real and recent?
The best sites show genuine reviews and link to where they live, usually Google. The DMCC Act 2024 bans fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews (CMS).
How to check: when was your newest review shown on the site? Can a visitor click through to see it on Google?
8. Do you show real photos?
Your van, your team, your finished work. Stock photos of smiling models holding spanners convince nobody.
How to check: count the photos on your homepage. How many are genuinely yours?
9. Is there a proper about page?
Who you are, how long you've been doing it, what you specialise in, and your company details. If you trade as a limited company, your registered name and number should be easy to find.
How to check: could a customer work out who they are letting into their home from your about page alone?
Section C: Does every service have its own page?
10. Does each main service have a dedicated page?
Boiler installation, boiler servicing, landlord gas safety records, leak detection, bathroom fitting, unvented cylinders, heat pumps. One page each, written for that job.
How to check: search Google for "[your service] [your town]". Which page of yours, if any, comes up? If it is your homepage for everything, you fail this one.
11. Do service pages answer real questions?
What's included, roughly what it costs or how you price it, how long it takes, what the customer needs to do. The questions you get asked on the phone every week belong on the page.
How to check: pick your top service page. Does it answer at least three questions customers actually ask you?
12. Do you have pages for the areas you cover?
One page per main town or area, each with genuinely different content about that place, not the same text with the town name swapped.
How to check: open two of your area pages side by side. If the paragraphs are the same apart from the town name, it fails.
13. Is your Google Business Profile linked and consistent?
Google says local ranking depends on relevance, distance and prominence, including links and reviews (Google, as of October 2026). Your website and your profile should back each other up.
How to check: is your business name, service area and contact detail identical on your website and your Google profile? Does the profile link to your site?
Section D: Is it fast and technically sound?
14. Does it pass Core Web Vitals?
Google's Core Web Vitals guidance sets these "good" targets: Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less (as of October 2026).
How to check: run your homepage and one service page through Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool. Look at the mobile result.
15. Is it easy to use on a phone?
Text readable without zooming, buttons big enough for a thumb, no pop-ups covering the call button.
How to check: hand your phone to someone else and ask them to find your boiler service price and request a quote. Watch where they get stuck.
16. Is it secure and up to date?
A padlock in the browser, a current copyright year, and no broken pages or old offers.
How to check: click every link in your main menu and footer. Any errors, or anything out of date?
17. Can search engines and AI tools read it?
Google says pages must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear in its AI features (Google, as of October 2026). OpenAI says sites that block its OAI-SearchBot won't appear in ChatGPT search answers (OpenAI, as of October 2026).
How to check: search Google for "site:yourdomain.co.uk". Are all your important pages listed? Ask whoever manages your site whether robots.txt or a firewall blocks search bots.
18. Do you know what it brings in?
The best plumbing sites track calls and form submissions, so the owner knows which pages and which months produce work.
How to check: can you say how many enquiries your website produced last month? If not, it fails.
Are plumber website templates any good?
Honestly, they can be. A decent template on a reputable builder, filled in properly, beats an old site that nobody updates.
Where templates work:
- you are new and need something live this week
- you offer a few services in one area
- you are happy to write the text yourself
Where templates struggle:
Uniqueness.
Lots of plumbers use the same few themes. Your site can end up looking like your rival's.
Area pages.
Templates rarely help you write different, useful content for each town.
Speed.
Some themes load heavy sliders and effects that slow phones down. Test with PageSpeed Insights before committing.
Placeholders.
Check for leftover sample text, stock photos or demo reviews. Remove every one; demo reviews in particular can mislead customers.
Whatever you use, the scorecard above is what matters. A template that passes all 18 is a good website.
What should you fix first?
If you failed several, fix them in this order:
- Tap-to-call on every screen (item 1)
- Gas Safe number as text and only genuine logos (items 5 and 6)
- A page for each main service (item 10)
- Speed on mobile (item 14)
- Tracking (item 18)
That order fixes lost calls first, trust second, and visibility third.
Want us to score your site for you?
We build and rebuild websites only for plumbers and heating engineers. If your score was low, see plumber website redesign. If you are starting from scratch, see plumbing website design, and if most of your work is urgent call-outs, see emergency plumber website design. We can't guarantee rankings, but every quote is fixed and in writing.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important feature on a plumber website?
A phone number that can be tapped to call, visible on every page without scrolling. Someone with water coming through the ceiling wants to talk to a person, not fill in a form.
Is a plumber website template good enough?
It can be for a new or small business, as long as you replace every placeholder with your own services, areas, photos and credentials. Templates fall short when you need many unique service and area pages.
How fast should a plumber website load?
Google's guidance on Core Web Vitals says the main content should load within 2.5 seconds, interactions should respond within 200 milliseconds, and layout shift should stay at 0.1 or less.
Should I show prices on my plumbing website?
Fixed prices for common jobs, such as a boiler service, help filter enquiries. For bigger jobs, guide prices or a clear explanation of how you quote work well. Only publish prices you will honour.
How many pages should a plumber website have?
Enough for one page per main service and one per main area you cover, plus home, about, reviews and contact. For a sole trader that might be ten pages; a multi-van firm may need many more.