HVAC and Plumbing Website Must-Haves

An HVAC or plumbing website has to serve two callers at once: the person with no heat or water on the floor who needs someone today, and the person planning a replacement who wants to book a visit. That means a phone number you can tap from the top of every page, a service area people can check by ZIP code, separate paths for emergency and scheduled work, and honest information about what happens after hours.

Everything else on the site comes after those four.

Tap-to-call on every page

The person with a burst pipe isn't going to read your About page. They want to call.

Put the number in the header of every page as a tap-to-call link. A number inside an image or a logo can't be tapped.
Add a call button that stays on screen on phones while people scroll.
Use the same number as your Google profile. Google's guidelines for representing your business ask for a phone number that connects to your business, and a local number instead of a call center helpline whenever possible.
Say who answers after hours. A caller who expects a plumber and hears an answering service may hang up. One line under the number, like "Nights and weekends: our answering service takes the call and pages the tech on duty", prevents that.

Don't let a chat bubble or a popup sit on top of the call button. On a phone screen they compete for the same corner, and the call button should win.

Service area by ZIP code

People know their ZIP code. They don't know where your service map ends.

A ZIP code check near the top of the page: type five digits, see "Yes, we come to you" or "That's outside our area." It answers the first question without a phone call.
The towns written out as text further down, so both people and search engines can read them.
Trip charges or limits, if you have them, written plainly before someone calls.

Match this to your Google Business Profile. Google lets service-area businesses list their area by city or ZIP code, up to 20 areas, and advises keeping the whole area within about two hours of driving time from your business, according to its help page on service areas. Google's guidelines also say a service-area business should hide its address from customers. If you run the business from home and customers never come to you, the website can follow the same rule: towns and a phone number, no home address.

Two doors: emergency and scheduled

An emergency call and a tune-up are different jobs with different customers. Don't send both through the same form.

The emergency door

Clear buttons near the top: "No heat", "No AC", "Leak or burst pipe", "No hot water". Each one leads to a call, not a form. Someone in a hurry shouldn't be typing.
Say what you treat as an emergency, and whether you take those calls at night and on weekends.
A few lines on what to do while they wait. Where the main water shutoff usually is, how to turn off the water to a leaking water heater, and for any gas smell, a note pointing them to their gas utility's emergency number and instructions rather than to you.

The scheduled door

This one is for maintenance, replacement quotes, water heater swaps, remodel plumbing and new construction. These customers have time, so give them a form that collects what you need before the visit:

Name, phone, and address or ZIP code
What they need, picked from a short list
Preferred days and time windows
A photo of the equipment label. The data plate on a furnace, an AC condenser or a water heater shows the model and serial number. With that photo you know what unit you're walking up to, and often its age, before you arrive.
Photos of the problem: the leak, the old unit, the space where the new one would go

If you sell maintenance plans, give them their own section: what a visit includes, how often it happens, and how to sign up.

After-hours, stated honestly

Be exact about nights and weekends. A vague promise here turns into an angry review.

Write your regular hours, and what's different at night, on weekends and on holidays.
Say "24/7" only if a person really answers 24/7. If nights go to voicemail and you call back at 7 a.m., say exactly that. The customer who reads "24/7" at 2 a.m. and reaches voicemail is the one who writes about it.
Mention after-hours pricing if it's different. You don't have to publish the number. Just say that night and weekend calls cost more, so it isn't a surprise on the invoice.
Answer forms sent at night. An automatic text or email saying when you will call back makes it less likely that the person moves on to the next company on the list.
Keep Google in sync. List your regular customer-facing hours on your Business Profile, and set holiday hours with Google's special hours setting so Maps and your website say the same thing.

What helps close the call

Once someone is on the page, these details decide whether they call you or the next listing:

Your license numbers, as your state or city issues them.
The brands you install and service, only the ones you really work on, and any manufacturer certifications you actually hold.
How your pricing works: flat rate by job, a service call fee, free replacement estimates. Whatever is true for you, write it down.
Financing, only if you offer it, and through whom.
Real photos of your trucks and your techs, with first names. People like to know who is coming to their house.
Recent reviews, linked to your Google profile.

Make it fast on a phone

Someone standing in an inch of water, on mobile data, won't wait for a slow page. Keep photos sized for the web, skip autoplay video, and skip sliders that load five big images before the phone number shows. Our guide on how fast your website should load on a phone covers how to measure it.

What to leave off

Popups asking for an email address before anything else
A home page video that plays before the phone number appears
A long company history at the top of the page
Stock photos of a smiling technician who doesn't work for you

For what we build for each trade, see our pages on websites for HVAC companies and websites for plumbers.

Check your own site first

Our free website checker runs Google's own mobile speed test on your site, plus checks for getting calls, phone fit and Google search. Run it before you change anything, so you know where to start.