Plenty of plumbers run their whole online presence off a Facebook page. It’s free, it’s familiar, and it’s where the local community chat happens. So do you even need a website on top of it? Here’s the straight answer — and it’s not the one you’ll hear from people trying to sell you either Facebook ads or a website. The honest version is that both have a job to do, and they do it best together.
What Facebook is genuinely good at
Let’s not pretend Facebook is useless. For a local plumber, it does some things really well — better than your website does, in fact.
- Local community reach. Posts get shared in town groups, and recommendations fly around “Anyone know a good plumber?” threads. That’s real, warm word of mouth, and it’s the closest thing to a personal referral you’ll get online.
- Showing you’re active. A recent post tells people you’re working, reachable and still in business. A homeowner who finds a tradesperson who last posted three years ago will quietly move on.
- It’s free and easy. No setup cost, and you already know how to use it. You can fire off a photo from the van in thirty seconds.
- It builds familiarity. People who see your name pop up in their feed every week or two start to feel like they already know you. By the time their boiler packs in, you’re the one they think of first.
If you’re not on Facebook at all, it’s worth a page. It’s a genuine source of local leads, and ignoring it would be leaving money on the table.
Page vs groups: know the difference
There are really two parts to Facebook, and they pull in different directions.
- Your business Page is your shopfront. It’s where your number, services and reviews live, and it’s what shows up when someone searches your business name. It’s permanent, it’s yours to control, and it looks professional — but its organic reach is poor. Facebook would much rather you paid to boost posts than show them to your followers for free.
- Local community and buy-and-sell groups are where the actual leads hide. These are the “[Town Name] Community” or “[Area] Recommendations” groups where someone posts “boiler’s making a racket, who do I call?” and ten neighbours tag a plumber. You can’t usually post adverts in these — and you shouldn’t try — but being a helpful, recognisable face in them is gold.
The trick is to keep your Page tidy and up to date so that when someone gets tagged in a group and clicks through, they land on something that looks like a real business. The group brings the lead; the Page (and ideally your website) closes it.
What to actually post as a plumber
This is where most plumbers freeze up. You don’t need a content strategy or a ring light. You need to show people you do good work and you’re easy to deal with. A rough mix that works:
- Finished job photos. A neat new bathroom, a tidy boiler install, copper pipework run properly. Tradespeople undersell how impressive a clean job looks to a homeowner who’s seen a few cowboys.
- Before-and-afters. The corroded old rad next to the shiny new one. The leaking joint, then the fixed one. These get shared because they’re satisfying to look at.
- Seasonal tips. “Lag your outside pipes before the first frost.” “Here’s how to find your stopcock before you actually need it.” Useful, shareable, and it positions you as the expert.
- The occasional human bit. New van, apprentice starting, a quick thanks to a customer who left a kind review. People hire people.
- Reviews and recommendations. Screenshot a nice comment (with permission) and share it. Social proof does a lot of heavy lifting.
How often? Once or twice a week is plenty. Consistency beats volume — a steady drip keeps you in the feed without it becoming a second job. Don’t burn yourself out trying to post daily; nobody expects a plumber to be a content creator, and a quiet, reliable presence reads better than a frantic one.
Where Facebook falls short
For all that, there are real limits to building your business on Facebook alone.
- You don’t own it. The page belongs to Facebook. They change the rules, tweak the algorithm so fewer people see your posts, or suspend accounts — and you’ve no say. Build your whole presence there and you’re building on rented land. One wrong report or a forgotten password tied to an old email, and years of posts and followers can vanish overnight.
- You don’t own the audience either. Those followers aren’t a mailing list you can take with you. You can’t export them, you can’t reliably reach them, and if Facebook decides only 5% of them see a given post, that’s that. You’ve spent years building an audience that someone else controls and can switch off.
- It doesn’t really show up on Google. When someone searches “emergency plumber near me,” Facebook pages rarely come top. Websites do. (Here’s why that search matters so much.) If you want to be found by people who don’t already know your name, you need to be on Google — and that means a website and a Google Business Profile on the map.
- It looks less established. Fair or not, a business with only a Facebook page reads as smaller than one with its own site. For a £4,000 bathroom job, that perception matters.
- It’s cluttered. Your number, your services and your reviews are buried between unrelated posts and adverts. A customer in a hurry has to scroll and hunt instead of just seeing what they need.
The honest answer: do both, but lead with the website
They’re not rivals — they do different jobs. The smart setup is:
- Your website is home base. It’s the one thing you own outright, it shows up on Google, and it presents you properly: number, services, area, photos, reviews. (That’s the essentials checklist sorted, and your services page doing its job.)
- Facebook is a feeder. Post the odd job, stay visible in local groups — and link every post back to your site so the warm leads land somewhere that converts them.
Think of Facebook as a way to drive people to your site, not a replacement for it.
How the two work together
This is the bit that ties it all up, and it’s simpler than it sounds. Facebook is fantastic at getting attention; it’s poor at turning that attention into a booked job. Your website is the opposite. So you let each one do what it’s good at.
- Funnel Facebook traffic to your site. Put your website link in your Page’s About section, in your bio, and at the bottom of posts. When someone’s interested, they click through to a page built to convert — clear number, a contact form, your service area, proper photos — instead of getting lost in the feed.
- Use your website to ask for reviews. Facebook recommendations are nice, but Google reviews are what move you up the search rankings. Send happy customers from your site to your Google profile. (Here’s how to get more Google reviews.)
- Let your website carry the SEO weight. Facebook can’t rank you for “boiler repair in [your town].” A proper site and local SEO for plumbers can — and that traffic comes in every day without you posting anything.
- Reuse your content both ways. That before-and-after you posted on Facebook? It belongs in your website’s gallery too. Write it once, use it everywhere.
Run like this, the two stop competing for your time and start compounding. Facebook keeps you visible and warm; the website catches the leads and makes you findable to everyone who’s never heard of you.
If you’ve only got time for one
Pick the website. Facebook reach comes and goes with the algorithm; your site shows up on Google every day, works while you sleep, and can’t be switched off by someone else. It’s also the foundation everything else points back to — your Facebook posts, your Google profile, the card you hand out. Add the Facebook page later when you’ve got a spare half hour.
Keep them consistent
Whatever you run, make sure your name, number and service area match exactly across both — Google trusts a business it sees described the same way everywhere. The same trading name, the same phone number, the same spelling of your town. Mismatches confuse both customers and search engines, and they quietly cost you rankings. (More on that in local SEO for plumbers.)
Want home base sorted first? We build websites made just for plumbers — fast, owned by you outright, live in 48 hours, from £99 for a sharp one-page site. See the packages or get in touch and we’ll get you set up.