2024 Trade Plumbing Market Report

In our online Trade Plumbing Report, we look at brands individually as well as the industry as a whole.

In the past year, the sector has fallen by 23% YoY in terms of visibility. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t regain next year. Currently, the top 10 trade plumbing brands paving the way are:

1. screwfix.com
2. toolstation.com
3. wickes.co.uk
4. plumbworld.co.uk
5. bigbathroomshop.co.uk
6. victorianplumbing.co.uk
7. cityplumbing.co.uk
8. bestheating.com
9. radiatoroutlet.co.uk
10. stelrad.com

Within our Trade Plumbing Industry Report, we cover the brands that have gained the most visibility within the year, called our top 5 winners. These are the ones to look at and learn from their marketing campaigns. Congratulations to our winners with impressive wins!

1. bigbathroomshop.co.uk (64%)
2. stelrad.com (166%)
3. radiatoroutlet.co.uk (93%)
4. easybathrooms.com (54%)
5. bestheating.com (23%)

Where there are wins, there must also be losses. If your brand has lost visibility this year, don’t worry as you just need to level up your SEO game. The top 5 losses in the Trade Plumbing market are:

1. screwfix.com (-29%)
2. wickes.co.uk (-29%)
3. toolstation.com (-13%)
4. victorianplumbing.co.uk (-56%)
5. plumbworld.co.uk (-38%)

Wondering where your brand is on the visibility table? Download our free Trade Plumbing SEO Report to see where you stack up.

Keywords and trends can help you regain lost visibility and help you find focus for your SEO campaign. First, let’s start with keywords; those can be split into high-competition and opportunity.

High-competition keywords have a high monthly search volume, but every brand is targeting them, making it harder to rank higher in the SERPs. Some examples in our Trade Plumbing Digital Marketing Report include ‘plumbing’, which has 7,800 SV and a competitiveness rating of 77, followed by ‘plumbing supplies near me’ and ‘radiators online’.

Opportunity keywords are those that are also high in monthly search volume but low in competitiveness, making them easier to rank high for. These tend to be more specific keywords. A few specific to the trade plumbing industry are: ‘vertical radiators’ with 1,500 SV and 8 competitiveness, followed by ‘electric towel rail’ and ‘bathroom radiators’.

Trends are split into emerging and receding brands and products. For now, we will just cover a snippet of emerging products, a few of those are: ‘heater oil filled radiator, ‘radiator valve’, and ‘plumbing parts store’.

We can see a common theme of specific types of radiators or parts, as well as a focus on local SEO with ‘near me’ and ‘store’ keywords. If you have a physical trade plumbing shop, it’s worth optimising your local SEO to get these customers.

For more details on ways to get your SEO working up to trading standards, download our free Trade Plumbing Market Report today.

Two important factors in SEO are how well your brand is built on social media and how this can have a direct effect on your brand reach, traffic, and potential customers. It plays a vital role in making sure your name is in front of the user's mind when it comes time for them to convert.

In our Trade Plumbing Report, we look at who’s doing the best in the social world using an owned social scoring system. The brand to watch is none other than Screw Fix, with over 438,000 followers on several platforms and an owned social score of 783. This, in turn, lands them top in our brand reach with 5,000,000 brand searches a month!

Utilising both image and video content of their products in the real world gives users trust in the brand. They also showcase helpful renovating and DIY posts, highlight trade apprentices and top tradespeople across the country, and use Instagram shopping features which link directly to their site. It’s no wonder they do a great job at selling and turning their social media game into traffic, they connect with their audience.

Interested to see where your brand lands in social data or brand reach? Download our free report today.

Buying anything online takes trust, and EEAT is important for users and a ranking factor for Google. In our Trade Plumbing Report, we cover the number of reviews and review scores of all the brands in the industry.

The top 10 most trustworthy sites are:

1. toolstation.com
2. victorianplumbing.co.uk
3. showerspares.com
4. plumbworld.co.uk
5. bestheating.com
6. bathroommountain.co.uk
7. bigbathroomshop.co.uk
8. jtatkinson.co.uk
9. tradingdepot.co.uk
10. heatandplumb.com

Page speed is an important factor in SEO. Users want a fast site and a fast experience. If your site is too slow, you’ll lose traffic and conversions. It’s vital to make sure your site is fast and optimised for both desktop and mobile, as both are key in the browsing and purchasing journeys.

The 10 sites with the fastest page speed in our Trade Plumbing Market Report are:

1. heatershop.co.uk
2. qssupplies.co.uk
3. tdlonline.co.uk
4. tradeplumbing.co.uk
5. heatandplumb.com
6. jtatkinson.co.uk
7. tradesparky.com
8. plumbinbits.co.uk
9. radiatorcabinetsuk.co.uk
10. haldane-fisher.com

Interested to know where your brand stacks up against your competitors in various ranking factors? Or want to learn more about this year's keywords and trends to focus your campaign?
You can have all this information straight in your inbox; just download our online Trade Plumbing Market Report for free today!

If you don’t see your brand, don’t worry! Our data includes all the brands in the sector, but we’d be here all day if we included them all in our report. Just get in touch for a personalised report.

If you want to chat SEO, want a free strategy audit, or just have any questions, get in touch today, we’d love to hear from you!