As any homeowner will tell you, if something major is going to break, it will happen on the weekend. That's so you can spend hours trying to find a tradesman to fix your problem and then spend double-time paying for the repairs.
By joining Facebook and LinkedIn groups that are interesting and relevant to your business, you can keep tabs on what people in your field are talking about. Twitter is also a very useful tool. You can subscribe to an RSS feed in the "trending topics" section. You can also follow the hash tag that is associated with Trustworthy plumber the subject.
When you contact the actual plumbers that you have on your listing of emergency numbers (which might very well be the first page of Google) be sure to learn how quickly they will be able to get to you. The sooner the better is always the general rule to go by. You don't want to sit with the issue for the next few days, even a few hours might be too much to ask in some situations. The best plumbers will be the ones that can get to you the quickest.
It is never fun when you have to suddenly stop what you are doing, just to figure out how to unclog your tub. What if you were trying to get ready for work and needed to take a shower, but now you cant. What are you going to do? You don't have enough time to stand around and wait for the water to go down on its own. The best you can do is find an alternative place to get cleaned up and hope for the best when you get back from work.
Frozen Pipes: When water in pipes freeze they expand and may even burst the pipe. Close the reliable main shutoff valve. If the pipe has not split yet, thaw it with hot water bottles from the end of the pipe nearest to the tap. Thawing must be gentle, never with a naked flame, to avoid thermal water expansion that too can split the pipe. As a preventive maintenance make sure your pipes are appropriately insulated against the cold months.
If you have to call your Local plumber to do work such as renovating your kitchen or bathroom, purchase the parts yourself directly from your plumbing merchant. You can often save considerable money by buying this way, and most plumbers are happy to supply you with the information to enable to buy the correct fixtures for your job.
A word of caution: If you have natural gas or propane and you smell gas in the house, shut off the main valve (where the gas comes into the house) and call for service immediately!
So is local maps SEO worth the effort? Despite all this, there might be one or two people who still feel that other avenues might be more appropriate for their business. If so, good luck to them. The rest of us will be busy connecting with local customers and getting the attention our businesses need to survive.