Local Business Success Story: The Hot Tub Engineer in Maidstone and Kent
Building a thriving small business in a niche field is no easy feat. The Hot Tub Engineer – a one-man hot tub and swimming pool maintenance service based in Maidstone, Kent – learned this first-hand.
After over a decade of honing his craft and earning a stellar reputation locally, he still faced a major hurdle: how to get noticed by new customers online.
This is the success story of how one local hot tub repair specialist improved the online visibility of their business, thanks to a strategic partnership with Noticed UK. It’s a journey of challenges met, solutions found, and the surge in growth that followed, offering inspiration for any small business looking to boost its visibility.
Background: From Humble Beginnings to Award-Winning Service
The Hot Tub Engineer began as a passion project over 10 years ago, when Tom, the founder and sole technician, saw a gap in the market for dedicated hot tub and pool maintenance in his community.
With a background in engineering, Tom built his business from the ground up by offering reliable, expert service. Over the years, he “helped numerous clients with their hot tub and swimming pool needs” and expanded his service area well beyond Maidstone.
In fact, he now serves customers throughout the South East, reaching into Bromley, St Albans, Tunbridge Wells, Billericay, Chelmsford, Reigate, and all surrounding areas.
His commitment to quality earned him industry acclaim – The Hot Tub Engineer became a two-time winner of the “Hot Tub Engineer of the Year” award, a testament to his expertise and professionalism.
Tom also built trust the old-fashioned way: through happy customers. He garnered dozens of glowing reviews, with an average near-perfect 4.8-star rating from over 25 clients.
Clients frequently praise his knowledge and responsiveness – as one reviewer noted, “Tom really knows his stuff and can sort problems out. He responds quickly and gets to us as soon as he can. He is also generally cheaper than the larger companies.”
This combination of excellent service and fair pricing helped The Hot Tub Engineer develop a loyal local following. By late 2022, Tom’s schedule was as bubbly as a hot tub in peak season, filled with repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals.
However, despite this solid foundation, Tom knew that to truly grow his small business, he needed to reach new customers beyond the word-of-mouth network. Most of his clients found him either via personal recommendations or by stumbling across his social media page.
His website and generic directory listings weren’t generating many new leads, and competing with larger spa companies in Google search results was an uphill battle.
As an independent tradesman wearing all the hats (from technician to marketer to accountant), Tom simply didn’t have the time or expertise to run sophisticated SEO campaigns. He needed a way to boost his online presence without losing focus on doing the job he loved – fixing hot tubs.
The Challenge: A Great Local Business Hidden Online
Like many skilled local professionals, Tom faced a classic challenge: how to get noticed by potential customers who don’t already know about him. In an era where homeowners often “Google” for services, not appearing on the first page of search results was costing him opportunities.
Tom recalls checking search terms like “hot tub repair Maidstone” or “swimming pool service Kent” and rarely seeing his own business in the results – instead, the results were dominated by big nationwide companies or ad-heavy directory sites.
It was frustrating; here was an award-winning, highly rated specialist ready to help, yet people who needed his services weren’t finding him online.
He had tried the usual avenues: a Facebook business page, a basic website, and a free listing on a popular directory. While these brought an occasional inquiry, the volume was low.
He considered paid Google Ads, but the keywords in his industry were expensive and outside his modest marketing budget. “I rely on quality service to generate word-of-mouth,” Tom says, “but I knew there were dozens of hot tub owners out there who weren’t hearing about me.
I needed to be visible where they were looking.” The challenge was clear – without better online visibility, The Hot Tub Engineer would remain a well-kept secret to too many potential clients.
The Solution: Joining Noticed UK for a Visibility Boost
In early 2023, Tom found the solution to his problem when he discovered Noticed UK, a local business directory focused on helping SMEs like his.
The premise was appealing: by creating a profile on Noticed, Tom could increase his exposure on search engines and connect with customers specifically looking for his services.
Noticed UK promised to “strategically position [his] company within relevant categories and areas” and ensure that he would “gain visibility and establish a strong presence” online . In short, it offered to handle the SEO legwork that Tom didn’t have time for.
Noticed UK set up his premium business listing which made the process quick and straightforward.
Tom provided the essential details – a description of his services, his service areas, contact info, and operating hours.
They crafted a compelling listing that highlighted his 10+ years of experience and the full range of services he offers, from routine maintenance to repairs and cleaning.
The profile also proudly mentioned his award-winning credentials and the wide geographic area he serves, which helped catch the eye of customers searching from various towns in the region.
By becoming a Premium Provider on Noticed, The Hot Tub Engineer’s listing was featured prominently in multiple local categories (for example, appearing as a top result in “Hot Tub and Spa Services – Best of Maidstone” and similarly for Chelmsford, Bromley, and other areas).
This effectively gave Tom free advertising coverage well beyond his home base.
Most importantly, Noticed UK’s behind-the-scenes optimization meant Tom’s business was now far more searchable on Google. Within weeks, his Noticed profile started appearing on the first page of search results for keywords like “hot tub engineer in Kent” and “hot tub servicing Chelmsford”.
In fact, Noticed’s team had “optimised his online exposure through their directory, enabling his business to attain the highest visibility on search engines.”
Suddenly, when someone in the South East searched for hot tub or pool services, The Hot Tub Engineer was much more likely to show up – something Tom could never have achieved alone without investing heavily in SEO.
Crucially, the Noticed platform also made it easy for prospective customers to reach out. With a clear “Call Us” button on his profile and contact details readily displayed, inquiries could come directly to Tom’s phone.
The directory listing lent his business additional credibility too. The “Premium Provider” badge on Noticed reassured clients that The Hot Tub Engineer was a vetted, trusted professional, and the polished profile (with service descriptions and areas covered) gave a great first impression.
Tom jokes that the Noticed listing became like a second homepage for him – one that he didn’t have to constantly update or optimize, since the Noticed team handled those technical details. For a busy entrepreneur, this was a huge benefit: “Noticed UK let me focus on fixing hot tubs, while they focused on making sure people could find me. It was exactly what I needed,” he says.
Results: From a Trickle of Leads to Overflowing Work
The impact of joining Noticed UK was immediate and remarkable. Tom saw a surge in new inquiries within the first month of his listing going live. “I remember one week getting calls from three different towns that I’d rarely serviced before,” he recalls.
Prospects from Chelmsford and Reigate – places nearly an hour from his base – were ringing up, saying they found The Hot Tub Engineer online and asking how soon he could come .
In the past, Tom would maybe get one or two new customer calls a week during peak season; after Noticed, he was getting that many in a single day.
Over a three-month period, his volume of inquiries effectively doubled, and a significant number of these leads were directly traceable to his Noticed UK presence (customers would often mention “I saw your profile on noticed.uk”).
His business, once dependent on seasonal word-of-mouth referrals, was now busy year-round with a steady stream of new clients discovering him via web searches.
One of the most telling outcomes was that Tom’s challenge shifted from finding work to managing an abundance of it. “Noticed gave me so much business that I actually couldn’t handle it all myself,” Tom laughs. “It’s a good problem to have! I went from worrying about a slow week to being booked solid for months.”
At one point, the inquiries were coming in so fast that he had to start passing some jobs on to fellow professionals in his network – sharing the wealth when his own schedule was full.
For example, if a hot tub repair request came from a town outside his usual route or on a date he was already fully booked, he would refer the customer to a trusted colleague in that area. “I hate turning people away, so if I can’t take a job, I’ll find them someone who can.
Thanks to Noticed, I’ve been doing that a lot more often,” he says. This collaborative approach not only helped the customers get service, but also earned Tom goodwill among his peers. It’s the kind of overflow of work he never imagined having a year prior.
Beyond the numbers, being on Noticed UK has had other positive effects on The Hot Tub Engineer’s business.
Tom notes that many new clients already felt confident in his services before the first call, simply from reading his online profile and seeing his credentials.
The trust factor boosted his conversion rate – turning inquiries into confirmed appointments – because clients felt “if Noticed is featuring him as a top provider, he must be good.” Additionally, the broader regional exposure has opened doors to projects he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
For instance, a luxury holiday park outside of Kent found him via Noticed and hired him for a contract to service dozens of hot tub lodges on their property – one of his biggest jobs to date, originating from a single online listing.
Opportunities like this have helped Tom grow his revenue and even consider expanding his operation (he’s thinking about training an assistant technician to handle the extra workload).
In Tom’s own words, “Noticed UK has been the catalyst for my business growth. It amplified my reach far beyond what I could do alone. I went from maybe 60% capacity to over 100% – I’m actually expanding because of the demand.”
The Hot Tub Engineer’s journey illustrates how the right platform can transform a local business. A combination of top-quality service and smart online visibility turned his company into a regional success story.
Conclusion: Inspiring the Next Success Story
Tom’s experience with The Hot Tub Engineer showcases that even a small, specialized business can achieve big results with the help of a platform like Noticed UK.
His journey – from struggling to be found online to becoming so busy he’s referring excess work to others – serves as inspiration for other small business owners out there.
The key takeaways are clear: investing in your online presence and partnering with a service that understands local SEO can pay off tremendously. By getting “noticed,” Tom unlocked growth that would have otherwise been out of reach.
Want to be our next success story? If you’re a local business looking to boost your visibility like The Hot Tub Engineer did, it might be time to create your own Noticed UK business profile and start your journey.
The process is simple, and the rewards could be game-changing. Already a member of Noticed UK? We’d love to hear from you – reach out to us and your business could be featured in our next success story showcase.
Get started today, and let Noticed UK help your business get the attention it deserves!