HVAC SEO services are the best marketing investment you’ll ever make. Increasing your online visibility in Google and other search engines can boost the number of qualified leads you gain each month while also increasing the brand’s long-term sustainability.
In this article, we’ll talk about the best optimization practices, some of which you can implement yourself. After that, we’ll share a few tricks that would help you find the right marketing agency for your HVAC business.
10 Best HVAC SEO practices
Search engine optimization is a highly fragmented process that includes numerous activities. To implement an efficient HVAC SEO strategy, you’ll need to have a mix of technical knowledge, writing skills,and to know how to communicate with people. That being said, these are the best marketing practices for HVAC companies:
1. Improve website design
Website design has always been crucial for Internet marketing. In the end, no one wants to buy from a company that has wonky pics, incoherent landing page text, and hard-to-use website elements.
However, there’s much more to design than simple esthetics. Google and other search engines have ways of assessing your website’s layout even though they don’t have human reasoning skills.
Basically, search engines analyze your design based on responsiveness and how people behave when they land on your pages. If users leave your platform too early, this is a clear indication there’s something terribly wrong with the design to the point where they don’t even want to give you a chance.
Search engines utilize various metrics to assess sites’ usefulness and responsiveness. Nevertheless, they mainly utilize page speed, mobile optimization, and user feedback.
Page speed
Page loading speed shows how much time it takes for a page to fully render. The general rule is that users shouldn’t have to wait for more than three seconds to access any content on a site. According to overwhelming data, after these three seconds, visitors will start closing the page, sending a strong negative signal to Google.
The best way to improve page speed is by reducing the images’ size. However, you might also implement content delivery networks and caching to speed up the loading speed. You should also find a better provider or improve your hosting plan.
Mobile optimization
When looking for HVAC contractors, most people do so via their phones. In the last few years, the use of mobile devices has eclipsed desktop computers. So, when someone lands on your pages, they’re probably doing so via their phones.
When optimizing HVAC websites, users need to optimize images, find responsive design, use a mobile-first approach, and introduce a few other best practices. While Google can’t determine whether you’re using these practices, it does assess how visitors react to your pages.
User experience
Truth be told, there are numerous things that people might dislike when they land on your pages. As there are simply too many things to take into consideration, Google’s algorithms probably rely on user engagement as the best measurement of quality website design.
The search engine nowadays analyzes various metrics like time spent on a page, bounce rate, click-through rate, and so on. In this particular case, we presume they focus on high bounce rates as an indication that a page wasn’t responsive. You can track most of this data within Google Analytics to better understand how your HVAC website is performing.
2. Ensure proper indexing
Before search engines can showcase your pages within their respective search engines, they previously need to crawl them. They use so-called crawlers or robots that browse websites looking for each individual page. After going through pages, they can determine their relevancy and add them to search engine results pages for specific queries.
Unfortunately, search engine crawlers might encounter numerous obstacles along the way that would prevent them from doing their jobs. In some cases, they might even add to the list content that you don’t want search engines to see. Whatever the case, you need to ensure proper indexing by implementing these tricks:
- The first thing you should do is submit your XML sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console
- Create a simple website architecture and properly categorize different pages
- Introduce internal links that would properly connect different pieces and give robots another way of finding content
- Eliminate various errors, including 404s, robots.txt issues, server, and DNS errors
- Eliminate duplicate content and use no-follow reels for pages that you don’t want to be indexed
Indexing is the basis of your HVAC SEO strategy. In the end, if your pages can’t be found within the search engines, there’s no point in talking about optimization.
3. Learn more about users
HVAC services are something that anyone can benefit from. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t research your target market and find ways to improve your messaging. Audience targeting is a vital part of the process and is especially important when you start creating content.
Unfortunately, the best way to analyze your audience is by using data from Google Analytics. Alas, if you’re a new site, you’ll have little website traffic and, thus, little data to start from.
So, many people perform extensive surveys and market research before investing in digital marketing and HVAC SEO services. Companies might also use data from other sources. For example, they can assess their digital audience based on their real-world clients. Alternatively, if an HVAC company has a good social media presence, it can utilize this audience as a bulletpring for its SEO target audience.
Main metrics to focus on
Regardless of your HVAC SEO marketing strategy, you’ll need to focus on the following parameters:
- Number of people in a household
- Size of the house/apartment
- Family’s income
- Location
- Other demographic data
Your ideal clients are larger families that live in enormous homes. Their need for HVAC services is much bigger than those for individuals living in smaller apartments. In other words, they require continuous repairs and invest more money into these systems.
As for location and other demographic data, these are especially critical for your local SEO and paid advertising. If the majority of your clients stem from a specific part of the city, you should create content optimized for these suburbs. Although not related to SEO strategies, this data can also be used for PPC.
4. Implement the right keywords
During keyword research, companies are looking for optimal phrases to build content around. Not only should these keywords be somewhat connected to the HVAC company’s main activity, but they should also boost overall conversions. During keyword research, an internet marketing company is focusing on the following:
- Keywords that have high organic traffic potential and low difficulty
- Non-branded keywords (phrases that aren’t directly related to competitors’ brand names and services)
- Keywords that can maximize sales and are related to the HVAC industry
Many people think any keyword can do the trick as long as it can drive traffic to your website. In theory, the more exposure you get, the better, right? Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple in practice.
When doing HVAC search engine optimization, you need to focus on topics that are related to your services. Your main goal is to create as much quality content on this subject as possible, as this will affect your topical relevancy. In turn, boosting your relevancy will help all your future HVAC SEO efforts.
For example, you can bring a lot of people to your site by creating content around interior design or general home maintenance. Unfortunately, not only will these people never become customers, but they also might have a negative impact on user engagement metrics.
Even if they like the initial page (regardless of the topic), they might not like other pages as they start browsing the site. This will effectively reduce the average time spent on a page, and the number of pages browsed during a visit. All of this will send a major negative signal to Google.
Low-hanging fruits
Low-hanging fruit is a term that refers to keywords that can bring easy wins to your HVAC company. These are phrases that yield high potential traffic with low difficulty and aren’t exploited enough by your competitors. When creating an HVAC SEO strategy, these phrases should be the focal point of your keyword research.
But be warned! Low-hanging fruits need to be thoroughly researched before you start creating content. Most notably, you need to focus on their user intent. Many times, there’s a good reason why other marketing agencies don’t use these phrases, a reason that might not be obvious at first glance.
Local keywords
Companies that are heavily reliant on local traffic need to pay special attention to local SEO. By creating content optimized around local keywords, you can drive highly relevant leads to your site. Given that these people are likely from the same city as you, most of them can be considered the target audience.
In many ways, local keywords are similar to general phrases. The only difference is that they add the name of a particular suburb within your city or the city itself. For example, if you’re offering HVAC services in New York, you can create posts revolving around the Bronx or Manhattan.
5. Create engaging content
Content marketing is at the front and center of every HVAC SEO strategy. When people are browsing search results, they’re usually looking for answers to their questions. So, if they’re unacquainted with your brand, there’s a good chance that the first contact will be made via high-quality blog posts.
However, there’s much more to content than simply driving leads:
- Quality posts can show your expertise
- Good content allows you to build a reputation
- Content marketing opens partnership opportunities
The best thing about content is that besides traditional SEO services, it can also benefit other channels and marketing strategies. For example, you can share these posts on social media and on large USG platforms. They can also serve as the landing pages for your paid advertising.
Here are a few tricks that will help your content reach the top of search rankings:
- When creating new posts, always check what other HVAC companies are doing. You don’t necessarily have to copy their approach, but it isn’t bad to implement some of their strategies
- Consider how people would react to a specific article. Most importantly, assess whether it would stimulate them to browse the website further
- Make it easier for visitors to skim through content. Provide links on the top and split text into smaller sections
- Adding How To videos on top of the page can improve overall engagement metrics and perception of your HVAC business. Ideally, you should only share your own videos to avoid potential content claims
- Use simple language and try to be descriptive. When it comes to HVAC, anyone can be a potential customer, so you should try to reach as many people as possible
- Link baiting is a common SEO strategy you might wish to implement. It is a process where you create articles that stir controversy, share unique knowledge, or, in some other way, promote other bloggers by linking to it
As a focal point of HVAC SEO, you shouldn’t save money when creating articles. Even if it takes a bit more time to produce quality pieces, keep in mind that a viral article can leave a massive impact on the industry for years to come.
6. Promote your content
Websites all over the world produce so many articles each and every day, so it’s really easy for quality blog posts to slip through the cracks. If you wish to maximize the potential of your pieces, you’ll need to share them with a wider audience.
So, does this strategy work for your HVAC SEO?
The main reason why companies share their content in the first place is so they can gain external links, which is one of the most important ranking signals. If the right people see your piece, they might decide to feature you in their own articles. These links will not only boost your keyword rankings but will also provide a direct source of traffic via these websites.
Keep in mind that not every piece of content you produce deserves outreach. While you want to optimize each blog post, there are some cases where you’ll just build a few guest post backlinks and be done with it. Instead, you should implement content promotion only for high-significance blog posts, such as white papers, ultimate guides, and pillar pages.
7. Build links
Organic outreach is just one method that an SEO company will use to gain links. There are other methods you can explore as well, such as guest posting, HARO outreach, broken link building, PR campaigns, and so on.
As mentioned, external links send a powerful signal to Google that your piece is of high quality and should be featured more prominently within the search results. The basic logic is that other bloggers, especially reputable ones, won’t promote just about anything on their sites. In that sense, links are almost a form of vetting.
However, you’ll have to remember that not all of them are made the same. The ideal links for your HVAC company are as follows:
- Links from authoritative publications
- Links coming from blog posts that cover the same topic
- Links with highly related anchors
While you can always benefit from getting as many links as possible, quality is much more important than quality in this particular case. Furthermore, you also need to remember that certain hyperlinks can hurt your HVAC website, such as links from fishy websites or from “notorious” industries (gambling, finances, vices)
8. Perform local optimization
Nowadays, companies can have a major impact on Google searches without having to spend lots of money on traditional HVAC SEO services. In fact, many companies are rerouting money into local SEO efforts, creating a smaller number of highly targeted, local articles. So, instead of trying to gain massive global traffic, they focus their investment on a smaller number of local consumers.
Before offering their services online via Google Maps, HVAC companies need to create a Google business profile and add the website to major directories. That way, the search engine can determine that this is a legitimate business. After the basic optimization, Google will add the HVAC website to the maps, allowing the company to start gaining online feedback.
Gain Google reviews
Many companies don’t like investing in search engine optimization because the field often feels skewered against them. Even if you have great SEO specialists on your site, another business might overthrow you in the search engine results pages by simply spending more money on links and content.
This is why local SEO services have become popular not only among HVAC contractors but also other small, local companies.
The reason why this system is so fair is because it hinges on online reviews. Basically, when typing in a query like “HVAC company in my city,” your placement on top of local search rankings is determined by the number and quality of reviews. HVAC companies that have overwhelmingly positive feedback will always come on top.
In other words, you boost your marketing organically by simply being better at your job than the competitors. As if that wasn’t enough, these queries are among the best ones in terms of lead quality, often resulting in sales.
Create articles for local keywords
A part of local optimization is creating relevant local articles. As mentioned, you can create pieces that focus on a particular city or neighborhood, thus managing to rank content within these queries. While getting on top of Google’s 3-Pack is much more important, you can also gain traction from these blog posts.
9. Use social media
For the longest time, social media was a neglected part of traditional SEO. People didn’t like this channel because it takes time to build followership on these platforms, something that could’ve been used on other marketing strategies. To make matters worse, even if someone linked back to your post from Facebook or Instagram, these links held little value for Google (besides direct traffic).
However, all of this changed as search engines started focusing more and more on user engagement metrics.
Nowadays, it’s much better to have a small number of loyal fans than hordes of visitors who barely interact with content. Given that Google measures all website interactions, it will take note of content with high time spent on the page and low bounce rates. As your followers have much higher interactions, they can provide that initial boost that will push the article in search results.
Not only will they give you the initial push, but they will also share it with other people who might be interested in your HVAC services. This makes social media a much better channel than promoting your site on some irrelevant forums or third-party sites.
10. Analyze performance
When doing SEO, HVAC companies need to measure their performance. The process is extremely fragmented, and with the constant changes to Google algorithms, HVAC websites might experience major fluctuations in a short time span.
Through data analysis, an HVAC business can tweak its approach and look for better ways to optimize its site. Even experienced marketers might make careless mistakes, which they can only detect via tools like Google Search Console or Google Analytics.
How to choose an HVAC SEO company?
For the most part, the success of HVAC SEO campaigns hinges on the marketing strategies and company you employ. Like in any other business, there are major differences between providers, so HVAC contractors need to stay on their toes when choosing a partner. Here are a few things you should pay attention to:
Check their optimization
To better understand what kind of SEO services a marketing brand can provide, it’s best to start by analyzing their own site. Besides organic traffic and keyword rankings, you can also check the number of backlinks they have.
Unfortunately, most HVAC companies don’t know how to assess the optimization of a site. This can be a bit tricky, as this is the best way to assess a marketing agency. So, here are a few things you can easily analyze even without any prior knowledge:
- Check how many blog posts they have and when was the first one published. Older companies that have been in the business for a while usually know what they’re doing and can create a great SEO strategy for your HVAC company
- You should also check when the last article was published and how frequently they post. Large, reputable outlets usually post once a week (at least), while some minor providers have even bailed on their blogs
- Pay attention to design and usability. As mentioned several times, good SEO experts make sure their site is functional, that it loads quickly, and on various devices. If they can provide a good browsing experience for their users, they can do something similar for you
- While having a large number of followers is somewhat uncommon for SEO companies, it shows that the brand is well-respected in its niche
Keep in mind that if you want to have a better understanding of how a company is doing, you need to perform a full checkup. Some brands do really well with a limited number of social followers and blogs, so the aforementioned points might be misleading.
Track their online mentions
Due to the nature of the business and the small number of clients, SEO agencies don’t get as many online reviews as your local bars and restaurants. Still, you should research what the public thinks of the brand. Besides their Google scores, you can also check their reviews on other directories and review sites.
If you have PR tools, you can also go through all their web mentions. This includes social media tagging, forum mentions, and reviews on other SEO sites. Some of these might be real diamonds in the rough, providing you with valuable information that you couldn’t find elsewhere.
Pay attention to professionalism
As much as it pains us to say this, there are many scammers within the SEO industry. This is why you need to take note of various small hints when interacting with the brand. Here are a few things you should pay attention to:
- Pay attention to the presentation. Proficient agencies usually take a peek at your site before conducting an interview. During the first call, they can instantly tell you what’s wrong with the site. In fact, they probably have a few HVAC SEO strategies in mind by that time
- English is not crucial for SEO experts, but it is important nonetheless. Like with other types of outsourcing, you need to make sure that a company can follow your orders and stay on the same page
- Check how many tools an agency is using and which ones they use. Generally speaking, companies that invest in MarTech can yield much better results and are heavily invested in the process
- Make sure that a company doesn’t take shortcuts. SEO is a long-term process where a website needs to be slowly built over time