When it comes to HVAC, time is of the essence.
A broken air conditioner in the middle of summer can turn a home into an oven in no time. Not to mention, a furnace that stops working in the dead of winter can leave a family out in the cold.
So when people need help with their HVAC system, they turn to the internet to find contractors who can help.
That’s where Search Engine Optimization comes in.
Search engine optimization is all about making sure your website appears as high up on the search engine results page as possible.
In this article, we’ll discuss the main aspects of SEO for HVAC contractors and how it can benefit your business.
What is HVAC SEO?
HVAC SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results for relevant keywords.
This usually involves optimizing your website’s content, structure, and on-page elements like titles and metatags.
Building backlinks is also an important part of an HVAC SEO Campaign.
Why is SEO for HVAC Contractors Important?
There are a lot of reasons why you should be investing in SEO as an HVAC Company.
First and foremost, HVAC SEO can help you get more leads.
People don't open the phone book anymore to find contractors.
They go online and type in what they need into a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo!.
They simply type in "HVAC Contractor near me" and they are given a list of companies to choose from.
If you're not on that first page, you're missing out on a lot of potential customers.
These people are looking for HVAC contractors right now, and if you're not in front of them, they're going to choose one of your competitors.
In addition to getting more leads, HVAC SEO can also help HVAC Contractors to build trust and credibility with potential customers.
When people see that you're ranking high for relevant keywords, they'll assume that you're a reputable and trustworthy company.
Investing in HVAC SEO can also help you save money in the long run.
Once you get to the top of the search engine results page, with ongoing maintenance, you will be able to secure your position for years.
This means that you won't have to spend as much money on paid advertising.
Content Marketing for HVAC Companies
Creating content on your HVAC company website is one of the most important things you can do to improve your SEO and it is essential for any SEO strategy.
The most important however is that it has to be valuable and useful for your audience.
It can be an article about the most common furnace problems and how to fix them.
It could be a blog post about the different types of air conditioners and which one is right for your home.
Whatever it is, make sure it's something that will help your potential customers.
The more helpful and valuable your content is, the more likely people are to link to it and share it.
Most of the websites in the HVAC Industry don't take advantage of this, so make sure you do!
Do You Want More Customers?
If you are looking to generate more customers, check out this guide and learn how.
You'll find 5 steps that will help fix the most important things on your website today!
Creating Topical Relevance on Your HVAC Website
In order for you to rank high in the search engines, you need to have what's called topical relevance.
You can achieve better topical relevance by posting relevant content on your website. This means creating content that's about the topics you want to rank for.
For example, if your website is about HVAC, you need to make sure that the majority of your content is about HVAC.
These could be blog posts, articles, infographics, or even videos.
You also have to make sure that you are not posting irrelevant content on your website that could offput your topical relevance, like posting about the best dogs for home defence on an HVAC website.
HVAC SEO Keyword Research
In order to people to find you, first, you have to know what people are searching for.
You need to find out what people are typing into the search engines when they're looking for someone like you, so then you can target those keywords on your website.
Keyword research is the process of finding these keywords and it is an important step in any HVAC SEO Strategy.
Step 1: Choosing a KW Research Tool
First, you have to choose a keyword research tool do to a proper keyword research.
There are a lot of different ones to choose from, but some of the most popular ones:
- Google AdWords Keyword Planner
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
It really comes down to preference and your budget.
Google Keyword Planner is a great free option if you're on a tight budget.
Moz Keyword Explorer and SEMrush are both paid options, but they offer more features and data than the Google AdWords Keyword Planner.
Ahrefs is also a paid option, but it's geared more towards HVAC SEO professionals and comes with a higher price tag.
Step 2: Writing Up Your Local Areas
After you've chosen a keyword research tool, the next step is to come up with a list of local areas that you want to target.
For example, if you're an HVAC contractor in Los Angeles, some of your local areas could be "Los Angeles", "Beverly Hills", "Hollywood", "Santa Monica", etc.
Then, you have to pair these local areas with your services, so these become like "HVAC Contractor Los Angeles".
Then, you have to add these to the keyword research tool of your choice, to see how many people are searching for them and if they are actually worth targeting or not.
Step 3: Finding Informational Keywords
The next step is finding informational keywords to write blog articles about and to raise your topical relevance.
To find informational keywords, you can look at your competitor's blogs or just brainstorm a list of topics that you think would be relevant to your potential customers.
For example, some HVAC informational keywords could be "types of air conditioners", "how to choose an HVAC contractor", "furnace problems and solutions", etc.
Again, you have to use the keyword research tool of your choice to find out how many people are actually searching for these keywords and to get more ideas.
Technical SEO in HVAC SEO Strategy
Having a sound and issue free website is one of the most important things in HVAC SEO.
If your website has errors, may it be UX or technical, it will be hard to rank high.
That's where technical SEO comes in. Technical SEO is the process of making sure your website is error-free and easy for the search engines to read and crawl, plus issue free for your users as well.
Importance of Website Speed for an HVAC Website
Website speed is not only a ranking factor for SEO, but it's also important for user experience.
No one wants to wait a long time for a website to load, so if your website is slow, people are going to leave and go to your competitor's website.
You can check your website speed with Google's PageSpeed Insights tool.
If your website speed is low, there are a few things you can do to improve it.
You can optimize your images, minify your CSS and Javascript files, enable compression, use a content delivery network (CDN) and make sure you're not using too many plugins if you have a WordPress website.
Ease of Crawling for Search Engines
The easier it is for a search engine to crawl and index your website, the better.
If your website is hard to crawl, the search engines are going to have a hard time understanding what your website is about and they'll be less likely to rank you high in the search results.
You can use Google's Search Console to check how well your website is being crawled and if Google is having any issues with crawling your website.
If there are any issues, you can check why Google is having those issues and try to fix them.
An Issue Free Website (Good Core Quality)
Your website needs to be high quality, not just for the search engines, but for your visitors as well.
If your website is full of errors and issues, it's going to be hard to rank high and people aren't going to want to stay on your website for very long.
Having a good core quality is very important.
Interlink Your Content
Internal linking is linking from one of your blog posts or pages to another one of your blog posts or pages.
This makes crawlers navigate easier around your website and helps them semantically connect these pages too.
It's also good for user experience because it can help visitors to find other relevant content on your website.
Structure Your Website Logically
Your website should be easy to navigate and the structure should make sense.
If your website is hard to navigate, it's going to be hard for both visitors and search engine crawlers to find what they're looking for.
A good way to structure your website is by using a silo structure.
This means having your blog content under blog (not entirely necessary), or under categories and having your top and bottom level category pages.
This can mean placing your local pages in an order like:
/air-conditioning-repair/ - Service Page
/air-conditioning-repair/new-york/ - Local Page
This structure makes it easy for both users and search engines to understand what your website is about and where to find the content they're looking for.
Optimize Your Robots.txt file
Your robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engine crawlers what they can and can't crawl on your website.
You can use your robots.txt file to tell the search engines not to crawl certain pages or files that you don't want them to.
This can help you save bandwidth and speed up the crawling process of other important pages.
Use Structured Data (Schema)
Schema markup is a machine-readable code that you can add to your websites HTML, that can help search engines get clues about what your content is about, even before reading your content.
It also help the search engines to connect dots about your brand or you and get more information.
You can check schema.org to see which schema type is applicable for your website.
Local SEO For HVAC Companies
If you want to rank higher in the search results for people searching for HVAC services in your area, you need to do local SEO.
Local SEO is optimizing your website and your online presence for local searches.
If you do things well, you can show up in the local 3-pack, which is the top 3 results in the maps section for your area.
This can generate your directions to your office, phone calls and even website visits.
Local businesses can do several things to rank locally, let's look at them:
Google My Business (GMB)
One of the essential things for ranking in local searches and Google Maps Listings is having a Google My Business Profile.
GMB is a free listing that you can have on Google. You can add your NAP, business hours, pictures, services, website URL and even posts to it.
You can also get Google reviews on your GMB profile, which are very important for SEO and for people that are looking for HVAC services.
Local Mentions (Citations)
One of the most important ranking factors for local SEO is citations.
Citations are mentions of your business on other websites, with your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number).
You can get these by listing your business on directories and review websites.
It's best to get citations from high quality websites that are relevant to your industry.
You can use a tool like Whitespark to find the best citation sources for your area and industry.
Online Reviews
People that are looking for HVAC services will often look at online reviews to see which companies are the best. They are most likely to choose a local HVAC contractor that has the most and best legitimate reviews.
The more positive reviews you have, the better. You should try to get reviews on your GMB profile, as well as on other review websites.
A great way to get more reviews is by simply asking your happy customers to leave you a review. You can also offer an incentive, like a discount on their next service.
Having Local Pages on your HVAC Website
Having a GMB is good in itself, but for ranking locally, you need to have local pages for the areas you service.
You can have unique pages (no duplicated pages) for each city and location that you are servicing.
On these pages, you need to include your NAP information, as well as some relevant content about the area and services that you offer there.
Tracking SEO Results for HVAC Companies
HVAC SEO marketing is a long term game, it can take several months to see results.
That's why it's important to track your HVAC SEO progress and results, so you can see which SEO activities are working and which don't.
You will have to track how many leads, phone calls and website visitors you are getting from SEO.
Google Analytics
GA is a great free tool that you can use to track your HVAC SEO results.
With Google Analytics, you can track how many people are visiting your website, where they are coming from and what pages they are looking at.
You can also track events and set up goals to track leads, phone call, form submits and even clicks on certain points of your website.
Google Search Console
GSC is a great tool that you can use to track your HVAC SEO progress and results.
With GSC, you can see how your website is performing in the search results, which keywords you are ranking for and which pages are getting the most impressions.
Keyword Tracking Tools
Although tracking leads is the most important thing to keep track of, you will need to know which keywords you are ranking for in order to get those leads in the first place.
There are several great keyword tracking tools that you can use free and paid.
Link Building
Last, but not least, you will have to build links to your website. Backlinks are links pointing from another website to your website.
There are several ways to build backlinks, like guest posting on other blogs, asking friends to link to your website or appearing in local directories.
You do have to make sure that you are getting links from websites that are related to your own website.
Should you hire an HVAC SEO Company?
If you don't really have the time to do SEO yourself, it is a good idea to hire an HVAC SEO Company to help you rank better in the Google search results.
These companies provide HVAC SEO services and most likely worked with a lot of HVAC Companies.
The price of HVAC SEO Services highly depends on the competition of your local market, how big your HVAC business is and how in-depth your SEO Campaign needs to be.
Conclusion
SEO is a great way to get more leads and customers for your HVAC company.
By optimizing your GMB profile, getting local citations and reviews, and having local pages on your website, you can rank higher in the search results and get more leads.
We hope that this HVAC SEO guide for HVAC Contractors was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.
