What does the online marketing landscape look like as we advance towards 2020? What sort of HVAC SEO strategies can your company use to climb the ranks even higher this year? Nolen and Jason of HVAC Webmasters discuss some helpful tips to increase local search visibility and earn more leads. So if you’ve struggled to make page 1 rankings in Google Search, be sure to listen in.

Helpful Points for HVAC Companies:

Original content is still essential, but it’s a baseline now.
Collecting reviews is more vital than ever.
Make sure your Google My Business account remains active.

A New Baseline for Marketing

Original content is a concept businesses live and die by and a practice that’s become the norm for those looking to perform well in local search. While everyone can and should pursue original content that provides real value for consumers in their target market, it is more of a requirement than a bonus.

In other words, quality content is the new baseline.

To win front page rankings and develop a consistent pool of website traffic, roofing contractors have to go above and beyond that baseline. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools at your disposal to rise above the competition and let your brand stand out. Some of them are free tools from Google, while others may require a little investment from your company.

Google My Business Activity

It’s one of the most accessible resources, yet many businesses fail to claim their free Google My Business (GMB) account. If you haven’t claimed your business listing, you’re liking missing out on hundreds of potential customer impressions. Fill out as many boxes as possible, as Google will be more likely to present your business during a local consumer search.

GMB accounts come with several fun tools to showcase your company. The portal allows businesses to upload original company photos, videos, and infographics. You can also create updates and promotions that show up whenever someone searches for your company name. So it takes only a few minutes to upload a photo, write some catchy insights about standard heating and cooling challenges, then send out the post for viewing in local search!

Be sure to post regularly, as GMB posts disappear a week after crafting them. You can view historic Google posts from your archives, but Google only shows recent releases in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Showing Off Office Life for SEO Strategies — Posts are Also a Great Means of Showing Internal Company Life.

You can upload images to serve as your company cover and exterior office shots. Just be careful that the photos you post represent your company well. Unfortunately, there’s currently no way to ensure that your favorite photos are the ones showing up in local SERPs.

Review Management and Collection

Apart from your company website and content optimization strategy, nothing impacts local search like customer reviews. As such, all great SEO strategies work to incorporate a steady influx of client feedback. For example, Google used to favor reviews from its own portal (Google Reviews), but now it prefers them from various sources.

You’ll notice that many top industry performers work hard to gather reviews from their customers consistently. As a result, you’ll find these companies standing out in local service packs, earning premium leads for some of the most popular services. As you can see, even a little effort goes a long way when it comes to reviews.

Where should you ask for reviews?

Google Reviews
Facebook
Instagram
Better Business Bureau
Yelp
Angie’s List
Your Website

Most SEO Strategies Incorporate Client Reviews — Reviews, in Google and Your Website, Create Trust With Consumers.

Of course, the easiest way to collect client feedback is to ask for it. Then, send your customers (especially the happy ones) a short invitation via text or email. It doesn’t have to be complicated; provide the link(s), so they can do it quickly.

Showcasing Reviews on Your Website

For the most significant impact, incorporate those reviews into the company website. You’ll likely need a professional to do this for you, but watch out! Most HVAC SEO companies aren’t very good at infusing these reviews into the site effectively. Our team at HVAC Webmasters took years to develop our tool (DataPins) to do so, but the impact on our clients’ local search results is nothing short of incredible.

Team Up With HVAC Webmasters.

If your business sometimes struggles to earn that oh-so-important front-page listing, our team would love to talk with you! At HVAC Webmasters, we enable HVAC companies around the country to achieve higher ranks, better traffic, and outstanding leads.

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There are thousands of keyword variations in the service industry, but HVAC contractors generally only pursue a tiny fraction of them. It’s easy to think that the key to success is ranking high for “AC repair” and “compressor leak repair,” but there’s are other paths to ranking #1 on Google. Listen in as Nolen and Jason discuss how new entries and older companies alike can upgrade their keyword strategy.

Key Points to Listen For:

SEO results may not take as long as you think.
Secondary keywords make a big difference for new HVAC contractors.
Google considers user intent with brand-optimized keywords.

Keyword Strategy & Optimization

With all the HVAC contractors that we’ve talked with over the years, it’s clear that most professionals have at least some familiarity with keywords. “I need keywords in my website. Popular keywords.” High-volume keywords earn a higher amount of exposure, but there’s a crucial caveat that people forget.

It’s extremely tough to rank for High-volume keywords.

New entries into SEO rarely rank highly for HVAC keywords like “AC repair” or “furnace replacement.” Why? Because there are hundreds of other businesses already attempting it. That doesn’t mean that your business can’t develop a keyword strategy to capture those phrases eventually.

Primary Vs. Secondary Keywords

In SEO, keywords fall under two categories: primary keywords and secondary keywords. All companies eagerly attempt to rank for the first category. These might include:

“HVAC contractor”
“AC replacement”
“Furnace tuneup”
“Emergency air conditioning”

On the other hand, secondary keywords include terms and phrases related to the primaries (sometimes called LSI keywords). What is their purpose?

One: They prevent content writers from stuffing primary keywords dozens of times throughout a page.
Two: They draw Google’s attention to the article and produce more vital recognition for the primary keywords.
Three: Secondaries allow your business to rank for a high quantity of low-volume keywords.

Where Do HVAC Brands Fit In?

HVAC brands, especially high-quality ones, make fantastic secondary keywords. When potential customers lose their Trane AC Unit (for instance), most perform a generic search for “AC repair” or a similar primary keyword. However, people who want a professional with related brand experience might search “Trane AC repair.” Fewer HVAC professionals optimize for these brand-specific keywords.

But won’t Google direct them towards Trane’s website? Google recognizes that the user intent behind these searches is to find a local repair company. As a result, your business can rank highly for the secondary keyword and maybe even score a position in a local pack.

Some heating and cooling companies understand this idea, but they get the execution wrong. Have you ever seen an HVAC website that showcases dozens of popular industry brands? Most resort to either low-content pages or spun pages to make up the content requirements, and Google penalizes this sort of behavior. Instead of following this rank-dropping behavior, take ten of the most popular HVAC brands in your area and develop a secondary keyword strategy around those! Even if you only get a few hits a week, ten pages with three calls a month each quickly adds up.

The Effects of HVAC Brand Keyword Strategy

Remember those primary keywords that you thought you had no chance of ranking for? As those secondary keywords draw Google’s attention towards your website, the search engine re-evaluates your content. While Google closely guards the secrets of its core algorithm, SEO professionals know that the search engine spiders (researches) websites every few weeks to perform these evaluations. Therefore, if your website contains content oriented towards both primary and secondary keywords, Google may start to list your business higher up in primary keyword rankings.

Getting Started on Your Keyword Strategy

Is it time to re-optimize your site’s content to pursue a new keyword strategy? First, make sure you do plenty of research before writing up your service pages and blog posts. Thankfully, there are plenty of free tools out there to help guide your search.

Great Keyword Research Tools

Remember those secondary keywords! They may not earn the highest traffic volume, but secondaries increase the number of phrases Google recognizes from your website. So that traffic quickly builds up.

Team Up With the HVAC Webmasters

Are you looking for an experienced team of HVAC SEO professionals? Come to the seasoned experts at HVAC Webmasters. We empower heating and cooling companies across the country with a broad spectrum of digital marketing services, including custom web design, content development, and social media advertising. As a result, our clients enjoy premium front page ranking for local search, more robust user engagement, and remarkable lead generation.