Attract More Clients With Highly Targeted

HVAC SEO

Written By: Joey Randazzo

Joey Randazzo is the owner and Founder of Portland SEO Growth Partners based in Portland, OR. He’s worked with hundreds of businesses to build growth-centric SEO campaigns.

Updated: January 11th, 2022

This HVAC SEO Guide Has Been Comprehensively Updated for 2023

Due to consistent algorithm updates, the relatively recent Helpful Content Update in late 2022, we’ve updated the written content that already existed on the page. We’ve written new content. And we’ve filmed new video content. Everything is up-to-date, fresh, and helpful for your HVAC business to dominate Google for 2023.

How We Help HVAC Companies Grow Their Business & See A

5.7x ROI on Their Monthly SEO Investment

Increase Google Rankings

Get your HVAC website ranking on Google for high-value keywords that potential clients are searching for.

More High-Quality Web Traffic

Get more interested clients coming to your website each month.

Increased Leads & Phone Calls

Get more motivated HVAC customers calling your business to set an appointment.

You Get Your Time Back

Stop having your receptionist writing blog content or trying to figure out digital marketing on their own.

Here's What You Want To See With Your HVAC Website & SEO

When Someone Types into Google "HVAC Near Me", You Show Up Here...

When Someone Types into Google "HVAC Near Me", You Show Up Here...

Think about the way people search for HVAC companies. They’re probably sweating and frustrated that their AC blew in the middle of July, or their furnace went out in December, and they pull out their smartphone.

They go to Google and type in something like “HVAC Near Me” – the FIRST thing to show up is the Maps area of Google called the Google Local Pack. The HVAC companies that show up here “win” and get the most phone calls.

When Someone Types into Google "Best HVAC in [City]", You Show Up Here...

When people are looking for HVAC companies nearby, they often use the language of “best HVAC near me” or “best HVAC in [city]”.

The companies that rank in the Maps area for these keywords get the most phone calls and website visitors.

When Someone Types Queries into Google like "What to Do When Your Furnace Stops Working", You Show Up Here..

When Someone Types Queries into Google like "What to Do When Your Furnace Stops Working", You Show Up Here..

Home and business owners ask tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of questions into Google each day. Questions like…

  • “What does seer mean in HVAC?”
  • “What do HVAC techs do?”
  • “How much to replace HVAC system?”

Ranking for these keywords in Google proves that your website is an “authority” and can be trusted.

People Are Searching Differently For HVAC Companies Than They Used To

Just take a look and see the increase in people searching for “hvac near me” over the last five years. 

This screenshot above comes from a tool called Google Trends (a tool created by Google itself). You can see the steady increase in the number of people searching for “hvac near me.”

See The Common Theme? You Want To Increase Your HVAC Company's Digital Presence Online To Be Found By Motivated Home and Business Owners.

This is what it comes down to: You want more business and home owners in your city to know that you exist. Whenever they do a Google search online around HVAC, you want to show up over your competitors.

How Do You Get Tangible Results With HVAC SEO Services?

Step 1: Comprehensive SEO Audit

This is the most important step, and unfortunately, most other SEO companies skip it all together.

How can you get where you want to be if you don’t know where you are now?

We recommend doing a comprehensive SEO audit to determine your:

  • Current SEO errors
  • Current SEO performance
  • What your local competitors are doing
  • Technical SEO performance
  • And more

Step 2: Local SEO Visibility Audit

The goal for HVAC SEO is to increase your “local visibility,” as we call it.

We use robust and powerful third-party tools to run an “SEO visibility test” on your business. This allows us to see how visible your business is on Google.

The report looks like this:

Step 3: Create a Roadmap Based on Data

We now have a lot of data from the SEO audit and the local SEO visibility audit. 

SEO for HVAC should be strategized based on data. Most other SEO companies don’t do this, and instead go off of a “hunch” that something will work.

Our recommendation is to create a comprehensive roadmap based on the data. If the data shows that your website is loading very slowly (which is negatively impacting performance), you should probably fix that first!

Step 4: Implement Highest Priority Changes First

This part is interesting:

Not all SEO activities are created equal.

Adding image alt tags on a blog post from 2017 won’t be as impactful as improving the content on your homepage.

So, according to the data, you should be targeting the “low hanging fruit” opportunities first.

You don’t have a Google Business Profile set up for your HVAC company? That’s a great place to start! You don’t have a Services page? You should probably build that first before worrying about the images on your About Us page.

Step 5: Local SEO Best Practices & Content Creation at Scale

Local SEO for HVAC comes down to the following:

  • Consistent information that Google trusts
  • Accurate information
  • Authority

If your business has a different phone number on your website than what shows on your Facebook page, that sends up a red flag to Google.

If Google chooses to rank your business, they can’t trust that someone who tries to call would actually get through to you.

Having consistent NAPs on high-authority directories across the internet is critical.

Now, when looking at “authority,” that’s where content comes in. If you create content that answers your target audience’s questions, Google will see your business as more authoritative than an HVAC company that doesn’t have much content on their site.

Step 6: Meticulously Track Data

The goal of SEO is to have a tangible impact on your HVAC business. You want an increase in website visitors and phone calls. And that should ultimately lead to increased revenue. 

To ensure your SEO campaign is performing successfully, you have to track data. Build a comprehensive dashboard that gives insights into your:

  • keyword rankings
  • phone calls
  • website visitors
  • and other important KPIs

HVAC SEO Services Shouldn't Be 🍪 Cutter - Everything Is 100% Customized To Your Business

HVAC SEO isn’t the same as other types of SEO. Unfortunately, most other SEO companies fail to make this distinction. They use the same “tips and tricks” that they use in other industries, thinking that it’ll work with HVAC. That’s not the most effective strategy.

We treat your business as unique. We take an individualized approach to each individual industry (such as HVAC), to your specific city (Portland might be different than a smaller town in Missouri), and your specific website (is your website built on WordPress or Webflow).

5 Tactical Local SEO Strategies for HVAC

Strategy 1: Google Business Profile Optimizations

This is an example of an HVAC’s Google Business Profile:

This is what the front-end of a Google Business Profile looks like. The part that a Google searcher can see.

Actually, let’s back up for a minute:

Why do Google Business Profiles matter for HVAC companies? Google Business Profiles are relevant and important ranking factors in order to rank in the Google Local Pack. Here’s an example of what the Google Local Pack looks like:

Optimizing your Google Business Profile helps you get found there ☝️

And, when you’re found in the Google Local Pack, you WIN. You get more website visitors and phone calls than your competitors.

So, how do you optimize your Google Business Profile correctly so that you get found in the Google Local Pack?

The answer is summed up in one word: Comprehensiveness

The best way to optimize your Google Business Profile is to provide as comprehensive information as possible.

There are many sections where you can provide comprehensive information, like:

  • Your main description
  • Your categories
  • Your products
  • Your services
  • Your photos

Here’s a quick example that explains the difference between being comprehensive and not being comprehensive:

For your main description, you may be inclined to write a sentence like… “We are a team of trained professionals in all things HVAC and dedicated to quality service.”

That’s only one sentence… Google allows 750 characters for the main description. Use them to your advantage! Do you offer both residential and commercial services? Do you offer thermostat installation? What about furnace maintenance? Do you offer water heater replacement? 

Answering EVERY possible question is how you can be more comprehensive.

Strategy 2: On-Page SEO for Your Homepage and Location Pages

On-page SEO for HVAC is just a way of describing the content on your website.

It includes things like:

  • Your header tags (H1, H2, H3)
  • Your title tags
  • Your meta description
  • Your images
  • Internal and external links
  • And basically anything that you can put on a web page!

Why does on-page SEO for HVAC  matter? Well, Google cares about it.

For single-location HVAC companies, the most important page on your website, from a local SEO perspective, is the homepage. For multi-location HVAC businesses, the most important pages on your website are your location pages.

For on-page SEO for these pages, you want to implement SEO-friendliness through keywords while also providing as comprehensive information as possible to the user (and Google).

For example, instead of a title tag like “Beaverton Heating & Cooling – 503.111.1111” you can provide more context to Google by writing something like “Trusted HVAC Company in Beaverton – Beaverton Heating & Cooling.”

Strategy 3: Website Architecture Best Practices

This is an underrated SEO strategy for HVAC businesses. Your website architecture and your sitemap are intimately connected.

Google crawls your sitemap to understand your website architecture, which in turn allows Google to understand what your website is about. 

Here’s an example of what a sitemap might look like to Google:

A little overwhelming, right? Don’t worry about it too much. Just know that when Google looks at a sitemap like this, it’s putting together what your website is about (which is SUPER important for local SEO).

The main thing is that your website structure should make sense hierarchically. Let’s use two of the main services that HVAC companies offer – 1) heater repair and 2) air conditioner installation.

Where should these pages live on your site? First, you should probably have a “services” page that has the URL structure similar to .com/services/

Now, any services that you offer (such as heater repair and air conditioner installation) should live UNDER this main services page. See below:

  • .com/services/heater-repair
  • .com/services/air-conditioner-installation

This seems obvious, but many websites do this wrong. There’s no vertical architecture. Instead, every page lives directly under the homepage. See below:

  • .com/services/
  • .com/heater-repair/
  • .com/air-conditioner-installation/
  • .com/water-heater-replacement/

With this structure, it’s not clear to Google that “Heater Repair” is a service that you offer. It’s just another page on your site!

Strategy 4: Content Creation at Scale

This is where it gets fun. Home and business owners search for thousands of questions into Google every day.

Some are very local:

  • best air conditioning maintenance in Portland
  • best heater repair near Portland

Some are generic:

  • How do I know when to replace my furnace?
  • Can my house have a smart thermostat?
  • Why is my ac blowing hot air?

If you answer these types of questions through comprehensive blog articles on your website, it will do 2 things:

1. You may rank in Google for these keywords that people are searching and therefore drive traffic.

2. Google will take notice and see your website as an authority over your competitors. It will think “Wow, they’ve answered all these HVAC-related questions that users have. Therefore, their website is more valuable than local competitors who haven’t answered any questions.”

Strategy 5: User Experience is a Bigger Deal Than You Think - Stop the Keyword Stuffing!

The old SEO strategies are gone. Keyword stuffing… PBN link building… all the stuff that used to work. 

Google’s getting smarter and starting to realize that user experience on a website is important.

What does this mean for you as an HVAC company?

  • Make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for. They shouldn’t have to spend 10 minutes figuring out if you offer thermostat installation or not.
  • Make it easy for users to contact you. Your phone number should be clickable on a mobile device. You should consider online scheduling so someone can easily make an appointment for maintenance or repairs. Anything to make the user’s experience SUPER easy.
  • When writing content, you should actually offer value to the reader. Outsourcing writers who produce vague, keyword-stuffed articles is a thing of the past. Your content should add value to the reader and thoroughly answer their questions.

On Average, Our HVAC SEO Services Cost

31% Less Than Other SEO Companies

Compared to Other SEO Companies That Average Between $1.5k and $3k Per Month.

FAQs About HVAC SEO Services

Here are the most common questions we’ve heard.

What is HVAC SEO?

HVAC SEO is a form of digital marketing that helps HVAC businesses to increase their visibility in search engines, namely Google. 

The specific SEO strategies that are used for HVAC vary greatly (which is why all HVAC SEO is NOT created equal). 

Strategies include:

  • keyword research
  • on-page SEO
  • off-page SEO
  • local SEO
  • Google Maps optimizations
  • content creation
  • landing page creation
  • PR 
  • and more

Why is HVAC SEO Important?

HVAC SEO is important because it puts you in front of your target audience (the home or business owners looking RIGHT NOW to find a trustworthy HVAC technician).

Think about how social media marketing for HVAC works: People are scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and stumble upon an advertisement for an HVAC company in their city. They might be actively looking for HVAC services, but it’s pretty unlikely.

On the other hand, SEO puts you in front of motivated buyers looking for what you have to offer:

People like this are searching for phrases like “best hvac near me” or “hvac in downtown Portland.” Ranking for those keywords has a MUCH higher conversion than people scrolling on Instagram.

How Long Does SEO for HVAC Take To Work?

HVAC SEO can take 1 week – 6 months for you to start seeing results. It depends on a variety of factors:

  • How big of a city you’re in
  • How high your website’s “domain authority” is
  • How long your website has been around for
  • How your current SEO is performing
  • And more

Some of our clients have seen 2x – 3x the phone calls within a month after starting their SEO campaign. Other clients don’t see noticeable increases in phone calls for 2-3 months.

But think about it this way:

If everyone could make a couple of minor tweaks on their website and rank overnight for the HIGHEST value keywords out there, like “best HVAC in Chicago” then the internet would go haywire.

These things take time. Google built their algorithms that way on purpose.

What HVAC SEO KPIs Should We Track?

HVAC SEO should be meticulously tracked.

You want to know, without a doubt, that the money you’re investing in SEO is working for your HVAC  business.

Because of that, you need to track certain metrics to ensure that the campaign is working:

  • Keyword rankings: Are your ranking on Page 1 of Google for your most important keywords? How are your keyword rankings changing from week to week? Month to month?
  • Organic website traffic: Is your organic website traffic from Google going up or down? Which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site?
  • Online lead submissions: Are you seeing more online leads? How are they changing from one month to the next?
  • Phone calls: Are you getting more phone calls from people searching on Google? How are phone calls changing over time?

What Type of Content Should HVAC Websites Have?

HVAC SEO should include content that your target audience is searching for on Google:

How do we know what keywords/content your target audience is searching for? We use advanced software and tools that give us insider information and data. We, for example, know that 9,900 people per month (on average) search for “hvac parts near me”.

So, with that being said, we do extensive keyword research to find the topics/questions that home and business owners have. 

Questions like:

  • “How long does HVAC last?”
  • “How to install uv light in HVAC”
  • “How to change HVAC filter?”

If you create content that answers these questions, then you can potentially rank in Google when people search for these.

Also, Google will favor your site more than competitors because Google will have more trust in your site.

What are the Most Valuable HVAC Keywords for SEO?

How To Work With Us

First of all – we don’t work with all HVAC businesses.

We only work with HVAC companies that:

  • Are ambitious about growing their business
  • Have the bandwidth to take the growth that will come from working with us
  • Treat their employees and their customers well
If that sounds like you, then go through the easy process below:

Step 1

Request a 'Free SEO Audit'

This process takes about 2 minutes.

Step 2

Check Your Email

In less than 24 hours, one of our talented SEO specialists will send you a 3-5 minute customized video analysis. It will explain opportunities for you to outperform competitors.

Step 3

Sit Back And Watch Your SEO Skyrocket

Just look at our case studies of the success that other Portland businesses have seen. You can have the same results.

If you’re looking for Portland SEO services, we can help. Give us a call today to learn more about our pricing and availability. 

Let's Take Your HVAC Business From the "best kept secret" to the "most sought after brand"