With so many customers using the web to find HVAC services, your HVAC business has to be easy to find online if you want to compete in your market.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of techniques that helps your business appear at the top of search engines (like Google and Bing) when customers search for HVAC services.
Imagine that someone from Duluth, Minnesota needs an emergency furnace repair, goes to Google, and searches for “furnace repair Duluth.”
The HVAC companies in Duluth with the best SEO show up at the top. This could be where your company appears in your locality.
A lot of expertise and work goes into successful SEO. To get you started, we’ll share what you can do as a busy business owner—with help from an SEO professional—to make it easier for HVAC customers to find you online.
7 important HVAC SEO tips:
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Create a list of target keywords
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Create the right pages for your website
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Write educational content that answers customer searches
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Make your website easy to use and professional
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Set up your Google Business Profile
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List your business in online directories
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Track your performance and tune up your SEO strategy
1. Create a list of target keywords
Figure out the keywords—phrases or questions—that people would type into search engines to find your HVAC services. The goal is to have your website appear at the top of the results when people search those keywords.
To start your keyword research, think of what you would search if you needed an HVAC repair or replacement for your own home.
Then specify these keywords with your location to attract searchers in your service area. This is called local SEO and will make sure you’re reaching your ideal customer.
For example, a basic keyword list for the HVAC company in Duluth, Minnesota might look like this:
- emergency hvac duluth
- furnace repair duluth
- furnace cleaning duluth
- heat pump replacement duluth
For a business in Phoenix, Arizona, that list would include:
- ac repair phoenix
- ductless ac phoenix
- ac installation phoenix
- phoenix hvac company
Now, you have a list of keywords you can include on your website’s homepage or specific HVAC service pages.
Don’t stop here—targeting keywords is not as simple as inserting them into sentences on your website. Read the next section carefully to plan out an SEO strategy for your HVAC website.
2. Create the right pages for your website
Your HVAC website is the most important piece of your SEO strategy. The pages on your site need to address specific questions or problems that customers have—otherwise, it won’t attract anyone new.
Create these types of pages to get your website appearing in more customer searches:
Service pages
Most customers looking for HVAC services aren’t just searching “HVAC company”—they need help with a specific system and problem.
That’s why you should create a page for every service you offer. This way, customers will find your website no matter what type of HVAC work they’re searching for.
For example, a potential customer who searches “ac repair Columbus” will find Buckeye Heat’s air conditioning repair page, and those searching “Columbus heat pump replacement” will find a page for that on the same website:
Your service pages should:
- Explain exactly what problems you solve and why customers should choose you as their HVAC contractor
- Have a page title that contains the keyword you want to target (like “furnace installation Denver”)
- Include advice that helps homeowners troubleshoot their HVAC system problems so they contact you with the right request
- Have buttons or links throughout the page that take customers to your contact page or online booking form
Location pages
If you service multiple locations, having a page for each location helps customers in those locations find you.
For instance, your “Detroit AC Repair” page and “Ann Arbor HVAC Repair” page can both rank at the top of search results and attract leads from each city.
As you’re planning your service and location pages, visit your competitors’ websites and look carefully at how their pages look. Those are the pages you want to beat on search engine results.
Note: If you have a simple website and don’t have the means to build it out right now, avoid cutting corners by stuffing a bunch of keywords onto those pages. Instead, work on improving your Google Business Profile and directory listings.
READ MORE: How to write an HVAC business plan [free template]
3. Write educational content that answers customer searches
Before hiring an HVAC company, many homeowners try to solve system problems on their own. Questions like “why is my furnace blowing cold air” and “how to clean air filters” get hundreds to thousands of searches every month.
Your website can appear in those searches if you answer them helpfully and thoroughly with informational articles. This is called content marketing—and it’s a way to use your expertise not just to help customers, but to win them over, too.
Here’s what that looks like:
This article from Thomas J. Fannon & Sons, an HVAC business in Virginia, appears on Google when you search “why is my furnace leaking water”:
Their article shows up at the top of Google results because it does a great job of answering the question. It’s also, in part, because the company’s website is full of other helpful content.
After the article answers that question, it indicates that Thomas J. Fannon & Sons is “a trusted provider of ductless split systems.” In that sentence, they include a link to their ductless split systems page where customers can request a free estimate.
If your website provides enough value to keep visitors on your website, customers will consider your business a trusted source of information—and a trusted place to hire an HVAC contractor from.
How to choose content marketing topics
Find competitors that have a “blog” or “resource center” on their websites and see what topics they cover.
Once you’ve brainstormed a list of possible keywords, run them through a free keyword research tool like WordStream. When you type in “why is my furnace leaking water,” you’ll see how many customers are searching that exact keyword and how competitive it is:
You’ll see that “why is my heater leaking water” is a keyword that more homeowners search every month (approximately 2,400), and that the competition is low.
Successful content marketing takes a lot of work. Consider investing in a freelancer or an HVAC SEO agency to help you create helpful content that competes with more established HVAC websites.
READ MORE: 17 best HVAC marketing strategies to win new customers
4. Make your website easy to use and professional
To improve your chances of appearing at the top of search results, your website also needs to be easy for visitors to use, fast, and professional-looking.
Follow these checklists to optimize your HVAC website for search engines:
- Does your website have a simple layout that’s free of clutter?
- Does the layout adapt well to different devices, including smartphones and tablets?
- Is the website’s menu logical and easy to use?
- Are there clear calls to action (CTAs) guiding users to important pages?
- Is the website accessible to users with disabilities?
- Are there features like alt text for images, keyboard navigation, and screen reader compatibility?
If your web design doesn’t check these boxes, work with a professional web designer or developer that has a proven track record of building SEO-friendly websites.
Work with your website developer, or run your website through Google’s PageSpeed Insights to ensure your site is free of messy code or other problems that can slow down the time it takes to load each page.
Regularly reviewing and optimizing these aspects of your website can significantly improve its performance on search engines, attracting more visitors and potentially increasing conversions.
5. Set up your Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile is a free online business listing that appears on Google Search or Maps whenever someone in your area searches for HVAC services.
The more complete and detailed your Business Profile is, the more likely it is to show up when customers search for HVAC companies near them.
Add your business details
When you build your Business Profile, Google will guide you through covering the basics like your service area, hours of operation, contact information, and a link to your website. As a service business, you don’t even need a physical address to set up your profile.
To make your Business Profile look more detailed and professional so you can improve your performance on search, add:
- A list of your HVAC services
- The number of years you’ve been in business
- Photos of your technicians and systems you’ve installed
- Special offers (like discounts on your HVAC replacement services)
- Answers to frequently-asked customer questions
- A quote request form that collects new HVAC leads
Pro Tip: Let new customers request HVAC services through your website and social media, too, by building an easy quote request form in Jobber. Jobber helps you collect, track, manage those requests without breaking a sweat.
Collect Google reviews
After every job, ask customers for a review over email or text and provide a direct link to your review page on Google.
Because customers trust word-of-mouth marketing, Google considers online reviews very important. When the search engine evaluates your Business Profile, it factors in the quantity and quality of reviews you have.
A high star rating on your Google Business Profile also encourages more searchers to click on your profile. This increased engagement tells Google your profile is relevant and popular, which improves your rankings.
To ensure you ask every satisfied customer for a review, set up automatic review collection in Jobber. Jobber automatically sends a text to the customers you want reviews from.
When you make an invoice in Jobber, you can choose if you want to send the customer a review request.
After paying their invoice, those customers will automatically get a direct link to leave a review on your Google Business Profile.
From your reviews dashboard in Jobber, you can keep an eye on your average Google rating and respond directly to the review. You’ll also see your latest reviews and resources on how to manage your business’s reputation.
6. List your business in online directories
Getting listed in online directories has two great benefits: it improves your business’ credibility in the eyes of search engines, and it creates more chances for you to appear in customer searches.
Directory listings are an important piece of off-page SEO—that’s all the work that happens outside of your website to improve your position in search engine rankings.
Create a listing with your HVAC business name, details, website, and contact information on some of these directories:
- Yelp
- Nextdoor
- Angi
- Thumbtack
- Yellow Pages
- Chamber of Commerce
- Facebook Pages
- Bing Places
- Yahoo Small Business Registration
- Foursquare
Every time a link to your website shows up somewhere on the web, you get a backlink to your website (think: a link that sends people “back” to your website”). Having lots of backlinks tells search engines that your website is credible and relevant.
To appear in more types of customer searches, create profiles on lead generation websites like Thumbtack, Houzz, Angi, and HomeAdvisor. In addition to matching you with customers who need your services, these sites create lists that rank the top HVAC companies in every area.
When a homeowner in Oregon searches Google “best hvac company portland,” they’ll see a search result like this:
With enough positive reviews and ratings from customers on these listings, your business could appear in a “top 15” list.
7. Track your performance and adjust your SEO strategy
Just like an HVAC system, your HVAC SEO strategy needs regular check-ins to see if it’s working for your business.
You don’t need to be an SEO expert—just follow these tips to analyze and improve your search engine optimization work every 3–4 months:
- Search your target keywords and see where your website shows up in the results
- See if your website traffic is growing using Google Search Console and Google Analytics
- Update your educational content to keep it relevant and accurate
- Add new, high-quality content consistently to engage users and improve rankings
- Check your competitors’ website for new content that you can compete with
Search engines level the HVAC industry playing field. You don’t need a massive digital marketing budget to compete with big companies—just a solid SEO strategy, some support from experts, and a commitment to improving your online presence.