HVAC Marketing for Dummies

With most marketing tactics, you’re not in complete control of the outcome. For example, you can set up your PPC ads “perfectly” today, but next week Google could make some sweeping algorithm changes that blow your plan to bits. But there is one element of your marketing plan that you can control: how you take care of your customers.

Listen, you can be a marketing guru with a gazillion dollar budget, but your competitors will eat you alive if they offer better customer service. Every time. Even if you’re less expensive.

Take Action on your HVAC Customer Service

• Be really good at what you do.
  
• Be exceedingly kind and professional while you’re doing it.
  

This is where a lot of HVAC shops get tripped up in their marketing strategy. A great website isn’t one that simply looks nice, although that’s important. No, a truly great website does its job: it converts leads into customers , which is a bit (read: a lot) more complicated that having pretty photos and a good color scheme.

According to research, 57% percent of website visits to HVAC companies come from mobile devices, and conversions fall by 20% for every one second delay in mobile page load. Plus, Google is now penalizing non-mobile siteson search engine results pages (SERP) and using mobile sites as the starting point for SERP rank. If you only make one change to your website strategy in the next six months, this is the change to make.

If you’ve heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but don’t really know what it means, you’re not alone. If you ask some impressed-with-themselves marketing geek to define it, you’ll be stuck in an hours-long conversation. Here’s the plain english version:

SEO increases the chance (optimizes) that Google (search engine) will display your website among a potential customer’s search results.

SEO involves several elements: keyword optimization, image optimization, backlinks , HTML analysis, structured data, security, and on and on. Since this post is titled “HVAC Marketing For Dummies,” I’ll keep it simple and focus on keywords and images.

Keywords: Marketing-speak for “the words and phrases people search for,” HVAC keywords include terms like furnace repair, duct cleaning, air conditioning, and heat pump.

You’ll want to include keywords all over your site—on landing pages, in blog posts, in the backend HTML—but only in meaningful ways. Making sure your website is (appropriately) keyword-rich makes it easier for search engines to match someone’s question with your answer. To really do this well, each page should be focused on only one target keyword. For instance, you should have separate pages for “furnace repair” and for “wireless thermostats.”

Protip: Include “HVAC [name of your town]” on your homepage and services pages. These are called “geo modifiers,” and when someone types in that phrase, they’re most likely ready to hire someone right now. So, it’d be good for your shop to show up in their search results.

Images: SEO isn’t just about words; photos and videos matter, too. Optimizing the visual elements of your website gives you yet another shot at being found by prospective customers.

While it’s important to have high-quality images, going overboard on file size can massively slow down your site’s load-time, which could ding your SERP rank. Image file size is determined by the file type, the physical dimensions of a photo, and the type of compression used. Your website should also allow for responsive images so they load quickly on mobile devices.

Where Google’s concerned, the information you provide about an image is every bit as important as the image itself. That information is called metadata. For example, the name of each image should be meaningful (not just IMG_1425.png) to help Google make sense of it. In addition, there’s a group of image-related tags collectively called alt attributes. The content of these tags display when your images don’t load or if someone’s using accessibility software, and they’re a great place to include (but not stuff) keywords:

A solid SEO strategy will put your website in front of more customers, but that process takes time. For more immediate results, you’ll need to invest in Google Ads. Here’s a primer on AdWords for HVAC companies.

Take Action on Your HVAC Website

• Pull up your website from your phone. Would you contact your shop?
• Visit Google’s Keyword Planner to determine what words are most beneficial for your HVAC business. (You’ll need an active AdWords account to use this powerful and free tool, or you can use our compiled HVAC keyword data here.)
• Using Google Analytics, determine your top five most-visited web pages. On each of those pages, update the image metadata.
• Take a look at your marketing budget. Are you allocating a decent amount for AdWords ($50-65/day)?
  

Google My Business (GMB) is an anomaly in our typical “you get what you pay for” world: It’s both free and useful.

When people search “heater repair near me,” Google will deliver a set of three results toward the top of the SERP called the “map pack” or “3-pack.” Most people won’t bother looking past those results. To have a shot at being included in the 3-pack, you must be on GMB.

Take Action on your HVAC Google My Business Page

• If you don’t already have a Google My Business account, create one.
• If you have an account but haven’t updated it in the past 90 days, do a quick audit:
  • Are your business hours and contact information still accurate?
  • Have you responded to every review?
  • Does your profile include some high-quality, interesting photos?
  • Are you using posts to provide current maintenance tips and promotions to your customers?
  • Is your GMB map listing embedded on at least one page on your website?

In 2018, more than t hree-quarters of Americans have at least one social accou nt , and almost all of those folks are on m ultiple networ ks. What’s more, recent estimates indicate the average person will spend more than five years of their life using soc ial media. So, yes: Your customers are on social networks— ready-made platforms where you can engage with them to grow your business.

Social media has all sorts of benefits for HVAC companies:

• Boost SERP rankings.
• Manage your reputation.
• Offer customer care.
• Advertise for very little money.
  

I know, I know: You don’t have time to mess with social media. But it’s where your customers are, and they’re terrific places to introduce new people to your company and to stay engaged with your current service customers. I recommend HVAC shops use Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. In that order.

Take Action on your HVAC Social Media Accounts

Honestly, you have more important things to do than comb through the backend of your website analyzing your keywords and dealing with meta-tags, managing your GMB profile, and coming up with great content for your social accounts. we’d love to help. Start for free today!