The heat, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) industry has flourished over the years with the popularity and accessibility of such equipment. In fact, it is acceptable to say that most homes today have some form of HVAC systems in place. Because of this, the HVAC equipment and services sector become one of the most in-demand in the United States.
Despite this, the industry is no exception when it comes to the economic impact of the pandemic. In fact, experts from the largest HVAC companies have observed a negative effect on their sales. According to Heating Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI), distributors saw a decrease in sales in April 2020 compared to 2019 figures. While sales slightly increased in June, there is still a single-digit decline compared to June 2019.
The Need for Search Engine Optimization
The Need for Search Engine OptimizationWith such an economic impact on the industry, any HVAC business owner may find it difficult to operate during these unprecedented times. This is true especially as people are taking precautionary measures to minimize contact with people outside their household.
Many avoid going out for unimportant reasons and disinfecting their things and space. Likewise, they refrain from letting service providers inside their homes to avoid the possibility of being infected. So, instead of having their regular HVAC system upkeep or maintenance procedures, they look for ways to do this themselves or they hold out until it is safer to have such services done.
This is one of the reasons why the HVAC industry is seeing a decline in sales. If you run an HVAC business, you are probably worrying about your operations because of the pandemic. However, there are marketing strategies you can implement to increase your leads. Search engine optimization is one of these techniques.
For the uninitiated, search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of making your website rank in search engine results, particularly Google. The main goal of this practice is to bring your site and pages closer to the first page, especially the top results. This can be done using a combination of a website revamp, meticulous keyword research, smart content generation and link building.
How HVAC SEO Can Help During the Pandemic
When you implement an effective SEO campaign, you can expect to see positive outcomes with your operations. Here are some of the most important ways HVAC SEO can help your business:
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Attract Potential Clients
With concerns about declining sales, one of the most relevant issues is the lack of clients seeking out the services and equipment your offer. The example given above shows why customers may refrain from getting their systems serviced. In the same way, interested consumers may avoid getting brand-new equipment or replacing old ones.
Because of this, you need to step up your game in promoting the services and equipment you offer. SEO can help you with that. As mentioned, the main purpose of this digital marketing tool is to have your site and pages rank higher in search engine results pages. So, when a prospective client uses Google to look for ‘air conditioning repair near me,’ for example, your service will come up in the search results.
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Provide Information About HVAC Services
HVAC SEO not only offers you a chance to rake in more clients but also to educate them about your services. Remember that the main premise of implementing an SEO strategy is to improve your website so that it ranks higher in search engine results. So, you can take this opportunity to level up your content.
As customers may opt to do cleaning and maintenance themselves, you may see a decline in your business. However, as an HVAC specialist, you know that having their systems handled by experts is always the best way to go, especially as one wrong move by an unexperienced hand can cause irreparable damages to HVAC systems.
Your website can help consumers aware of the risks of not having their systems serviced and to show the advantages of going to professionals for help. Your search engine optimized content can help direct users toward your website.
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Convert Visits to Leads and Sales
Speaking of leading customers from Google to your website, it is important to note that visits are a good thing in marketing, but successfully converting visitors into sales is a different matter. Remember that once visitors enter your page, you only have a few seconds to reel them in. This is where the overall quality of your website – not just your content – comes in.
The best way to ensure that visitors stay is to improve your website. Then, your web content should work to encourage them to engage with you in the form of comments, queries, as well as requests for demos, trials or free quotations. When this happens, you successfully turned your visitors to leads.
The next step you need to successfully execute is turning them into sales. While your web content and SEO strategy can play a role in convincing customer to do business with you, the quality of your customer service and HVAC offerings will be a deciding factor.
How HVAC SEO Works
Now that you know how search engine optimization can benefit your business, you want to make sure that you implement a strategy that will be fruitful for you. To create an effective campaign involving SEO, here are some of the things you need to do:
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Website Overhaul
Any digital marketing agency will tell you that you will need to improve your website before you can achieve success in your SEO-related endeavors. This is the reason why they always recommend doing a website audit first. This will give you an idea about the current state of your website and how optimized or not optimized it is. Specifically, this looks into your site’s potential to be discovered, crawled and indexed by a search engine’s crawler.
After an audit, you will know what you have been doing right and what you can do to improve them. Likewise, you will know disadvantageous practices and how to address them.
Aside from knowing what you can do in terms of optimization, an attempt to create an SEO campaign will lead you to take a closer look at your website. Above, we talked about how your content, pages, and entire site can be the hook, line and sinker that can convert visitors to sales.
Visitors can take one look at your page and decide to investigate further or simply leave. If you are a visitor, think about the things that can be a turn off from your site at once glance. Keep in mind that appearance and organization play a huge role in reeling in visitors. They can also read a few lines of your text and proceed based on how eye-catching your content is.
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Creation of Relatable Content
As your content also plays a role in persuading visitors to see more of your site and know more about your services, you need to make sure that your texts, images and videos are relatable for your target audience. This is where research comes into play. Your market research will tell you about your target market.
When it comes to HVAC, you may be catering to families, rental property owners and businesses. You need to create content that your target market can relate with. This, along with your branding, can influence the style and tone you will take for your content generation.
Research is also important when identifying keywords to incorporate into your metadata and content. You want to make sure that every keyword you use is high-quality with high search volume. After all, search engine crawlers will use such keywords to discover and index your page and site.
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Building Your Reputation
In SEO, your business’ reputation comes in two forms: public perception and authority. When it comes to your reputation in the eyes of the public and your target market, you will be working on establishing a positive image. In general, you want to garner good reviews and positive feedback. You can also take bad reviews as an opportunity to create a positive image. In marketing, all these can help promote your offerings.
Making your site an authority on HVAC is a more technical matter. When we say authority, we do not mean an expert on the topic, because being an HVAC service provider already means that you are a specialist.
In SEO, authority means that your website is recognized by other search engines, users and other websites as a trusted and popular source for information and even service. You can achieve a high-authority status by having more users engage with your site and having high-authority publish content that links back to yours.
This requires some outreach and networking efforts, as you will need to find high-authority websites to give such positive exposure to you.
A well-thought-out HVAC SEO strategy can definitely improve your business’ performance during the pandemic. By optimizing your content, pages, and site for search engines, you can make your website work for you. Make sure to work with a trusted digital marketing agency for an effective and efficient campaign.