Search Engine Optimization for HVAC & Plumbing Contractors
Search Engine Optimization for Home Service Companies
You're trying to take your roofing or garage door shop to the next level, but it's such a struggle to get your website on the first page of Google. You've probably already tried all sorts of different "SEO experts" that have taken you for thousands of dollars, and left you with almost nothing to show for it. You know that getting page one visibility is a huge opportunity for your business, but you just can't seem to get there.
These are not equally important.
When Google, Bing, and Yahoo scan your site, they expect to find certain types of words about your business.
When a customer searches for something like "furnace repair" and finds your site, do you solve their problem? What does your customer do?
What do your site visitors do once they find you? Do they go to your competitor site? Or do they call you?
Do you provide high-quality content for your site's visitors that help solve their problem?
This is a bit nerdy. Meta data, schema code, Google Tags, and more.
Is your company (and website) respected so that other websites point to it?
Does your site perform flawlessly on a mobile phone?
For those who don't care to read, watch this video.
For those who'd rather skim through for the important parts, keep scrolling.
If you want more detail about SEO for your plumbing, roofing, pest control, or HVAC business,
click here.
SEO has some amazing benefits. If you're a home services company, those benefits can be tremendous. Here's why.
Right now, nearly 81% of all people will go online before they purchase anything. 3 out of 4 customers will choose a business that's local to them. 31% are more likely to choose a business that has favorable online reviews. On top of that customers are far more likely to choose a company on the first or second page of Google than click on an ad (like AdWords or Bing Ads).
In other words, SEO can absolutely pay off for your service business.
While SEO is great a producing great, long term leads for your company, it's also not the fastest to develop. To help this make sense, we'll use an analogy.
Imagine you've got some spare acreage, some extra time, and you'd really enjoy having fresh corn all summer. So, you decide grow a crop of corn.
Easy right?
First, you have to prep the soil. (You can't be planting your seed over rocks and roots, right?) Also, you might need to grade it so that water doesn't pool anywhere.
Then, you'll have to apply nutrient. If you're especially well-versed, you might do a soil analysis first to understand what's most effective to add in.
So, after the soil is tilled and weeded and graded and amended... sure, let's add the seed.
And wait.
Wait some more.
Add some water. And some more nutrient.
Keep waiting.
Finally, a stalk emerges! Fresh corn!
Well, not exactly. The plant still has to grow. You'll see be applying nutrient, and water, and keeping away weeds...
You get the idea.
Growing corn takes time. So does SEO.
According to Google, measurable SEO results can take between 4-12 months. So, that's 4-12 months that you're waiting, doing all the right things, and waiting for the corn to produce.
So, it's slow. Powerful, but slow.
Second, SEO is probably the most transparent form of advertising a customer can rely on. By that we mean that SEO will only be as effective as your reputation. If your company is known for providing rock-star service to your customers, and your community thinks highly of you, SEO will work insanely well for you. (So, as a customer, you learn to trust the organic results in Google.) If your reputation isn't the best, then ranking very highly on Google or Bing just may not happen very easily.
It's hard to fake your way into great Google rankings.
As with all marketing efforts, you want to know what you're getting. It doesn't make much sense to throw money at advertising if you don't understand how it will help you.
First, it's important to understand that most of the time, your customer will not search for you by name. (In marketing, we call this a 'branded search'.) Some massive service companies may be able to afford the name recognition required to create branded searches, and good for them. For almost everyone else, we're talking about 'unbranded searches'.
Here's what an unbranded search looks like for a customer:
"I need a plumber" , or
"[city] hvac repair" , or
"how do I repair a water heater" , or
"ac not cooling suction line warm"
Do you notice that none of them talk about a preferred company? These are called 'unbranded searches'.
By leveraging SEO, you focus on creating websites and strategies that perform well for these types of unbranded searches. Right now, there's roughly 100,000 searches per month that are unbranded.. and that's only for "plumber near me". Each month, hundreds of thousands of customers look to Google, Bing, and Yahoo, use an unbranded search, and are looking for a service technician.
If you're not focusing on SEO efforts, you're completely missing those customers.
So, here's an actual screenshot of SEO-ranked service companies in St Louis, Missouri:
Notice these companies are ranked, and they're sandwiched in by ads (obvious by the "ad" button next to the business website). These ads are created by Google AdWords, and not be SEO work. (AdWords costs you money each time someone clicks on the ad, whereas SEO is free for each click.)
According to Google, measurable SEO results can take between 4-12 months. So, that's 4-12 months that you're waiting, doing all the right things, and waiting for the corn to produce.
So, it's slow. Powerful, but slow.
Second, SEO is probably the most transparent form of advertising a customer can rely on. By that we mean that SEO will only be as effective as your reputation. If your company is known for providing rock-star service to your customers, and your community thinks highly of you, SEO will work insanely well for you. (So, as a customer, you learn to trust the organic results in Google.) If your reputation isn't the best, then ranking very highly on Google or Bing just may not happen very easily.
It's hard to fake your way into great Google rankings.
Leveraging SEO is highly beneficial for HVAC, Plumbers, or any other service industry company. It's not for everyone, but for those companies with the stability and reputation to begin, you'll see a noticeable increase in your call volume.
At Levergy, we work hard to maximize each of those seven SEO variables. While it's not magic, our proven process has delivered these results over and over again for our clients.
On top of that, we take the SEO benefits to an entirely new level when we combine PPC advertising and Social Media Management into the mix. Together, we've created a powerhouse system that really only does one thing: get results.
If you're looking for a HVAC marketing or plumber marketing company that gets results, we'd love to talk to you.
"... they always go above and beyond the call of duty. I'm impressed with their work ethic, loyalty, and integrity."
- Russell Furr, President
"[Levergy] understood my specific needs and got the work done—bypassing all the unnecessary nonsense. And now business is booming!"
- Steven Douglass, President
Your mileage may vary.
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