SEO Ranking Factors for Plumbing and HVAC Companies

Even for experienced marketers, search engine optimization (SEO) ranks right up there with Stonehenge, Bigfoot and the Holy Grail as one of the world’s most compelling mysteries.

Okay, maybe it’s not that mysterious. But SEO – the process of optimizing a website so that it appears higher up in search engine results pages (SERPs) – is still pretty complicated. By some measures, there could be 200 or more individual factors used by Google to determine page ranking. 

As if that wasn’t challenging enough on its own, Google changes its ranking factors thousands of times per year. They’re constantly tinkering to make the search engine more effective at bringing users what they’re actually looking for. 

Luckily, you don’t need to keep track of every single change or understand every ranking factor to effectively optimize your website for search. There’s a handful that will move the needle much more than others. We’ll explain four of them and offer specific tips to help you nail each one.

Backlinks

In SEO lingo, a backlink is a link to your website from another page. Backlinks have been an important component of search engine optimization since the industry’s earliest days, but search engines have become a lot more sophisticated since that era. Quantity of backlinks matters, but quality matters even more. You want links to your site from high quality domains, websites that have been around a while and have established authority in their niche.

In other words, a link that comes from a local newspaper or business journal will be better for your SEO than a link from your cousin’s fishing blog. To get reputable links, try to work with authoritative businesses and directory sites in your field.

Meta tags

Think of meta tags as guideposts within the structure of your site. They explain to the search engine the purpose of each element of your website. The most important meta tags for SEO are:

• Header (<H1> & <H2>) tags. These identify headers within the page, which search engines use to pick up clues on what the site is about.
• Title (<title>) tags specify the name of the site.
• Meta description tags describe the function of the site. These are the short page descriptions that appear under a page link on a SERP.
• Alt text tags on images define what is seen in an image with text.

Note: meta tags are part of the HTML code of your site and require knowledge of basic PHP or HTML. In other words: if you’re new to website management or that last sentence sounded like a foreign language, you should probably get an expert to help.

Content

One thing we know for sure that search engines like is fresh, relevant content. For many marketers, this takes the form of a company blog, regularly updated with a mix of news and helpful sales information for prospects and customers. 

With apologies to those reading before lunch, the content framework used by most successful SEO marketers is EAT:

• Expertise. Do you have advanced knowledge of the subject? If you’re a plumbing or HVAC shop with even a bit of experience, this part should come naturally.
• Authoritativeness. This defines how strong of a solution or view you provide in the content. People want an expert to tell them exactly what to do – particularly when it comes to HVAC or plumbing issues.
• Trustworthiness. Search engines want to emphasize content from a real source, not a mysterious organization or unknown username.

To make sure your page lives up to EAT standards, always include bylines and contact information within your content. It’s also a good idea to be clear and upfront about the purpose of the content you create. Also be sure you’re actually helping readers solve an important problem.

Google Business Profile

Whenever someone searches for your company name or type, they’re almost always presented with a few listings for similar businesses. These listings are drawn from Google Maps, which uses data from your Google Business Profile. If you haven’t already claimed and updated your Google Business listing, it’s an important step for local SEO. Google business listings are among the first things people see when using search engines to find a product or service in their area.

And if you do have a business listing on Google, make sure it’s updated and optimized. Add and change photos on your listing frequently. Encourage happy customers to leave positive reviews and ratings, which will reflect well on your shop – especially if there’s competitors with incomplete profile information or negative reviews.

Final thoughts on SEO ranking factors for plumbing and HVAC

Unless it’s your full-time job, you’re probably never going to master search engine optimization. And you don’t need to – with a tight focus on the most important SEO ranking factors, you can improve your site’s position on SERPs and bring in more traffic, which in turn drives more qualified leads.

However, if you want to leave SEO and other key digital marketing activities to a team of experts that have helped many other companies like yours, hiring an agency or consultant is your best bet. At Levergy, we’ll create a custom plan for your needs that uses important SEO principles to increase your visibility and ultimately, grow your business.

Interested? Schedule a call now with our team.