As one of the nation’s leading HVAC digital marketing companies, 1SEO Digital Agency’s team works with HVAC contractors and home services providers across the country to help optimize the online presence of their businesses.
As the demand for trusted home service providers increases, along with new players in the HVAC markets around the country, it’s essential for industry professionals to conduct in-depth competitor analysis to see how their marketing measures up to the local competition from an organic standpoint across search engines like Google.
With all of the different opportunities to advertise on Google if you’re an HVAC company, such as Google’s Local Services Ads program and traditional PPC paid advertising, professionals within this space need to tap into every marketing opportunity to grow their businesses.
Today, we’re going to break down how to conduct a proper competitive SEO analysis for HVAC companies.
A winning SEO campaign starts on a local level, especially when it comes to home services contractors, and this process begins with a comprehensive assessment of the local competition to measure your successes and shortcomings to improve your SEO strategy moving forward. Let’s break down the main components of competitive analysis your business should focus on.
The first step is to create a list of the top HVAC industry competitors you’re up against on a local level. The easiest way to do so is to simply search on Google for “HVAC service near me” and see who comes up at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). If your company is ranking in the top spot for search queries such as “HVAC contractor near me,” then you’ll want to take note of the companies encroaching on your coveted position zero in the organic results.
Before we move forward, it’s important to note that this article aims to help develop your offensive internet marketing strategy, not defensive tactics. Whether you’re already ranking for the core keywords, you do not want to take your foot off the Google gas pedal.
Once you have a clear understanding of who your biggest threats are, the next step is to begin comparing the ranking pages at the top of Google’s SERP positions to the equivalent pages on your own website (side-by-side). This is where keyword research comes into play and what search terms your HVAC business needs to go after.
Remember, we’re only concerned with organic results right now, so don’t pay too much attention to your direct and indirect competitors’ PPC or paid advertising campaigns. What we are concerned with is assessing what your competitors web pages have that yours might be missing or lacking.
Here’s what you should be looking for as you assess your competitors’ webpages:
Next, your going to want to assess your competitors’ website designs across core pages. Take note of the content style, what trust/credibility factors are being used, distribution of call to actions, and the overall experience users have when landing on particular pages.
How do these aspects of your competitors’ websites compare to yours?
You’re also going to want to take a look at the headers of their content and the semantic structure they have in place. With HVAC web design, it’s all about creating content that is going to resonate with your target audience as quickly and painlessly as possible. You’ve only got a matter of seconds from the time they land on your page to build trust, authority, and credibility if you want to earn their business. Ask yourself if the competition is doing this better than you and make the necessary changes to your site to ensure the best possible user experience.
Then, you’re going to want to head back to Google to assess the competitions’ Google My Business (GMB) listings. What types of keywords are included on their GMB pages that relate to your company’s products or services. How about their phone number? Are they using dynamic tracking numbers for different campaigns?
If you’re familiar with 1SEO’s content, our experts emphasize the importance of having a robust GMB profile to gain a boost in the organic search rankings, especially when you’re looking to grow with local HVAC SEO.
While assessing their GMB pages, take note of the reviews coming in from their customers. Are they optimizing their responses? What keywords are they using when replying to customers?
Last but not least, it’s important to note that there are dozens of reliable tools available to conduct HVAC SEO analysis. Here are some of our agency’s favorite free and paid tools used for our HVAC seo services to analyze ranking factors and help our clients earn more organic market share overall.
First and foremost, if you’re not already familiar with or regularly using Google Analytics, our experts strongly recommend this is where you begin. Google Analytics is debatably the industry’s most trusted source for in-depth, high-quality data regarding your website’s visitors and traffic.
Another free SEO analysis tool that is critical to the success of your HVAC company is Google Search Console. This tool deals directly with search and optimization and is often regarded as an easier, more digestible tool for website owners to analyze their organic performance across Google’s search engine.
When you’re looking to take your SEO analysis to the next level, there are a wide variety of paid subscriptions available which help unlock insights not available from free tools like Google Analytics or Search Console.
One of our favorite tools to date, SEMrush offers users the opportunity to automate the SEO audit process in addition to tracking rankings and keyword performance from a local or national level and receive real-time updates about SERP performance. You can even use SEMrush to manage your social media presence, track your competitors’ campaigns, and develop a more powerful content marketing strategy.
Similar to the functions and features offered by SEMrush, Moz is an all-in-one SEO tool which can be used for keyword research, rank tracking, and to conduct in-depth website audits to bring technical SEO issues to light.
Ultimately, there’s no one-size fits all solution to local SEO for HVAC and home services companies and each contractor requires a different approach to their digital marketing strategy. Reach out to our search engine optimization experts for an instant SEO audit or free consultation today!
Author: Casey Quinn
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