According to one recent study, over 90% of all online experiences between a business and its customers still begin with a search engine like Google.
If you’re the owner and operator of an HVAC contracting business, you might not necessarily think of yourself as an “online” operation. After all, the service you’re performing is very rooted in the real world – HVAC is the type of thing that people shouldn’t have to think too much about very often.
But if someone’s AC unit goes out in the middle of the summer, they need help. If a business wants to cut costs by optimizing their heating and cooling to lower utility bills, they can’t do it alone. They’re going to turn to the Internet to help find the steady hand that can guide them through this process.
If you have a strong online presence, you increase the chances that the hand they find is yours. When they take to Google and search for the “best HVAC contractor in [zip code]”, you want yours to be the website they find. As they’re doing research to see what their options are, you want to be seen as a trusted authority thanks to the relevant blogs and social media posts you’ve already written.
Thankfully, getting to that point isn’t necessarily difficult – it’s just that there are a number of important things you’ll need to keep in mind along the way.
Why Your Online Presence Matters
One of the most critical things to understand about your online presence as an HVAC professional is that you’re talking about so much more than just what amounts to a “virtual business card.”
According to one recent study, approximately 98% of consumers say they read online reviews before making a decision on which business to purchase from. A further 46% of those consumers say that reviews are a key part in their decision-making process.
Those reviews are out there whether you like it or not. What do you think will happen if they’re more negative than positive?
According to another recent study, about 94% of people say that negative social media comments have convinced them to avoid working with a company. People are likely already talking about your HVAC business on social media. What do you think will start to happen if you’re not participating in the conversation?
This is all before you even get into the idea of “near me” searches and local search engine optimization (SEO). Consider the fact that:
- When someone searches for a business like yours “near me” on a site like Google, about 80% of those searches convert.
- Another recent study indicated that about 62% of customers will outright ignore a business without a web presence at all.
- All told, about 46% of the searches that happen on Google are specifically for local businesses – meaning that people who live and work in the same areas you operate in are on the hunt for a provider like yours right now.
Even if you haven’t necessarily worked to create it, your business has an online presence right now. If you’re not actively working to control and shape that presence, it could easily be doing more harm than good.
Therefore, it’s absolutely in your best interest to pull out all the stops and make it the best online presence that you can. The effort will be rewarded in the form of a steady stream of new customers moving forward.
Online Reviews and the Power of Reputation Management
Especially when you’re operating in a service-based business like an HVAC contractor, you need to focus on the review and testimonial portion of your online presence. People who are in “research mode” don’t just want to know what you can do in a technical sense. At a certain high level, the bullet points that describe HVAC contractors probably all look the same. People will go deeper when deciding who to go with and online reviews will be a big part of that.
When you perform work that customers are satisfied with, ask them to post about it on social media or leave positive reviews on online directories. If you have a job that went incredibly well or that had particularly positive results, record a testimonial about it for your website.
These social proof points matter because the more of them you have, the more people will start to believe in your services. It’s the modern day, digital equivalent of “word of mouth.”
This is also part of the reason why, whenever you can, you’ll want to create content that establishes yourself as a trusted authority in the HVAC space.
Is there some industry-related breaking news item that you have a unique take on? Write a blog post about it.
Do you get a lot of the same questions over and over again? Create a document that you’ll publish online that can proactively answer those questions to show people that you know what you’re talking about. Add these Questions and Answers to your Google Business Profile.
The more of this type of content you create, the more people will start to recognize you as an authority. That, coupled with those positive online reviews, will start to provide a vivid picture of who you are and what you’re capable of.
Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, and Beyond
Creating that type of content will also help enormously when it comes to search engine optimization, or SEO for short. These are the cues and signals that engines like Google use to determine what order businesses rank in when someone conducts a search online.
The better you are at SEO, the more likely it is that when someone searches for “HVAC contractor near me,” yours is the website they immediately go to.
According to another recent study, the number one result on Google gets approximately 27.6% of all clicks on a page – just to give you an indication of exactly how important this is.
The more content you create, the more opportunities your business will have to rank for all your desired keywords. You can also optimize your website in a variety of ways, including through things like:
- Conducting keyword research to help make sure you’re targeting the right, competitive keywords in the first place.
- Naturally using those keywords in as many places as you can. This includes not just the titles and headers of web pages, but also in meta descriptions and URLs as well.
- Creating valuable, engaging, and informative content that is targeted for your precise audience as often as you’re able to do so.
- Making sure that your website is mobile friendly and responsive on devices like smartphones and tablets.
- Optimizing the load times of all your pages so that content is available as quickly as possible. Pay particular attention to those parts of your site with a lot of images or videos.
- Creating unique pages for each area that you operate in, even if they’ll largely be saying the same thing. They’re still a great opportunity to rank for your business and the name of a specific city that you want to target.
As your SEO gets stronger, your visibility will increase in search engines like Google. As you get more customers, you’ll be able to earn more positive mentions on social media and more positive online reviews.
This will start to generate its own momentum after a time – your positive online presence will only get stronger and stronger, creating even more new customers and clients. It’s just that you need to put in that work and focus on the right areas today so that you can start enjoying those benefits tomorrow.
A Stronger Online Presence Starts with Surefire Local
In the end, it’s important to acknowledge that it won’t be any one of these techniques that allows you to build the strong online presence you need as an HVAC contractor. It will be all of them, working together to create the over-arching strategy you need to make an impact with the right person at the right time.
When someone goes looking for assistance with their HVAC, and they still aren’t sure where to begin, you want yours to be the content they find. When someone is comparing one provider to the next, you want the impression you give off to be that of a respected authority. This isn’t something that you “do once and forget about.” It takes work and dedication – which can be problematic, since marketing yourself will never be your full-time job.
That’s where Surefire Local comes into play. As an all-in-one marketing platform, Surefire Local puts the tools you need to create a stronger online reputation at your fingertips. From search engine optimization to content marketing to reputation management and beyond, everything needed to make an impact is in one place – freeing up as much of your valuable time as possible, so you can spend it creating better relationships with your customers.
If you’d like to find out more information about the types of essential strategies that you can use to build a better online presence as an HVAC contractor, or if you’d just like to discuss your own needs with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t hesitate to contact the Surefire Local team today. You can also click here to schedule a Surefire Local demo so that you can see what this powerful all-in-one marketing platform can do for you.