The HVAC Marketing Guide for small and medium sized businesses

This article details how we help local HVAC companies increase local leads, visibility, ad spend ROI, branding, and more.

Whether you're a DIY HVAC entrepeneur, have an agency and want to keep them honest, or looking to hire one.

This article will help.

Here's what you will learn from this article:

1. The basics of HVAC marketing and branding
2. HVAC marketing research and planning
3. HVAC website leads
4. HVAC map rankings and leads
5. HVAC online reviews
6. HVAC paid advertising
7. HVAC social media

Good luck!

The HVAC Marketing has Changed

The era of depending solely on first-page rankings for your website to yield 5-7 days of work is over. It's essential to embrace omnichannel marketing—being visible, clicked on, and contacted from all corners of the internet.

Local SEO extends beyond just Google Maps; it encompasses Bing Maps, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube as well. While Google captures 89% of all search traffic—both organic and paid—these alternative search engines play a crucial role in generating leads and fostering online word-of-mouth referrals through shares and recommendations.

Additionally, you need to excel in the online review landscape. This isn't limited to Google; it includes all social media platforms and job listing sites such as Yelp and Angi's List. Every 5-star rating and every upvote counts.

Step 1: Research Your Market and Keywords First!

HVAC Keywords Drive Clicks, Calls, and Revenues

You can't know how much you can or should grow until you know the true size of your local HVAC services market. The best way to do that is to conduct SEO keyword research. You'll need an SEO expert and a software like SemRush to do this as Google Keywords takes too long.

Table key and Pro TIPs:

• volume/mo: how many people are searching for this keyword in your county every month
• difficulty: 0-20 will take 1-6 months, 21-50 can take 3-12 months, above 50 can take 1-2 years to achieve.
• average sale will help you with the service area market revenue assessment in the final column.
• cpc: is the cost if you were to launch a gutter ad targeted at that single keyword.
• monthly gutter revenues: this is the formula of total searches x average sale.
• Once you find all values, choose 10-15 keywords to start on first.

Choose 15 HVAC SEO Keywords

Decision time.

Choose 10 keywords that have high volume with a difficulty of less than 30, and 5 that have huge volume with higher difficulty. These are the keywords that all your marketing will focus on from here on out. This is what your Google Business Profile, website, paid ads, social media, everything, has content, images, and reporting related to.

Google Business Profile Updating to Dominate Map Packs



The top 3 companies listed in Google's Map Pack get 126% more traffic (clicks, calls) than the ranks of 4-10.

1. Search google for each of the 10-15 keywords. Make note of the companies with the top 3 listings.
2. Record competitors number of reviews so you know how much you need to get to stay at the top 3.
3. Read their reviews to see what kind of reviews matter.

KEEP READING IT'S IMPORTANT.

How many HVAC reviews do you need to be top 3 of Google Maps?

Now it's time to start collecting data on your competitor's online reputation. You will never show on the top of Google Maps if you can't beat them in frequency and/or total amount of reviews. Just hard HVAC marketing and local SEO facts, folks!

The table below is what we use to find how many you need, how frequent, and how long it will take to get to the top 3.

Types of Reviews they are getting

By analyzing the good and bad review content, you can find their strengths and weaknesses. Market your strengths against their weaknesses during bidding and estimate wars. Don't play fair, this is HVAC war!

What category and services should I list in my HVAC Google Business Profile?

Streamlining your HVAC services and aligning your Google Business Profile with top competitors isn’t difficult—it just requires some strategic research. Start by analyzing the services offered by the highest-ranked HVAC businesses in your area. Compile all the services they provide into a spreadsheet, and remove duplicates. Organize the list by service type—like AC repair, furnace installation, HVAC maintenance, or air duct cleaning—and prioritize those most relevant to your own business.



Next, make sure your Google Business Profile highlights these key services, focusing on both primary and secondary categories. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel—take inspiration from industry leaders and expand on what they’re doing. Offer the core services your competitors provide, but be sure to emphasize your unique selling points, whether that’s faster response times, better warranties, or a broader range of energy-efficient solutions.

By aligning your profile with top competitors and showcasing what makes your HVAC company stand out, you’ll attract more consistent reviews, grow your service areas, and expand your customer base. This approach helps you stay competitive while also positioning your business as a unique, trusted provider in the HVAC market.

HVAC Website, HVAC SEO, and Leads

If your HVAC website isn't producing 25, 50 or more leads a month something is wrong. Here's how to do it yourself or you can have us do it for you in 10 days or less.

Home Page Structure of a HVAC Website

Your HVAC website’s homepage should be clean, fast, and laser-focused on converting visitors into leads. Start with a strong hero image—something that features your team working on-site or highlights a completed HVAC project. This visual not only catches the eye but also builds trust by showing potential customers your professionalism and expertise.

Right below that hero image, prominently display Google reviews. Social proof is a powerful tool, and showcasing real customer feedback adds instant credibility. Include a clear call-to-action like “Leave a Google Review” to encourage more customer interaction.

Next, introduce your business with a brief but engaging paragraph—or even better, a video—that tells your company’s story and communicates your unique value proposition. Follow this with a "Learn More" button linking to your About Us page for those who want more details about your HVAC company.

Break down your core services into residential and commercial HVAC, providing a concise description for each and linking to more detailed service pages. Conclude with a section featuring your latest blog posts to keep content fresh and improve your site's SEO. Finally, make it easy for potential customers to reach you by including a contact form and an embedded map of your location.



This well-structured layout not only improves user experience but also boosts your website’s SEO performance, making it more likely to convert visitors into paying HVAC clients.

HVAC Website Service Pages

Every HVAC service you provide should have its own dedicated page to boost visibility and ensure search engines recognize your specialization in each service. Core services like AC installation, heating system repair, duct cleaning, furnace maintenance, thermostat installation, and emergency HVAC services should each be listed on a separate page.

Each page should focus on your primary service areas and include high-quality images that reflect your actual work. If you don't yet have custom photos, you can start with stock images but plan to replace them with real photos from completed projects over time. This will make your site stand out and appear more credible.

This strategy helps each service rank individually for relevant keywords, ensuring that potential customers can easily find you when they search for specific HVAC solutions. It also strengthens your SEO, positioning your business as an expert in multiple HVAC areas, which in turn increases your chances of capturing leads.

HVAC Gallery Pages

One of the most powerful (and often overlooked) sections of your HVAC website is the “Our Work” or “HVAC Gallery” page. This isn’t just a collection of pretty pictures—it’s a showcase of your expertise in action!

Think before-and-after shots of major HVAC installs, ductwork transformations, and emergency furnace or AC repairs. Action photos of your team troubleshooting a faulty system or installing energy-efficient upgrades give potential customers a behind-the-scenes look at your skills. These real-life examples help them visualize the quality and professionalism they’ll get when hiring you.

🔥 SEO Tip: For each image, include a detailed description and SEO-optimized alt tags. Highlight key services (e.g., "air conditioning repair in Dallas") and location details to boost your rankings. The right tags not only help with search visibility but also reinforce your authority in your service area.

A well-structured gallery page builds trust, showcases expertise, and helps turn browsers into buyers. Don’t just tell people what you can do—show them!

City Landing page

Don’t get lured into paying extra for agencies that create multiple service pages for every city in your HVAC service area. You don’t need separate pages for each HVAC service in every city you cover. Instead, the smarter approach is to create one city landing page for each service area that summarizes all your key HVAC services and links back to the more detailed service pages you’ve already built.

Here’s an efficient method: If you operate in 20 cities, all you need are 20 city landing pages, each highlighting services like air conditioning installation, heating repairs, and duct cleaning with links to more detailed pages. Some agencies may push you to create 4 service pages per city, resulting in an unnecessary 80 pages that could clutter your site and potentially hurt your SEO. Google may even flag this as spam, especially if there’s low search volume for “HVAC in [city].”



Instead, it’s far more effective to invest in top-notch, highly optimized service pages for your key offerings, and then build city landing pages for the highest-value, high-traffic keywords. This saves you time, money, and ensures that you capture leads from the right cities without overwhelming your site with redundant content.

Privacy, Terms, and 404 Pages

Every website must have Policy, Privacy, Terms, and a 404 page. Without it, Google thinks you're avoiding compliance and don't have a reputable company. Your designer or agency should be able to build these 3-4 pages in a single hour.

HVAC Blogs

Every HVAC website should feature at least three blogs to provide valuable information while boosting your digital marketing efforts. Having these blogs is especially crucial for running effective Facebook ads and enhancing your local SEO. When creating content, it’s essential to focus on the specific local area you service. For example, if you're based in Austin, TX, here are some blog ideas that will not only educate your audience but also improve your online presence:

• 5 Signs Your Austin Home Needs a HVAC Inspection
• The Best Pipe Materials for Austin's Water Supply
• How Austin's Climate Affects Your HVAC – And What You Can Do About It
• Why Regular Drain Cleanings Are Critical for Austin Homeowners
• The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a HVAC Contractor in Austin

These topics are designed to provide insights that Austin homeowners will find valuable while also showcasing your expertise. Regularly publishing blogs like these will help boost your local SEO, making it easier for potential customers in your area to find your HVAC services. By addressing local concerns, you'll position yourself as an expert in the community, leading to increased trust, leads, and ultimately, growth.

Hosting, Security, Compliance, and Maintenance

If your HVAC website is missing the "https" in the URL, that's a serious red flag. The "not secure" warning, which appears when your site lacks an SSL certificate, not only drives visitors away but also signals to Google that your site may be untrustworthy. This can hurt your rankings and reduce the likelihood of potential clients contacting you.

At our agency, we handle every aspect of your website from design and content to hosting and security. We'll make sure your site is equipped with SSL encryption to eliminate the "not secure" warning, improving both your trustworthiness and search engine rankings. Additionally, we’ll implement an ADA/WCAG compliance widget, making sure your site is accessible to people with disabilities, which is crucial for expanding your customer base and avoiding potential legal liabilities. As a bonus, ADA compliance might even qualify for tax deductions, offering financial benefits along with improved accessibility.

Your site should be a reliable, professional resource that builds confidence with every visit—securing it with the right technology is the first step.

On-Page SEO Optimization for your HVAC Website

Every photo or video on your HVAC website should be optimized and compressed to ensure fast load times. Large media files can drastically slow down your website, leading potential visitors to abandon the page before it even fully loads. With attention spans shrinking—about 8 seconds on average—and most websites taking 3-5 seconds to load, ensuring your site is as fast as possible is crucial.

Improving your page speed keeps users engaged longer, which boosts the chances of converting visitors into HVAC leads. Faster load times also reduce bounce rates, a key factor in improving your Google rankings. The result? More traffic, better search visibility, and more HVAC leads flowing into your business.

Remember, HVAC marketing isn’t an overnight fix. It requires consistent effort and attention to detail. If you need help compressing images or handling any aspect of your website or marketing, contact us today, and we’ll take care of the hard work for you!

How much does an SEO Optimized Website Cost in 2025?

DO NOT GET SCAMMED! HVAC websites should not cost $10k - $25k. Here's the breakdown.

Let's say you have 10 cities and you offer seamless gutters, gutter screens, gutter cleaning, and gutter and fascia repair. You would need all of the following:

• Pricing for design, content, and optimization should be $100/page.
• Standard ($700): Home, About, Contact, Gallery, Terms, Privacy, 404.
• $100 per Service Page: usually 5-15 pages.
• $100 per City Page; dependent upon your service area size.
• $500 per year for hosting, security, maintenance, and compliance.

99% of websites we build in 10 days will cost $2,000 - $3,300.

Step 3: Optimize Profiles

Once your website is live and running, it's time to start optimizing every possible online profile you have and creating more.

Add 40-70 new ways to be found

Your agency will likely use a Local SEO software, we use SemRush, to create and update/optimize 40-70 online profiles and social media so that every profile has the same descriptions, business information. This process known as NAP (name, address, phone number) is vital for Local Map rankings and overall visibility.

Example: You can see that Ace Plumbing, Heating and Air has 28 missing profiles which we'll create in 1-5 days, and then fix 15 listings which have issues. By completing and fixing all of these you'll likely see up to 200-300% online visibility growth along with monthly posting to your online profiles.

Step 4: Social Media and Content Gameplan

Like the Maps Pack, you need to research your top 5 competitors for the 2-4 major social media platforms you want to dominate. Here's what we do and you should consider finding:

• How many followers do they have?
• How often do they post?
• What do they post about?
• Do they use videos, pictures, or both?

Posting to Social Media and Google Business Profile

Every single platform; Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, want to be used.

But they also hate spam.  DO NOT SPAM updates. Here's how to do it:

• Take a picture or video at the job site in the morning
• Take a picture or video at the job site when done.
• Send them to marketing.
• Get them to combine them, edit, and post online.
• Posts should be tagged for the city.
• Posts should talk about the city and type of work.
• Include the pictures or videos.

Each Platform is Unique

• Only post business hour updates, new services, new territories, or job site summaries.
• Facebook is about entertainment. Keep the videos and images coming, but go light on the content.
• LinkedIn is B2B and can get you a few commercial jobs. Keep the content more professional.
• Instagram is about images and hashtags only.
• YouTube is about realism, so create short videos and then upload them, but also combine for longer content.

Step 5: HVAC Advertising

There are many different platforms to do paid advertising for your gutter business, but here's the real truth.

HVAC Google Smart Campaigns

• They are super fast and cost effective.
• They promote your listed services on your profile.
• They show them in your service cities.
• Budget should be $250 - $500 per month.
• They run about $0.30 to $3.00 per click.
• Once you have a solid 50 or even 75 reviews, switch to CPC ads.

HVAC Google CPC Campaigns

• Look at those 10-15 keywords you chose as a focus.
• Now segment them into HVAC installation vs HVAC repairs.
• Always run HVAC installation ads, as repairs are for local SEO searches.
• Starting budget should be $500 or more.
• Keep them CPC costs at $10 - $22 per click; based on competition locally.
• Give them option to call directly or visit a single landing page.
• The landing page on your website should have no top navigation. They get stuck, call, or bounce.
• Insert a google tag manager into the page for conversions.
• Monitor the keywords every day as Google likes to "add and optimize" but they put in crap keywords.

Gutter Yelp Ads

• Do not advertise on Yelp.
• If you don't have the 50 or more reviews, it's a waste.
• If your competitors have a lot more reviews, they get the call.
• Searchers/Customers are largely looking for "repairs only" and have limited budgets.
• Those spam estimates are about 5:1 ratio of real-time calls.
• The upgrade costs to get your Ad above competitors is insane.

HVAC Facebook Ads

• More clicks but clicks are from curious locals not buyers.
• Over 70% of FB ads we see collect more repairs, so be prepared to upsell.
• CPC is usually similar to Google, but lower than Yelp.
• Facebook Profile and Messenger need to be ready and you have to respond within 10-30 minutes.

How to Get more 5-Star HVAC Reviews

Without Google reviews you will not rank on Google Maps and your HVAC advertising will fail. You have to get a consistent 2-5 reviews or more a month if you want to dominate the territory, but if we hired you and you did repairs too, we'd have a goal of 10+ every month. Here's some additional tips we could help with:



• Google Reviews shown on home page under top hero section with a button linking to your reviews.
• QR Code on your business card for immediate review generation.
• Practice asking for 5-star reviews
• Walk the client through your work at the end and evaluate if you should ask then.
• Track customers and call them 1-3 months after asking for a review.
• Have an email template with your link in the template so that when clicked they can quickly give a review.
• Place that 5-star review link on your phone's notes. Then paste in a text to clients.
• Respond with 24 hours or less to all reviews, ideally it's 4-8 business hours.

Yelp Reviews

Manage the profile, update photos, but don't run ads or ask for reviews. If they find out you're asking for reviews, your profile will be deleted forever.

Facebook Reviews

Not everyone has the ability to give Google reviews, so if they can't ask them to give you a Facebook review. This will help your social media strategy and future ads.

Client Coaching

We'll coach you on scripts and provide you with brochures and flyers mentioned in the next section.

Step 7: Physical Marketing Must haves

From yard signs to flyers, yes, just like real estate, you need handouts and stand-ups. Let's go over the must have physical marketing every HVAC company needs to have.

HVAC Business Cards

Your HVAC business card should do more than introduce you—it should work for you! Make it stand out with a bold design that reflects your brand and include two impactful QR codes. One leads to your website for easy service exploration, while the other showcases your glowing reviews, proving you're the HVAC expert. It’s a mini marketing machine in your pocket!

Branded HVAC Yard Signs

Ask your HVAC customers to place a yard sign while the installation is ongoing, and offer them a small discount for keeping it up for an additional week. These signs are affordable to produce and can be discarded at any time, making them a cost-effective way to increase local visibility.

HVAC Neighborhood Handouts

Target homeowners, HOAs, and businesses with similar budgets and preferences to ensure a smooth, repeatable sales and installation process. After completing a HVAC job, knock on a few doors in the neighborhood, introduce yourself, and hand out flyers we create that say, "Just helped your neighbors" with your contact info for future HVAC services. Yes, door-to-door outreach still works!

Vehicle Wraps

Your company vehicles are like mobile billboards, constantly in view while parked at job sites, at your office, or driving through town. Instead of settling for a simple magnet on the door, invest fully in a professional vehicle wrap. A well-branded wrap ensures your HVAC business is visible to potential clients 24/7, building brand recognition and credibility. It's a one-time investment that pays off by turning your fleet into eye-catching advertisements, whether you're on the road or parked in a neighborhood.

Unconventional HVAC Advertising

Use Other Contractors

While other contractor referrals bite into your profits with their referral fees, it keeps you busy. So go ahead and build relationships with all of the following industries:

• Painters
• Landscapers
• Roofers
• General Contractors
• Local Home Builders
• Electricians

Each of them see the outside of the home and may notice foundation or water damage, or even possibly see hanging gutters needing some of your gutter love.

How Much does HVAC Marketing Cost in 2025?

1-time Fees:

• HVAC SEO Website: $2,000 - $3,300
• Local Marketing and SEO Setup: $250 - $500
• Branding, Design, Collateral: $300 - $1,000

Monthly Fees:

• Full Marketing: $1,500 - $2,500
• Paid Ads Budget: $500 - $2,500

Our Agency offers custom pricing based on territory size and needs. This way we have turn-key repeatable solutions but based on your brand, competitors, and individual needs for growth.