As competition heats up in the online marketing scene, it leaves small HVAC businesses at a considerable disadvantage. Huge companies with almost limitless marketing budgets seem to dominate the search results.
And they guard their positions with the ferocity of a fire-breathing dragon. Trying to unseat these giants from the SERPs can prove challenging or next to impossible.
Luckily, you don’t have to wrestle a fire-breathing dragon or have deep pockets to grow your HVAC business. Not when you can incorporate long-tail keywords into your HVAC digital marketing strategies.
But what are long-tail keywords, and why are they important for small business SEO for HVAC?
Introduction to Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are search terms with relatively low monthly searches. In most cases, these keywords have fewer than 100 searches a month and are often overlooked by webmasters.
But why should you target long-tail keywords? Making long-tail SEO for HVAC part of your online marketing strategy pays off in spades. These keywords have low keyword difficulties, guaranteeing little to no competition. That means you’ll likely rank almost immediately at the top of the search results for your chosen keywords.
Identifying Effective Long-Tail Keywords for HVAC
Long-tail keywords are low competition and easy to rank for, so they can prove highly beneficial for small HVAC businesses struggling to build a formidable online presence. You can leverage these keywords and create quality content that addresses the reader’s pain points and win their service.
Also, you have an almost limitless number of long-tail keywords to address when creating content. Ahrefs estimates that long-tail keywords comprise 95% of their database’s known keywords.
HVAC-Specific Keyword Research
The best keyword research for HVAC companies starts with your experience. As an HVAC expert, you’re familiar with your customers’ concerns. Start by noting the common words and phrases describing your service and use them as root keywords. These could include:
- HVAC repair
- Air condition installation
- Indoor air quality
- Duct cleaning
Now, consider the problems that drive people to hire your services and use them to create long-tail keywords. People typically search for terms such as “HVAC is too noisy” or “AC not working” when they need HVAC services.
You can turn these into long tail keywords such as:
- What causes air conditioning to stop working?
- Why is my air conditioner not working?
You may use search tools such as Google Keyword to complement your process. They will help you identify a treasure trove of phrases people use when looking for HVAC services. Paid tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs provide additional insights, including the search volume, to help prioritize the keywords when creating content.
Geo-Targeting for Local SEO
Like most HVAC services, you only provide service within a given radius. As such, you can skyrocket your brand presence with your service radius by generating geo-targeted content.
Incorporating location-specific terms, such as local landmarks, localities, and community events, enhances your site’s local relevance. It informs the search engines where your company operates, which prompts them to rank your site high on the local search results.
Including geographical markers in your content allows Google to rank your site for the search phrase “HVAC companies near me.”
Incorporating Long-Tail Keywords into Your Content
The whole point of creating a blog is to generate business leads. It enables you to create a formidable online presence and connect with people who need your products and services. Creating helpful content around long-tail keywords allows you to build subject authority while lowering the competition.
Blogging Strategies for HVAC Topics
Typically, people turn to the internet for answers whenever something goes wrong with their AC units. As such, peppering your website with informative and helpful content gives your business a competitive edge. It positions you as a subject matter expert, which lends credibility to your band-core requirement in earning customer trust.
Start by checking your records. Which are the most common HVAC problems and complaints? Compile a list and use it to create topics for your blog posts.
Your business records are a testament to the problems grating people in your locality. So much so that they willingly pay you money to fix them. Addressing these topics and lacing them with expert advice while emphasizing your local experience ensures your content resonates with your target audience.
On-Page SEO Best Practices
While targeting the right keywords is crucial to your online visibility, that only works if the search engines can understand your site’s content. And that’s where on-page SEO shines. These optimization techniques and practices are implemented directly on the website to make your pages visible to search engines.
On-page SEO best practices revolve around creating accurate title tags and compelling meta descriptions. Besides improving search engine visibility, these elements help the reader understand what each post covers. Nesting headers by their ranks, from headers to subheadings, improves readability and user experience.
Sprinkling keywords in the headers, sub-headings, and URLs helps search engines understand the content structure.
Enhancing Local SEO with Long-Tail Keywords
Google created local search results to help regional businesses stand a chance against large companies with a national presence. Building a local SEO strategy around long-tail keywords can guarantee quick wins.
Optimizing Google My Business Listings
Besides the geo-targeted keywords, Google considers other markers when ranking businesses in the local search results. HVAC businesses that have claimed and optimized their Google My Business listing will likely rank higher in the search results. Google uses the GMB listings to ascertain local businesses’ locations and physical addresses.
As such, optimizing your GMB profile builds credibility, and search engines may reward your HVAC business with a top position in the Map Pack.
Creating Geo-Targeted Content
Google’s algorithms consider location markers when ranking content in the local search results. Therefore, creating geo-targeted content will drastically boost your chances of topping the search results. Besides incorporating location-specific keywords into your content, you can also write about events in your locality.
Getting involved in the local community, such as participating in a local charity or sponsoring one, increases the likelihood of getting featured in the local press. You can also leverage customer stories and testimonials that mention your locality to boost your local presence.
Measuring the Impact of Long-Tail Keyword Strategies
What gets tracked gets measured. While you may uncover many promising long-tail keywords in your keyword research, some may not resonate with your audience. Tracking content performance and audience engagement can help you identify the most impactful long-tail words for your HVAC business.
Tools for Tracking SEO Performance
After publishing a blog post on your website, you can use tools such as Google Analytics (GA4) or Google Search Console (GSC) to track its performance. These tools help you track critical metrics such as traffic, engagement, search rankings, and overall performance. These metrics can offer insights into the topics that resonate with your audience so you can serve them more.
Analyzing Traffic and Lead Generation
While driving traffic to your website is a win, it’s not the end goal. The ultimate goal is to drive qualified visitors to your website, where you may use your subject matter expertise to convert them into paying customers.
As such, you should set up your GA 4 and GSC to analyze your web traffic and track conversion. These metrics will help you understand if your content marketing strategy is on point or hitting the mark. Use the result to recalibrate or readjust your blogging strategy to ensure you generate quality business leads.
Maximizing Reach with Long-Tail Keywords
Unlike short-tails, long-tail keywords have remarkably low search volume. Most may have fewer than ten searches per month, while some may have hundreds of searches. However, building a blogging strategy around long-tail keywords delivers exceptional results for a local business.
Long-tail keywords are hyper-targeted and address real problems troubling your prospects. As such, they can connect you with potential customers needing your HVAC services.
Secondly, long-tail keywords often have low competition—so you’re likely to rank multiple articles at the top of the search results. By targeting long-tail keywords in HVAC, you can build a formidable online presence, attract highly targeted traffic, and generate quality leads.
Implement Long-Tail Keyword Strategies Today
Adopting a long-tail keywords blogging strategy can help your small HVAC company dominate the local search results. It enables you to target the pants-on-fire problems affecting prospects and demonstrate your subject matter expertise. You can demonstrate how your business resolves these problems and build trust with your audience.
At Hercules SEO, we specialize in helping HVAC companies leverage the power of online marketing to grow their market share and keep their cash registers ringing.
Need help implementing a long-tail keyword strategy? Contact us today and let our expertise work for you.