How HVAC Companies Can Leverage Google Reviews for SEO
- Gather More Reviews: Ask, automate, and simplify the review process with direct links, reminders, and incentives.
- Boost SEO Rankings: Respond to reviews, showcase them on your site, extract keywords, and use schema markup for rich snippets.
- Simplify with Tools: Surefire Local streamlines review requests, responses, and SEO optimization in one platform.
When homeowners are ready to invest in a new HVAC system, they’re going to want the right company. Google reviews are one of the top marketing tools you have, because they serve as word-of-mouth for the integrity and quality of your HVAC business. Yet they also have a role in online HVAC marketing. Here’s how you can leverage reviews not only to build trust, but also to boost local SEO for HVAC companies.
Get Your Google Business Profile Established
First, before any company can gather and utilize reviews, it needs a solid Google Business Profile. A Google Business Profile for HVAC companies should include your name, address, and phone number. It should also have photos of your people, your equipment, and any particularly impressive jobs you have performed. Finally, it should have reviews.
Make sure you claim and optimize your profile so it works in your favor. Once you have it, keep it updated with fresh pictures or new information when something changes. An active and properly filled-in Google Business Profile is the starting point for local SEO for HVAC companies and their online marketing efforts.
Gather Reviews
Once you have your profile, it’s time to start gathering reviews. You’ll need to have many of them to use them properly as a marketing tool. Here are some strategies to encourage customers to leave HVAC Google reviews:
- Ask: Every chance you get, ask a satisfied customer to leave a review. In text and email communication, in-person communication, and over-the-phone communication, make the request. The more requests you make, the more reviews you’ll get.
- Automate: If you’re relying on humans to remember to ask for reviews, you’ll lose some opportunities. Surefire Local’s marketing tools offer automation that will ask for reviews without you needing to remember.
- Remind: People are busy. You’ll need to remind them to leave a review. This requires knowing who has or has not left a review. Find a local marketing platform that will track this information and automate reminder emails or texts.
- Deliver the Link: Make it easy for your HVAC customers to leave a review. Use QR codes to paste the link on your business cards and paper marketing materials. Include links in all digital communication. Make the “leave a review” link obvious on your website and social media pages.
As you gather reviews, focus on Google rather than service directories. Google reviews directly impact your SEO, so they will increase HVAC visibility in Google.
Using Customer Reviews to Improve HVAC SEO Rankings
Getting reviews is just the first step. Once you have them, you need to make them work for you. Here’s how you can boost HVAC SEO rankings using reviews:
1. Respond to All Reviews
Make sure you respond to all reviews once you receive them. A small business marketing platform, like Surefire Local, can make it easier to do this consistently.
There are two reasons why responses are critical. First, it shows your dedication to your customers. Potential new customers want to see that they are working with a professional business. Your response establishes trust and builds your online reputation. When you respond to negative reviews, it also shows that you’re willing to work through difficulties to help your customers feel satisfied with the service you provide.
Second, your responses to reviews send important signals to the search engines that you’re an active business that is managing its online presence. It shows engagement, which is one of many factors that impact your local SEO.
As you focus on building your reviews, you’ll find that there are going to be some negative ones. If you handle these well, they won’t hurt your local SEO or online reputation. If the review is from a customer, respond to it in an appropriate, professional manner. If it’s fake or unfounded, report the review to Google to have it removed.
2. Showcase Reviews
Post your reviews on your website and social media pages. This provides more data for the search engines to crawl and also improves the trust you’re building with your target audience. Consider placing a scrolling widget on your site that pulls up your reviews. You can also consider creating a dedicated reviews page, which can boost SEO by creating more pages for the search engines to crawl.
3. Find Keywords in Reviews
A hidden way that reviews can boost HVAC SEO is by using them as a keyword-generating tool. If you’re seeing certain service-related keywords pop up in your reviews regularly, then hone in on those as important to your customers. Weave them into your keyword strategy to find more organic traffic. You’ll be talking about the things people are searching for.
The small business marketing tools in Surefire Local make it easier to track and manage keywords. Add the keywords you find to our database, and build your online content around it.
4. Build Content Ideas from Reviews
As you’re building your keywords from your reviews, find content ideas, too. If people seem to have common questions in reviews, you can write and post a blog article addressing those questions. If you see a common theme about a popular service, create a video highlighting that service that you can add to your marketing arsenal. The more content you have, especially if it engages with your audience because it meets a need for them, the better your local SEO will be.
5. Add Review Schema Markup
Schema markup is a type of structured data that helps search engines find you and know what your page is about. While it’s fairly complicated to understand, you can use tools like the Schema App or Schema.org to add the code using simple templates. Add schema markup to your Google reviews to improve your online visibility. Google has a tutorial that shows how to do this. If the technical aspect of schema markup is beyond your reach, consider hiring a website developer to help, but make sure the markup is in place.
How does this help? When Google sees a review that’s coded with schema markup, it may show a rich snippet. This little block on the search results highlights your star rating and an excerpt of a review, and it will show with your search results. Rich snippets increase the relevance and appeal of your search results, improving your overall success.
Simplify Online Marketing Tasks with Surefire Local
If adding schema market, eliciting reviews, and responding to them, all while tracking keywords at the same time, feels overwhelming, we understand. You’re busy running a successful HVAC company and serving your customers, and spending time on online marketing just isn’t in the cards. That’s why we created a local marketing platform that handles many of these tasks in one place.
Surefire Local’s review management tools help you ask for and respond to reviews. You’ll get more five-star reviews and have a platform to respond to them, all with minimal time spent on your part. This means you can continue building your online reputation while delivering the quality HVAC services your customers demand.
Our platform makes it simple to:
- Request and manage online reviews using automated requests
- Automate reminders to those who forget to send a review
- Respond to reviews on multiple locations from one platform
- Track keywords and optimize your website for search results
- Write and publish content based on your reviews
- Manage your online reputation across multiple platforms
- Transform reviews into paid advertising opportunities
- Keep your Google Business and business directory listing pages consistent and updated
We’re more than just a review management platform. We also assist with:
- Local SEO
- Content marketing
- Paid advertising
- Social media marketing
- Email and text marketing
- And more!
We’ve put all of the small business marketing tools you need on one convenient local marketing platform. You can log in, manage your reviews, and ensure your site is clearly visible, all in a fraction of the time it would take to manage these tasks on your own. And, because our small business marketing software is designed for local businesses, we’ve provided all of this for a fraction of the price of larger software options.
If you’re serious about using customer reviews to improve HVAC SEO rankings, we’re here to help. Make plans to attend a Surefire Local marketing demo today, and see how our platform can transform your marketing efforts by helping you leverage your reviews.