Do you own or manage an HVAC website? If the answer is YES, you can enjoy an increase in business while your competitors remain slow. Your HVAC website design can attract more qualified leads by incorporating sound design techniques and specific call-to-actions. Here are some essential points to remember about attracting leads with your HVAC website.
Study Your Competitors
Before diving into inbound marketing and web design, it is best that your company conducts research on competing websites to find out what it needs to do to be more impressive. While aesthetics is important, fast loading speed, website functionality and accessibility across devices, clear call-to-action, strategic use of keywords and quality content are more crucial criteria for lead generation.
Home Page Elements
If you are thinking about bombarding your HVAC website homepage with price quotes and fancy headers with Flash animations, STOP NOW! Instead of creating a design-heavy, image-heavy, and color-heavy homepage, concentrate on the following:
- An attractive layout that isn’t too busy
- User-friendly menus and navigation
- High-resolution photos of HVAC systems
- Text that invites visitors to learn about your company
- Links to products, contact info, social media, and content pages
Choose Keywords Your Competitors Missed
Keywords are the building blocks to search engine optimization (SEO), which is a major driver for attracting web traffic. Search rankings are based on a few hundred factors, but one of the core strategies is using keywords in web page titles and in web content without overusing them. Since many HVAC companies are local, it’s important to create web pages with titles that include local community names.
If your company is in a big city and several competitors dominate search rankings for keywords such as “Boston HVAC repair,” consider using names of smaller communities you serve such as “Newton HVAC repair.” By creating pages for each of the neighborhoods you serve, you may have a better chance at reaching local customers than relying on broader names.
Local Search Listings
Take advantage of search directories like Yelp that list local businesses. Make sure you submit relevant business information that consumers typically search. Encourage your customers to provide reviews to these sites.
Write Articles and Blogs on Heating and Air
If you read our blog You Can Thank Us Later – Let’s Delight Your Customers, you know how important blogging is to increasing traffic to your website. Your HVAC website design and content strategies need to reflect whatever market you are trying to reach by crafting plenty of articles that confirm your expertise.
Google and other search engines reward websites that establish themselves as authorities of their respective niches. Search rankings tend to be favorable to authoritative blogs, which are evergreen articles mixed with personality and informative content. Blogs are not meant to be persuasive, but like online newsletters and social media pages, they provide a place for links to the services or equipment you’re selling.
Again, research your competitors to find out which services and types of equipment they have failed to write about. While you need to do your own research on which key phrases work best for your blogs, here are examples of blog titles that include HVAC-related keywords:
- Improving Indoor Air Quality
- Principles of Heat Transfer
- How Proper Ventilation Can Cut Energy Costs
- Checklist for HVAC Durability
- History of HVAC in Newton
Quantity and Quality of Web Content
There is no mystery why a 500-page website full of rich content beats a 5-page site in search rankings. Google favors sites with comprehensive information over sites with limited content, regardless if the business is a large corporation or a small operation. That’s why you need to research your competition before developing your HVAC website design, which will help you assess how much work will be involved to be competitive online.
Remember that online lead generation for any industry depends on how well you follow search engine guidelines. So avoid cutting corners and make every web page count, since each page is a free commercial for your site as long as it contains valuable content that isn’t just about selling products and services. At the same time, you should develop separate landing pages for each service or product you offer. The combination of quantity and quality of web content will let search engines know that you are an HVAC authority.
Attracting Leads
Users can find your site when their search key terms match your keywords. You can then capture leads through email, social media, the phone or other contact channels you provide them. Using marketing automation software integrated with customer relationship management (CRM) software, you can develop customer profiles and build relationships with them through email and social media.
Online Advertising Campaigns
While it’s possible to generate leads just from SEO, social media, newsletters and email, you may want to go a step further and pay for online ads. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns through Google AdWords are the most popular form of online advertising, although campaigns require experimenting with keywords and content. Facebook and other social networks also provide profitable advertising opportunities to reach your target market.
Don’t forget to check out our other HVAC marketing tips below!
