HVAC marketing playbooks, written for contractors.

Most HVAC websites were designed on a desktop, for a desktop reviewer. But when a homeowner's AC dies at 9pm in July, they aren't opening a laptop - they're thumb-scrolling with sweat on the screen, comparing the first three results Google gives them.

The pattern we see across every audit: the phone number is a small text link in the header, the primary CTA is a contact form seven fields long, and the hero image is a 2MB stock photo of a technician that pushes every useful button off the first screen.

The fix isn't complicated. Sticky click-to-call header on mobile. Two-field emergency form (name + phone). Service pages that load in under 1.5 seconds on 4G. Every audit we run recommends the same three things because they're the same three things missing on 90% of contractor sites.

Google's local ranking factors for HVAC come down to three signals: relevance (does your Google Business Profile match the query), distance (how close are you to the searcher), and prominence (reviews, citations, and inbound links).

You can't change distance, but you can influence relevance and prominence - usually in that order. Start with GBP: correct primary category (HVAC Contractor), a full list of services with descriptions, service areas that reflect where you actually work, and 20+ real photos of trucks, techs, and jobsites.

Then attack reviews. Automate the ask after every completed job. Aim for a steady drip of 5–10 reviews per month with keywords in the response, not a one-time push of 50 that trips Google's spam filters. Prominence follows.

Google Local Services Ads sit above every other result on mobile and charge per qualified call. They're the highest-intent inventory Google sells to HVAC contractors, and they should almost always be turned on first.

Search PPC belongs in the mix once LSAs are saturated for your service area, or when you want to target high-ticket install intent (heat pump, full system replacement) that LSAs won't reliably surface.

The order matters: verified GBP → LSAs → PPC for install keywords → Meta retargeting to close the visitors who didn't convert on your own site. Run PPC before your site converts and you're paying Google to send traffic to a leaky bucket.