HVAC SEO Study
We know that SEO for HVAC companies can be a make or break for business. That’s why we’ve embarked upon narrowing down what these HVAC companies in Deltona are doing to get their website on the first page of Google. Enjoy the read!
First, we define our metrics. Here’s what we decided would be the best SEO variables to focus on:
- Total Traffic
- Organic Traffic
- Paid Traffic
- Total Keywords
- Most Valuable Keywords
- Total Backlinks
- Most Valuable Backlinks
- Total Pages
- Age of Domain
- On Page SEO Score
- Blog Content
- Site Speed
- Meta Descriptions Optimized?
- Page Titles Optimized?
- H1’s Optimized?
- Canonicals
We went through each site, did a full sweep audit, and pulled the metrics we thought were relevant.
Here were the results as well as our recommendations for ranking your HVAC company in Deltona using SEO.
Total Traffic
Top Site= 122 visits per month
2nd Site= 16 visits per month
3rd Site= 32 visits per month
What does this mean: This means whatever the Top Site is doing is working! Don’t be fooled with the second site receiving less traffic per month but still ranking higher. Their SEO is a little better optimized for their service word.
Organic Traffic
Top Site= 100%
2nd Site= 87%
3rd Site= 100%
What does this mean: That the top site is really honing in on SEO efforts. You can see some of the second site’s traffic does come from paid search, but very little. I believe they only had a monthly spend of $50 on Google.
Paid Traffic
Top Site= 0%
2nd Site= 13%
3rd Site= 0%
Total Keywords
Top Site= 600
2nd Site= 227
3rd Site= 387
What does this mean: That the top site is putting out some great content. Why would I know that? There are only so many keywords you can rank for when just using what’s on your site. This is why the other two sites have stagnated while the top site ranks for almost double the keywords.
Most Valuable Keywords
Top Site= (DeLand, fl temp), ac repair orange city fl, air current, current air, current inc
2nd Site= quality appliance repair, air nation symbol, clothes dryer repair, nationair, ac repair orange city fl
3rd Site= ac repair Daytona, ac repair Daytona beach, Deltona air conditioning, ac repair orange city, ac replacement Daytona beach
What does this mean: As we can see, the top site is really doing well, as most of their traffic is stemming from a brand search. This means people are searching for them directly as opposed to a service they offer. However, the 2nd site is really doing well with its service keywords, which is not to be overlooked.
Total Backlinks
Top Site= 1,048
2nd Site= 112
3rd Site= 147
What does this mean: Wow… just wow! You can see here a huge difference between the top site and the other two. Unfortunately, backlinks are a vital part of any SEO campaign. You can tell they’re also engaging in Off-Page SEO, either they’ve outsourced their work to an agency, or they’re really just top-notch!
Most Valuable Backlinks
Top Site= Newswire, Yellowpages
2nd Site= Yellowpages, Superpages
3rd Site= Chamber of Commerce, Top Rated Local
What does this mean: These are all great backlinks with a high Domain Authority. Nothing to say about site two or three, but now we know why the top site has so many backlinks. Newswire is the ticket!
Total Pages
Top Site= 89
2nd Site= 37
3rd Site= 18
What does this mean: Another huge part of the top site’s success. The more pages you have, the more keywords you can rank for, the more backlinks you can get, the more traffic you have! Bada bing.
Age of Domain
Top Site= 18 yrs
2nd Site= 7 yrs
3rd Site= 10 yrs
What does this mean: Another overlooked ranking factor. Google tends to prefer sites that have been producing content for a while, but again optimized SEO will always outperform. Hence the difference between the second and third site.
On-Page SEO Score
Top Site= 85% – Good
2nd Site= 92% – Great
3rd Site= 73% – Average
What does this mean: If you scroll down a little further, it might not make sense, but hang in there with me. The second site has done a really good job at optimizing its website code, making sure there are no redirect chains or dead pages. So kudos!
Blog Content
Top Site= Yes / monthly
2nd Site= Not in years
3rd Site= No
What does this mean: Another clear reason of our top site victor. As mentioned before, Google likes when you can engage with your audience. Answering questions they may have regarding your service ahead of time will tell Google you’re an authority figure in your industry.
Site Speed
Top Site= 33 – Poor
2nd Site= 81 – Good
3rd Site= 70 – Average
What does this mean: This is a serious issue for the Top Site, a score of 33 generally means the site hasn’t been updated in a long time or that the site’s theme itself is slow, also a huge issue. Google has long listed site speed as a big factor in SEO.
Meta Descriptions Optimized?
Top Site= Yes
2nd Site= Yes
3rd Site= Yes – but many duplicates
What does this mean: This is great to see. It means that they’ve all taken the time to optimize each page on their site for some aspect of keywords. Well done!
Page Titles Optimized?
Top Site= Yes
2nd Site= No
3rd Site= Yes
What does this mean: Optimizing page titles for keywords is a large part of on-page SEO. It lets Google know exactly what content to anticipate on this page. Easier for google, easier for you!
H1’s Optimized?
Top Site= Yes
2nd Site= No
3rd Site= Yes
What does this mean: Each page on your website should always have an H1 heading, again to signify to Google what to expect. These are generally the large font at the beginning of a web page. Putting keywords here is expected in On-Page SEO. A nice tip for the 2nd site!
Canonicals?
Top Site= Yes
2nd Site= Yes
3rd Site= No
What does this mean: So many pages, so much confusion. Canonicals help Google give the most link equity to a certain page on your site. Thus, even having multiple home pages on your website direct back to your canonical will ensure that Google doesn’t give any unnecessary “juice” to the incorrect pages.
Conclusion / Recommendations
The top-performing site seemed to do everything right, except their page speed score where they received a 33 from PageSpeed Insights, which is pretty terrible.
Where they did shine however was their total backlink count, their total number of pages, their total number of keywords, and their frequent production of blog content.
Our recommendation for the 2nd and 3rd sites would be to outshine the top site in the above metrics. This means creating service pages, creating location pages, getting more backlinks, producing more content and increasing your site speed.
None of the numbers are anything stellar so unless the top site continues to optimize, number two and three might not be too far behind. If they get their act together.
We hope you enjoyed our newest article and feel free to comment on which industry we should do next!