Local SEO for HVAC companies: be on the map before the first heat wave.

HVAC demand swings with the weather, so your Google profile should be ready for both halves of the year. Choose the primary category that matches most of your work, often HVAC contractor, and add only the secondary categories that are true, such as Air conditioning repair service or Furnace repair service. Google asks you to use as few categories as possible.

List both seasons' services: AC repair and installation, heat pumps, furnace repair and replacement, boiler service, duct cleaning, indoor air quality and maintenance plans. A service missing from your profile is a search you're less likely to match.

If customers don't come to you, Google asks you to hide your address and list the areas you serve instead. You can add up to 20 service areas, and Google recommends keeping the whole area within about two hours' drive of where you're based. Google's service-area rules are short and worth reading once.

Keep your business name exactly as it appears on your van, your invoices and your sign. Google's guidelines don't allow extra keywords or town names in the name, and profiles that add them can be suspended. Put services in the services list and towns in the service area, where they belong.

"Replaced our heat pump in a day" helps the next homeowner far more than "great service". Send your review link the same day as the job and mention what you did, so the customer has something specific to say.

Google doesn't allow discounts, gifts or payment in exchange for reviews, and it doesn't allow asking only your happy customers. The review policy is clear on both. The safe, effective habit is to ask every customer, every time, in the same way.

Reply to every review. Busy seasons bring more complaints about wait times, so a fast, polite reply that explains what you're doing about it matters most in July and January.

Rankings on the map aren't one number. They change with the searcher's location, so a single check from your office tells you almost nothing about the rest of your area.

SOSSRANK checks your position from a grid of points across your service area, for the searches you care about, and saves each scan. When you change something, the next scan uses the same points, so you can see what moved and where. That's how you tell a real gain from noise, and how you decide what to fix next.