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📣 Google Ads, SEO And Social Are Always ⏰Changing. Is Your Business On Track For 💰Growth In 2021? Our 👩‍💼Team Is Moving Forward With Machine Learning, Video Ads, Funnels, Audience Targeting And So Much More. ☎️ Give Us A Call And Let's Discuss How Your Business Can Take Advantage Of These New Changes. #updateyourmarketing

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Google Ads: How to Avoid Getting Burned

Running Google Ads is harder than it appears on the surface. From the outside, it seems as if you simply have to insert a few keywords, write some ads, relax, and wait for the leads to start pouring in.

Although this sounds amazing if it were true, this is really not the case. Google Ads is an investment and a commitment like any other form of advertising. However, with Google Ads, you have to pay every time someone clicks on your ad. So it’s imperative that you have an experienced professional running and managing your paid search campaigns.

With that said, here are five secrets we want to share so you can get the most out of your PPC ads in Google.

1. High-Converting Landing Pages

Landing pages provide a vital touchpoint for brands and potential customers. It serves as an avenue to nurture leads through engaging content and provide an opportunity to bring in qualified leads.

Marketing campaigns that fail to factor in high-converting landing pages are inherently flawed. Landing pages provide value to the visitor and tell the visitor what they should do next. This not only increases conversion rates but also provides a better experience for the user. Think about it as a way to jumpstart the customer journey.

A dedicated landing page also helps brands get the word out on new products and services they are offering. These pages shine a light on the latest items and features available from a company. Additionally, a landing page devoted to a particular product or service can also bring lower cost-per-clicks (CPC) by improving your quality score in your Google ads account. If you can lower your cost-per-click, you’ll earn a better return on investment from your ad spend. Make sure you (or who ever is managing your Google Ads) create and build keyword-rich, dedicated landing pages for each service you are promoting with Google ads.

2. Live Chat (Staffed By Real Humans)

Live chat is a simple and cost-effective way of welcoming visitors 24 hours a day to a website or landing page. A full-service live chat consists of professional customer service staff who are trained to get the “chatters” contact information first and foremost.

This technology adds an extra communication channel for visitors that eliminates potential frustration by providing immediate customer service. With live chat tools at the ready, a brand can start building trust with their target audience.

Live chat provides an excellent way for brands to connect with prospects while greeting them right away and getting the ball rolling on solving their problems. Being available to help at any time increases one’s reputation even if a customer does not need to talk right away.

To truly earn a positive reputation through live chat, companies need to select their partners carefully. Hiring an experienced customer service team that is trained to gather the “chatters” contact information can lift conversion rates by as much as 48%. Just think if you increased your Google ads conversion rates by 48%, how much you would increase your return on ad spend (ROAS).

3. Mobile-First Strategy (Be The Rabbit, Not The Turtle)

A mobile-first approach is when the web presence of a company is designed to prioritize mobile devices and caters to smartphone users. Page load time is a primary ranking factor so with this strategy, page load times is a top priority. Web designers should create a website or landing page that takes into account the constraints of a mobile platform and insure that each page loads fast. How fast is fast? If your site loads in 2.9 seconds, it’s faster than approximately 50% of the web.

Mobile-first strategy leverages the technology that is specific to mobile device users, creating features that are not necessarily available to desktop computers. The interconnectivity and convenience of mobile devices have made them indispensable. Therefore wise for website owners to make their mobile sites user-friendly to help encourage better engagement and increase the number of leads.

With a mobile-first strategy in place, brands can improve engagement, provide a better overall user experience and improve rankings with Google. It’s now estimated that 50% of all website traffic is from mobile devices.

The power provided by a mobile-first strategy is that it lets brands interact and have dialogs with their potential customers in an efficient and more meaningful way. Having a good mobile first strategy allows for more targeted communications that help people make more informed decisions faster. Also, you’ll earn brownie points from Google in the form of better page rank

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4. Responding Timely to Leads

Although having dedicated landing pages, live chat, and a mobile-first strategy are great ways to turn visitors into leads, they do not automatically turn them into customers. How a brand handles these leads determines if they become a customer (revenue) or remain a visitor (marketing expense).

We’ve all heard the saying “strike while the iron is hot” and no truer words were said, especially regarding lead response times. The quality of a lead is at its peak at the time a potential customer is searching for a trusted advisor.

When leads come in via a website, landing page, live chat or a phone call, you have less than 5 minutes to respond to that lead if you want a chance at turning them into a customer. The longer a brand waits to follow up on these leads, the lower the chances they’ll become a customer.

According to a study by Lead Response Management, companies are more likely to turn a lead into a customer if they contact them within five minutes. The researchers learned that there was a significantly higher likelihood of a lead converting if they were contacted within the said time frame.

By setting up an effective lead follow-up system, brands can immediately connect to their leads, offer their solutions, and turn them into customers.

5. Tracking All Lead Sources

As digital technologies become more robust with better advertising opportunities, tracking inbound leads is now more important than ever. Tracking leads is not complex, but it requires knowledge & constant vigilance to pull off effectively.

Lead tracking is not just asking customers how they learned about the brand; it involves actively mapping each step of their journey from advertising to sale. After all, most customers will have engaged with a business several times in various channels before they decide to convert.

When tracking all lead sources, brands are able to know how their leads find their business. They will have a better understanding of what Google Ads resonate the most with their customer base.

Having a better grasp of where leads are coming from can help companies anticipate incoming leads better and allocate ad dollars to the campaigns that are performing well and rescue spend that is not performing well. Proper lead tracking creates opportunities that teams can leverage to grow business revenue.

Conclusion

A well-maintained PPC campaign can help brands drastically improve their revenue over time.

Since Google charges based on each click, being efficient with ads is paramount to your success with Google Ads. Companies should keep these tips in mind in order to optimize their ads and continue to drive conversions (get more leads).

Comment below and let us know if you’ve tried any of these suggestions. We LOVE to hear from our readers.

Give us a call at (407) 753-1301 or email us at [email protected] if you would like to discuss how we can help guide your Google Ads to success.

#google #seo services #livechat #reviews #callrail

Google Guarantee for the Home Services industry is a must! There is no other lead source with a lower cost per phone call than Google Guarantee. Quick Case Study: My HVAC client has an average cost per lead in Google Ads of $75 (lower in the high season but this is during the month of September which begins the slow season). In the first month of having Local Service Ads running, he received 35 phone calls (only paying for calls that are qualified) and his cost per call was $16! You can't find plumbing and HVAC leads for less than that. AND, his company is still going through the background check process so they have yet to earn the Google Guarantee badge that helps your ad stand out amongst your competitors. I'm looking forward to seeing the impact the badge has once he is fully vetted. If you need help getting your account up and running, give us a call. We handle the headache of dealing with Google and can have your ad showing in no time. Don't wait, the more contractors who sign up, the higher the competition and this drives the cost per lead up. So if you want to take advantage of these low costs, act fast. 407-753-1309 or [email protected]

https://tripleyourclicks.com/get-google-guarantee-status/

#paypercall GoogleGuarantee hvaccontractor plumbingcontractor

Triple Your Clicks Contractor Marketing turned 5 today!

#tumblr birthday #tumblr milestone

HVAC SEO – Tips, Tricks, and Tactics That Will Improve Your Website Rankings You are here:

Search engine optimization (also known as SEO) is forever changing and remains a closely guarded secret by the search engines, including Google.

These search engines use what they refer to as “algorithms” (sounds like a jungle mammal) to determine where your website will place in the bitterly competitive organic (free) search results.

Note – These tips I’m revealing in this article work for any business that has a lead generation website designed to generate phone calls and emails.

While some algorithm information is released by Google, most of the important details are not. There are a few things we do know and today we are going to discuss how you can dramatically improve your HVAC SEO rankings using what is commonly referred to as “content”. Content is simply any information you post on your website or social media.

Here are 5 examples of SEO friendly content:

Videos

Press Releases

Blog posts

Podcasts

Website content

All 5 are a great way to improve your website rankings but today we’re going to discuss content to establish yourself as an expert and get tons of incoming links.

Google is placing a very high value on updated, fresh website content. One of the best ways to take advantage is to update your website blog at least 4 times a month, more if possible. Google likes websites that get updated frequently vs. static, stale sites.

Here’ s an example of how quickly new content can get ranked on Google. I recently wrote a blog article titled “HVAC AdWords – Does Your Account Manager Have a Grip?” I posted it on our website, Linkedin, and other social media.

Within days, we had moved to PAGE ONE ON GOOGLE, in the first, second, third, AND fourth positions for the keyword term “HVAC adwords manager”.

(HVAC stands for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, a widely used industry term for ac contractors).

That AdWords blog I wrote (and our website) are also ranking for a ton of variations of this keyword. While the search volume is relatively small, the chances are almost 100% that we will get the click for anyone looking for an HVAC AdWords manager!

You can take the blog content you create and turn it into different formats like videos and podcasts. Then, you can create a press release to announce the release of the video or podcast. Here’s 5 tips to master your blog posts and get your voice heard.

The lesson here is that frequent blog posting not only gets the blogs themselves ranked, but the frequent content updates improve your overall website rankings as well.

Another way to improve your HVAC SEO image in the eyes of the search engines is by updating your site with new products and services. This new content will be quickly found by the search engines and can help improve your web placement.

Just be sure to intelligently place your primary keywords for the new products and services within the page content and the behind-the-scenes coding.

The on-page meta titles and descriptions are hugely important in how often your results get clicked, regardless of where they are ranked at any given time.

A page title and description are the results that searchers see on the Google organic listings when they complete a keyword search. They are written within the coding of your website.

Even (or especially) if your rankings are less than perfect, you want to entice as many of the search visitors to click through to your website as possible. You do this by treating the content of your titles and descriptions as though they were paid Google ads, not just free listings.

Here’s an article that goes into the very important details of exactly how to achieve high click-through-rates for your website, even when your rankings aren’t exactly stellar.

Now you have created your content, let’s move on to distributing your content see how this content can get us back links and grow your site authority.

Distribute Your Fresh Content

We want to distribute content for 2 reasons.

• To create quality back links which are still a significant ranking factor

• To generate traffic from your content to your website. So that you are aware, generating back links to your website is like generating votes for your site.

The more “votes” you have, the more the search engines will promote you as a leader within your niche, improving your rankings. The quantity of links however is not as important as the quality.

So using spam link building tactics is actually a sure way to get your website black-listed by Google. Be careful when link building. This is why I made the point by saying you must create QUALITY content.

If your content is engaging, informative and well done, other people will naturally want to link to it or share it in social media.

This not only generates exposure for you, but also gets you quality back links and increased authority in the eyes of the search engines.

When you create a blog post to boost your HVAC SEO, share it on all of your social media profiles like Twitter, Facebook, Google plus, LinkedIn(if business related), Tumblr, Reddit and StumbleUpon.

This helps you gain exposure and links. If people like it, they will share it which will greatly help you as explained above. If you have a mailing list, email them about your new post. Again, we are looking to get exposure to our content.

Next, you want to distribute the videos you created. These need to link back to your site. So include a hyper link to your homepage or the page which discusses the topic at hand in the description box of your video.

Like this:

Upload your video to as many video sharing sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and others as you can. This also helps generate traffic and links.

To create videos, you can easily take the content you created an article out of, put that information into a PowerPoint, read it out loud and capture it with a program like Camtasia or Jing, and voila, there is your video.

Video is not a strategy you want to overlook. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet. Many people go there to look for answers to their questions.

YouTube is not only a great source for a powerful link but also a great way to generate traffic and get more eye balls learning about how you can help them.

Sometimes videos will rank very well on Google. Check out this example below of a client’s video our company ranked on page one , first position:

Next you want to create a press release and distribute it through services like this one

They will get your press release in front of 200+ of the major news outlets, such as:

Again, this is another way to get links pointing back to your site and generate traffic. Press release links don’t count as well for HVAC SEO as they used to, but are still a great way to generate traffic.

We’ve had a ton of success ranking press releases for our clients. This is how we dominate search engine results.

We often times will rank not only the client’s website for their chosen keyword, but also a press release and a video, ranking in 3, 4, 5 and sometimes even 9 spots on page 1 of Google. Now that’s what I call market domination!

About The Author:

This article is written by Michael Haines, the founder of AC Direct, the oldest and most visited HVAC e-commerce site in the country. Michael has generated over $40,000,000 in HVAC revenue using web based marketing from his own HVAC websites, including local service and installation sites. His websites have generated over 17,000,000 visitors and were featured in the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, 2 years in a row.

You can contact him directly at:

407-459-8804 or email him at [email protected]

#seo #contractor SEO #Contractor Websites #adwords for contractors #hvac marketing

HVAC AdWords Management – How to Stop Paying For Stupid Clicks

There are a lot of really important features hidden and buried within the AdWords interface. However, Google made a recent change to the interface placing keywords, negative keywords and search terms front and center for improved HVAC AdWords management.

Search terms were also buried under the “details” tab making the process counter-intuitive. Having a button labeled “Search Terms” makes much more sense.

Let’s take a look into these features and why they matter

There are numerous metrics to understand in an HVAC AdWords management account but keywords, negative keywords and search terms are the life blood of your paid search success and here’s why:

Keywords

Paid Search begins and ends with keyword searches. Keywords are people’s thoughts translated into words and your job as an advertiser is to select keywords that match up with your target market.

The keywords in your account determine your success or failure so choosing the right keywords is the foundation to building a successful Google HVAC AdWords account.

If you’re looking for HVAC AdWords help, start with your keywords. Think about how your customer would search for your business or what they may type into a browser in search of solutions.

People search differently so it’s important to capture each of the various ways people search for the same solution. For example, if your air conditioner stops working on a Saturday afternoon in July and you happen to live in Florida, you have a SEVERE problem.

Here are some examples of how people would search online for a solution to this emergency:

“Where do I find an air conditioning company”

“AC Repair”

“Air conditioning Service”

“Emergency AC Service”

“AC not working”

“AC not cooling”

And for those who may be a “DIY” type of personality, they may conduct a search for “How to get AC running ”. There are thousands of ways to search for something online so it’s important to think through all the different ways your customers search the internet.

You certainly do not need to have every keyword in your account as Google’s keyword match types (Broad, Modified broad, Exact and Phrase match) make this process much less cumbersome.

A good place to start your keyword research is by using Google’s free keyword planner. You can find this under the “Tools” menu within your AdWords Account.

See below:

There are also many keyword tools available outside of Google’s free keyword tool.

Here are just a few examples:

SEMrush

Keyword Tool.io

Buzzsumo

Longtail PRO

Google Trends

Ubersuggest

KWFinder

In addition to finding the right keywords to target, it’s just as important to weed-out, increase, and lower individual keyword bids based on performance.

Negative Match Keywords

These are the terms you do NOT want your ad to show for in the Google search results page. For example, if you’re an HVAC contractor, you don’t want your ad to show if someone searches “air conditioner for Toyota Camry”. It’s very easy to add negative keywords to your account.

Simply go to the negative keywords tab, like this:

Once you click on the “negative keywords tab”, you have two options to add your negative keyword; either at the ad group or campaign level. In this case you would choose the campaign level because the term “air conditioner for Toyota Camry” is irrelevant to your business.

Ad group level negative keywords are used to exclude your ad from showing from that particular ad group only, not your entire campaign.

Why are negative keywords so important? These are terms that prevent your ad from showing to people who aren’t looking for your service or product.

Showing your ad for unqualified searches will lower your click-thru-rate (CTR), which means lower quality scores and higher cost per clicks (CPC). Ultimately, adding this kind of control to your account will help to improve your ROI.

Search Terms Report

This is a valuable report now available right at your fingertips. This AdWords report shows you the exact terms people are typing into their browser to trigger your ad. You can easily find this report by clicking on the tab “search terms” as seen in the below screenshot.

This is a great source for optimizing your account. You can see how your ads performed with each search query. If they performed well, consider adding the term as a new keyword; conversely, if they aren’t relevant or performed poorly, consider excluding them.

From this report you can easily add either keywords and/or negative keywords right into your account. Simply check the box to the left of the search term and then click either the “add keyword” or “negative keyword” like this:

Don’t forget to consider the match type when adding keywords. If you just click the “add as keyword” button, Google will add the keyword to your campaign as a broad match keyword. You may want to consider phrase match, modified broad match or exact match.

You can learn more about the different types of keywords and how each type broadens or restricts your reach in the link below.

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6324?hl=en

Google allows you to make edits and changes before adding it to your campaign. For example, you can pick out the important words and delete the rest or you can add a city name (Geo-term) to the search term. Simply edit and make changes before adding it to your campaign. This is a great source to help you generate new keyword ideas.

Something else to consider when adding negative keywords to your HVAC AdWords account - Google offers two options. First, you can add the negative keyword at the ad group level, which is the default or campaign level.

See below:

I find that I almost always change the default option and click the radio button “Campaign level of each keyword” As in the HVAC contractor example I mentioned earlier, the search “Air conditioner for Toyota Camry” will never apply and should be excluded entirely from the campaign.

However there are instances where you may want to exclude the term just from triggering ads in a specific ad group instead of the entire campaign. Continually monitoring this report will keep your account fresh and wasted spend at a minimum.

Conclusion

You’ll find these recent changes very helpful especially if you’ve been looking for HVAC AdWords help. Anytime Google makes the AdWords interface more user-friendly to the advertiser, the more effectively you’ll be able to manage your account.

The Google AdWords interface is not always intuitive or easy to navigate, but these are welcome changes. Implementing, testing and making changes to your account on a regular basis will help cut out wasteful spend and better target your most productive customer.

#hvac marketing #adwords for contractors #roofing website #hvac google tips

Contractor Websites - 9 Secrets of the World’s Most Successful Web Pages

It's not complicated, really. Great contractor web pages, that is.

The details I’ve learned about promoting contractor websites began to take shape over 10 years ago within my AdWords landing pages.

Looking back now, my early attempts at service and repair offers on my website seem almost amateurish.

As I slowly became more sophisticated at AdWords, I quickly discovered that website page design could improve my conversion rate by up to 600%.

Over the years, I tested hundreds of designs and various offers in my own contractor websites, mixing up the content and trying to uncover what works best. If you want to convert between 15-25% of your service and repair website visitors into customers, following are the top 9 unbelievably simple secrets:

1) Keyword selection and use

Here are the primary “money” keywords (those with the most searches) on a national basis for an air conditioning/heating service company:

air conditioning repair

ac repair

air conditioner repair

furnace repair

air conditioning service

air conditioner service

hvac repair

Here are the top Plumbing keywords

plumber

emergency plumber

24 hour plumber

the plumber

plumbing repair

plumbing service

local plumber

find a plumber

Electrician:

electrician

emergency electrician

commercial electrician

licensed electrician

residential electrician

electrician services

electrical repair

local electrician

These are the keywords that get the most searches but are also the most competitive to rank for. Of course, you will want to include the geo-modified (location) versions for your particular market.

Searcher intent is a big part of the equation as well. If someone searches the term “goodman furnace” they are most likely a furnace replacement prospect, not repair.

Keep in mind that the home page of contractor websites is probably going to get the best rankings of any page.

I would include the top 3 keywords and their relevant variations you wish to rank for on this page. Name the links in your main navigation bar at the top of the home page so they include each keyword, like this:

(City) Air conditioning repair (City) Furnace repair

Once a visitor arrives on your home page, they will see these links (among others) that allow them to quickly navigate to the right page for their desired need. This accomplishes 3 things

It allows your visitor to efficiently navigate your site

It tells Google what your website is about

It provides an opportunity to rank for variations of the primary keyword

You MUST be clear on all 3 elements. Links that include a keyword tell Google which are your most important pages and they use this as a primary website ranking factor.

The more links (within reason) on your site that include the primary keywords your visitors search for, the more “juice” Google will give your website.

For plumber contractor websites, on your plumbing repair or emergency plumber page, include the keywords and several variations that you wish to rank for. Don’t try and trick the search engines by keyword stuffing, or awkwardly inserting the keywords in an unnatural way.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t choose a primary keyword to target in each piece of content. You should use that keyword in your title and URL.

However, variations on your main keyword will naturally be peppered throughout your content.

When you’re targeting a keyword, you might want to have a handful of “sub-targets” in mind.

ac repair contractors Chicago

air conditioning service in Chicago

chicago ac repair service

chicago ac companies

Use the Google Keyword Planner to identify these keywords and their search volume.

You are looking for keywords that have a search volume of 20-50 each month. It’s smart to go after keywords that have less competition and lower search volume because they are easier to rank for.

Plus, there are hundreds of variations that, in total, can drive very significant traffic to your service pages.

Also, if you find that your content is getting traffic from a related keyword that doesn’t actually appear on the page, go back and add it in.

For example, let’s say you want to rank for the term “plumbing repair service chicago”. You could naturally pepper the words “repair service” “service” and “Chicago” throughout the content of the page – better optimizing the page for that sub-target keyword.

However, don't be fooled when you rank for keywords such as "electrical repair service in san diego Ca". The search volume on keywords that have more than 3-4 words is almost non-existent for contractor websites.

I would simply include each of the words in that search term throughout my website content so you can rank for the shorter 1-4 word versions that matter.

Google has improved its ability to interpret your keyword content and provide visitors with good results.

They will scan the page and rank you for many long tail keyword variations even though the exact keyword is nowhere on the page. This is a smart way to outrank your less accomplished competitors for a wide variety of useful keywords.

2) How many times should you use the keyword on each page of contractor websites?

There is no ideal number or frequency. The number of times a keyword appears on the page will vary depending on the type of content you have created, how long it is, and other factors.

Instead of worrying about a number or an ideal rate of keyword density, focus on relevance, uniqueness and value.

Ask yourself these three questions:

Would someone using this keyword find my content relevant to their search?

Would someone using this keyword be able to find this same content somewhere else?

Would someone using this keyword be satisfied with the content I’m providing?

If your content is truly relevant to the keyword, it should naturally appear in the content at a reasonable rate, so that both readers and search engine spiders can tell what your content is about. Write like you speak and insert the keywords in a way that is natural and flows well. You will not fool Google with awkward keyword stuffing.

3) Where on contractor websites should the keyword appear?

Use your main keyword, or a variation of it, in all of these key places on the page:

· The URL

· The primary “attention” headline of the page (your headline should begin with the keyword for best ranking results)

· The supportive sub-headline to the primary headline

· The title and H1 tags (see chapter X)

· The first sentence or at least the first paragraph

· Image file names and alt text

· The meta title and description

· In outward links to related content within your website

Inserting the keywords in each of these 8 positions will prevent you from having to overuse them within the content of the page.

4) Page design and layout tips

On your service page (or any page for that matter), I do not recommend a “hero shot” of your staff and a bunch of vans in the parking lot. This is more of an expression of your ego than it is a benefit to your visitors.

I would suggest a high resolution shot of a happy family or an attractive female with a headset and your logo photo-shopped onto her shirt. You can purchase amazingly well produced photographs that are a great benefit to your visitors and website.

If you are going to use employee photos, be sure they are custom and shot by a professional.

Your images and graphics have just one purpose – to support the message and content of the page they are used on. DO NOT insert random shots that are designed as filler or to balance the page.

Make sure that whenever you insert an image it is a visual representation of the message in which it is placed.

Your "hero" shot at the top of the page should be selected to set the tone of your web page and to instill a sense of friendliness and trust for your company. Select that image very carefully.

5) Use of unlicensed images on contractor websites

Be sure that every photograph or image you use is licensed to you directly through the owner.

DO NOT go on Google and swipe images. They are there for the taking but may be copyright protected. It is easy to insert invisible tracking code in an image you own.

Whenever it is copied the owner is notified of the violation and where it exists.

The owner can demand up to several thousand dollars and sue you (and win) if you refuse to pay. Also, you don’t want to have an image on your contractor website that is used all over the web. This is unprofessional and can turn off many visitors.

To protect yourself, insist that your website developer provide you with licenses for each image or graphic on your website. You will be held accountable, not them, in case of a violation.

6) Proper use of page URL’s and addresses

When you are setting up (or modifying) your ac repair and furnace repair pages, be sure your page URL or address - http://yourcompany.com/residential-services/ac-repair has the primary keyword in it.

The company named has been removed in the link above but it is an actual HVAC website I found.

For ranking purposes, this URL has a problem – the primary keyword, “ac repair” is too “deep” within the URL to benefit ranking. Of course, the URL is only one of many factors but it still needs to follow best practices.

Google assigns relative importance to each keyword in the address based on the order they appear.

In this case, here is the relative importance to Google of each keyword, in order:

Keyword - “your company”

Keyword – “residential services”

Keyword – “ac repair”

They should easily rank for their company name because it is part of the primary domain. They do not rank (nor will they ever) for “residential services” because this sounds like a real estate term, not HVAC.

This is a blunder on the part of the design firm, but unfortunately the website owners will never know, unless they read this article, of course.

They may rank for the term ac repair assuming they have followed other best practices but this URL is not helping. One mistake like this will not necessarily kill your contractor website rankings but it could mean the difference between first and second page placement.

Here’s an address that will provide better ranking juice:

http://yourcompany.com/ac-repair-houston

The longer URL that includes “residential services” is actually interfering with the ranking of this page because it will appear to Google that “residential services” is the more important keyword, with “ac repair” being an afterthought of the page.

In the HVAC industry “residential services” is a completely irrelevant keyword, yet it is front and center on the website. They actually have a primary page linking directly from the homepage that is titled “Residential Services”.

If instead, Google sees a direct link from the home page to the ac repair page without first having to go to residential services, they will give it greater credibility as a primary service of your website.

7) Keep your service and repair web pages simple and clutter-free

Keep the content and page design tightly focused on the message and solutions. I know how tempting it is to try and be all things to all people, but this is not the time or the place.

Leave out distracting promos or offers that have nothing to do with why they are on your ac repair page in the first place. If you are offering ac repair leave out distracting duct cleaning, replacement, and maintenance offers on the page.

Give each of these services their own page and link to them from your home page.

Your ONLY goal is to entice them to call you and address their pain, not to overwhelm them and distract from that goal. Too many options just encourage analysis paralysis and will pulverize your conversion rate.

Your home page can highlight your full range of services but this customer has an immediate need so get to work filling that need with focused landing page message.

Each of your repair service landing pages must be designed solely to support a single set of symptoms and to fulfill a need the customer currently has.

Do yourself and your customer a favor and stay focused on your message, providing a clear solution to their problem, and getting them to contact you, right now.

Carefully guide your visitors through the 4 step AIDA principle I've discussed in other articles.

8) The most important content elements of properly designed service/repair website pages are:

A compelling headline and follow-up sub-headline that promises your visitor an immediate solution

Compelling text that fully explains the headline in detail

A strong call to action so your visitor knows exactly what to do next

Strong and visible placement of your phone number

Avoid “Commodity Phrases” at all costs ("we're number one", etc)

A “Contact Us” box placed very prominently in the upper right or left of the page, well above the fold.

Keep your landing pages simple and clutter-free

Keep paragraphs to 4 lines or less

Your service/repair web page is different from your “all services included” homepage in that it focuses on solving one problem, makes a compelling offer, and then shows the customer exactly what steps they need to take to get their life back to normal.

9) DO NOT expect your website designer to get this right

I have yet to meet a web designer who fully understood the essential elements of well-crafted AC and furnace repair website pages. As a matter of fact, their advice will usually cost you sales.

It seems they spend all their time on website development and layout and almost none on the marketing and conversion aspects.

But if you ask them, they will tell you they are an expert at both of these two elements. But trust me, they ARE NOT.

I discovered early on, I was going to have to learn everything I could about content writing and how to create the highest number of conversions possible.

I estimate I have spent around TEN THOUSAND hours studying, testing, and designing landing pages and formulating traffic strategies over the last 14 years for my own contractor websites. This article is the culmination of that time and exhaustive effort.

Unless you come across the rare exception to this rule, take this important element under your own wing if you expect to excel on the web.

Have You just about given up on ever having a successful website?

Does your online competition seem to have a huge competitive edge?

Is running your business and trying to be an online marketer just too much?

CHECK OUT MY ADVANCED RANKING SYSTEM

The Only 100% Done-For-You Website Ranking System Designed to Implement Proven Strategies That I Have Personally Used To Generate $40,000,000 in Sales from 17,000,000 Visitors

GET DETAILS

Question: Would your customers respond better using this method rather than your typical approach? What else works well for you? Share your comments now

His websites have generated over 17,000,000 visitors and were featured in the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, 2 years in a row.

You can contact him directly at:

407-459-8804 or email him at [email protected]

#contractor websites #electrician website #hvac marketing #roofing websites #plumber marketing

Contractor SEO – 9 Simple Words I Used On Google That Helped Me Sell Thousands of Ductless AC Systems

By Michael Haines, founder of ACDirect.com

I don’t know about you but I’m always looking for the right words in my marketing messages

Words that will capture the attention of my perfect prospects and send them flocking to me.

I’ve gotten it wrong as much as I’ve gotten it right. Today, I’m going to share a simple message I created on Google that helped me dominate the online sales of ductless air conditioning systems, specifically Mitsubishi and LG, for over 10 years.

I’m also going to show you how to upgrade your contractor SEO using the exact same concept in your business and improve your clicks and paying customers from your organic traffic, even if your ranking are less than perfect.

The concept is simple, really, you just have to take the time to do what very few of your competitors are doing. And that is to update what’s known as your page meta titles and meta descriptions within the “back-end” of your website.

A page title and description are the results that searchers see on the Google organic listings when they complete a keyword search. They are written within the coding of your website.

As an example, if you type in the search term “ductless air conditioner” in Google you will see this:

On each organic listing shown on the search results page, you will see these 3 things:

1) The “title” is in blue (or purple if you have ever clicked on it before)

2) Under the title is the website address, or URL of where you will be directed by Google if you click the listing. Under the website address is the “description”, the 150 or so characters that provide more detail about the listing.

3) Each listing is trying to entice you to click, but some are a lot better at it than others. These titles and descriptions are easily changed from your website, but more on that a little further down in this article.

The content of your title and description have a huge impact on whether your listing gets the click or not. Of course, listings toward the top of the page get a lot more clicks than those at the bottom, but the goal is to get as many clicks as possible, regardless of page positioning. Let’s say your SEO listing is number 10 on the page (the very last position).

/h4>

Google states that listings in the 10th position will average about 3% of the clicks for visitors to search results pages, all things being equal. But we don’t want things to be equal, we want them to tilt in our favor. So how can you get more clicks if you are in the 10th position?

Simple, treat the words and content of your website titles and descriptions as though they were Google ads, not just listings. In the headline of this article I wrote:

9 Simple Words I Used Online That Helped Me Sell Thousands of Ductless AC Systems

If you look back at the image of the results of a search for the term “ductless air conditioner” you will see the listing for my website, ACDirect.com. My listing is in the 5th position on the first page of Google and has been there (sometimes higher) for over 8 years. This is a national result, not just local, so that listing will show up for searchers anywhere in the country.

The same is true for hundreds of variations for the “ductless air conditioner” term. As a matter of fact, we outrank This Old House, Daiken, and Lennox, among others, for this term. Many of my search terms outrank Amazon, eBay, Home Depot, Lowes, and many other large dominant firms

There are many reasons we were able to achieve these stellar rankings, but what I want you to notice is the title of my listing, which is,

How Much Does a Mitsubishi Ductless Air Conditioner Cost?

When I wrote that title about 10 years ago, I spent a lot of time trying to determine what would get the most people to click my listing. I remember thinking that for people who had just discovered ductless ac systems, the very first thought most would have is “how much do they cost?” Even if they didn’t have that thought I think most would click my listing to get an answer.

Of course, no one can say for sure, but if I were a Google algorithm writer and I see a listing in the 10th position that was supposed to get 3% click-thru’s on average but was actually getting a 10% click-thru-rate (yes, Google tracks this metric), I would assume that it was an enticing result for my searchers and would move it up in the rankings. In the early years, my ductless ads were ranking on the third or fourth page of Google but as soon as I re-crafted my titles and descriptions, they began to move to the second page, and then the first page very quickly.

Those listings with that exact title have generated thousands of ductless air conditioner sales for my company in the last 12 years.

So I wrote that title when everyone else was mostly not even bothering to write a title (in which case Google just picks up snippets from your webpage that create a jumbled, pointless message within the title and description of your listings).

Look at that image above again and you can see that Fujitsu actually has the worst title and description on the entire page:

Fujitsu Ductless Mini-Splits: Products - Fujitsu General

www.fujitsugeneral.com/products.htm

Flex Zone (2 to 8 Zones) ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- - Remote Controls ---------------------------------------- - Fresh Air Intake Kits

That link is of little value to Fujitsu even though they are ranked in the 4th position on the page. The headline and description do nothing to entice searchers to click. The only value this listing provides is the Fujitsu brand itself, which, of course, will generate clicks, but not near as many as if they had a compelling title and description.

Here’s one way I may write the title and description for that Fujitsu listing:

(title) Fujitsu Ductless Air Conditioners Are Quick & Easy To Install

The 5 benefits of Fujitsu ductless air conditioners include: 1) Highly flexible, 2) Save you money, 3) Improve indoor air quality, 4) Are easy to install, and 5) Are exceptionally energy efficient!

I want you to notice that of the entire search result listings for the term “ductless air conditioner” my listing is the ONLY one on the entire page that includes that exact keyword. ALL of the other organic listings refer to “ductless mini-splits” or just “mini-splits” which is NOT the keyword that was searched and is not a well-known term among homeowners.

Always include the exact keyword that your web page is about in your meta-title. Then, write a compelling title and description for the best possible click-thru-rates that your position can achieve.

Let’s see how to do this for a contractor website

I searched the term “air conditioning repair Orlando” and got this result:

This is a listing of the first page results, top 10 listings. Not one single site even comes close to hitting the contractor SEO nail on the head! Look at the first listing which is the Better Business Bureau:

Orlando Air Conditioning Repair - Better Business Bureau

www.bbb.org/.../air-conditioning-repair/orlando-f...

Better Business Bureau

Find BBB Accredited Air Conditioning Repair Companies near Orlando, FL - your guide to trusted Orlando, FL Air Conditioning Repair, recommended and BBB ...

They are guilty of what is known as keyword stuffing, or awkwardly repeating a keyword, in this case “air conditioning repair”. Someone needs to tell them that trick is over and never worked in the first place.

They did nail the title by including the exact keyword that was searched followed by “Better Business Bureau”. This will appeal to searchers who may not have considered checking the BBB before selecting a contractor for their home. But the actual description needs work. Here’s what I would suggest:

Orlando Air Conditioning Repair - Better Business Bureau

www.bbb.org/.../air-conditioning-repair/orlando-f...

Avoid being ripped off by unlicensed contractors. Obtain quotes, information or proposals from BBB Accredited Businesses. Check out our latest scam alerts – We’re online right now!

This description is informative, compelling and includes 6 benefits for clicking the listing. It also includes a call-to-action by reminding you they are online right now. My bet is they would increase their clicks by at least 35% if they followed my advice on this listing. A 35% increase would get them HUNDREDS of additional clicks per month in the number 1 position.

Let’s examine the second position listing. This is a large and fairly dominate air conditioning contractor in Florida. Their listing looks better but could still be improved. I would be willing to bet that their web designer wrote this and that is almost always the case. And most designers have no clue how to write a great title and description, so let’s help Del Air out:

Here is their listing currently:

Air Conditioning Orlando | Top AC Service and Repair | Del ...

www.delair.com/air-conditioning/

Del-Air is Florida's premier service for heating and air conditioning. Orlando and surrounding areas choose Del-Air for 24/7 emergency AC service.

Let’s start with the title:

The first mistake is that it is too long so Google has awkwardly truncated it with "Del…."

The second issue is the listing is all about Del Air, not the needs of the prospect. The words “you” or “your” are not used even once. Anyone who has followed my articles know that I am not a fan of “commodity” words like, the top, the best, the premier, we’re number 1, etc.

Now, on another matter in their defense, when you click the listing, Google has ranked a page they have titled as “air conditioning” and from that page you have to click thru to another page for the repair details. So the fact that the title has the keyword “air conditioning Orlando” without the word “repair” in it is not really their fault. But the rest of the title has other problems that they could easily correct. Since Google has recently shortened the amount of characters they will display in your title to between 55 and 60, they have to work within this new parameter.

The current description sounds scripted with no explanation of the benefits they offer to customers. The people who already know and use Del Air are likely to click no matter what the listing reads. But it is the searchers who don’t know their brand that they should be concerned about capturing.

Let’s start with how I would write their title:

Are You Looking For Orlando Air Conditioning Repair Right Now?

This is the only title on the entire page that is a complete thought and asks a compelling question that we already know the answer to, and that answer is “Yes, I am!” It is also the only title that shows an awareness and understanding of the “pain” the consumer is experiencing at this moment. Plus, it contains the word “you”.

That title is guaranteed to capture eyeballs so let’s follow through with a great description next.

Are You Looking For Orlando Air Conditioning Repair Right Now?

www.delair.com/air-conditioning/

Are you tired of stifling heat & humidity? Get service today from just $XX & free diagnostic with repair. Nights, weekends & holidays, Del Air is there when you need us, for over 30 years. Call Now!

This description is rich with benefits and conveys the following:

You understand they are in immediate need

The word “you” is inserted 2 more times

You will react quickly.

You are transparent with your pricing

You will arrive today

You have been servicing the area for over 30 years.

It contains a call-to-action

Meta titles and description can help significantly improve your traffic regardless of your listing location within the search results pages (assuming your listing appears on page one or two of Google or the other search engines). If you have access to the back end of your website you can changes these settings very easily. Otherwise, copy the link to each page you want to change, write the revised titles and descriptions and email them to your website support provider. If you need help, call or email me and I will be happy to assist.

To view your existing titles and descriptions on each page of your website without having to log in to the back end, simply pull up a page and right click on it to view your title and descriptions. Then, when the dropdown menu appears, click on “view page source”.

Then, when the coded page appears on your screen, look for the content next to this code:

<title>

*Note – Writing titles and descriptions for your home page is a bit different since the home page is more of a directory for your entire website and may not be product or service specific. Your titles and descriptions should contain the most profitable keywords that your site is about and a general relevant message about your most popular products or services. The home page is particularly important because it is probably the most highly ranked page on your entire website.

Meta titles and descriptions are a quick and easy way to make sure you are maximizing your contractor SEO and the traffic you get from relevant searches for your products or services.

Have You just about given up on ever having a successful website?

Does your online competition seem to have a huge competitive edge?

Is running your business and trying to be an online marketer just too much?

CHECK OUT MY ADVANCED RANKING SYSTEM

The Only 100% Done-For-You Website Ranking System Designed to Implement Proven Strategies That I Have Personally Used To Generate $40,000,000 in Sales from 17,000,000 Visitors

GET DETAILS

Did I miss something? I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Have you uncovered another technique that works for you? Leave your comments below.

His websites have generated over 17,000,000 visitors and were featured in the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, 2 years in a row.

You can contact him directly at:

407-459-8804 or email him at [email protected]

#contractor seo #ductless hvac

HVAC AdWords - Does Your Account Manager Have a Grip? Here’s 5 Ways to Tell

So you’ve got an HVAC AdWords account or, perhaps you are considering trying it out.

But does your management firm have a solid grip on providing you with an ROI?

If you are having a difficult time understanding the answer, you’re not alone. Many times you will get only the data the management firm wants you to see and, without full account access, you just have to hope the reports are complete.

I’m going to share 5 simple questions you should ask. And, how to verify the answers they provide.

1) Where is your AdWords traffic being driven to?

The only correct answer here is custom landing pages created solely for your HVAC AdWords campaigns. If they are driving traffic to your existing website, failure is practically guaranteed.

There is no way to test results without offering up landing pages that compete against each to determine which convert best. Properly designed landing pages are the single greatest contributor to AdWords success. Lack of properly designed landing pages is also the single greatest contributor of failure.

The perfect landing page is highly targeted, and eliminates all other distractions in favor of a compelling service or replacement offer attached to a lead capture form. This format will convert 200%,

300%, up to 600% more of your visitors into leads that will funnel into revenue.

Each landing page should contain an attention-grabbing headline centered around the visitor’s keyword search. Follow this with a sub-head that further explains the benefits you offer.

Like this:

_____________________________________

Is Your Air Conditioner in Need of Repair?

If You Are Tired of Stifling Heat and Humidity and Long for Dependable Comfort Again, Here’s How the (Your company) Rescue Team Can Help You – FAST!

_____________________________________

What makes this an effective headline?

1) It gets right to the need of the visitor without hesitation or distraction. 2) It introduces the viewer’s “pain” so they feel you understand 3) It introduces a potential solution to their pain with just a little more reading 4) The headline is all about the reader, not you or your company. The words “your” and “you” are used 3 times. “We”, “our”, and “us” are not used at all.

There are 3 more steps each landing page must provide to your visitors if they are going to convert at rates of 15% to 35%. Get each step correct and success is almost guaranteed.

2) Are they tracking all in-bound leads?

Each and every phone call should be tracked and recorded. Each email inquiry should contain a record of the landing page that generated the conversion. We use a phone tracking method known as “dynamic phone number insertion”. Each visitor to your HVAC landing page is served up a unique number that only they see.

This not only tells us which landing page the call came from, but also the keyword searched. This is brand new technology that practically no one else is using.

We are able to record and listen to the call, track which landing page generated the call, and have access to the keyword that the caller searched to find our ad. Within seconds we have access toall of this valuable information that allows us to monitor and track which elements are working best.

AdWords has many valuable tracking elements within the interface, but this data is beyond the scope of what Google can provide. It is the job of your AdWords manager to ensure that every available tool is being put to use.

3) Did they help you determine how much you can afford to spend on each conversion?

In my way of thinking, it is an HVAC AdWords manager’s job to make sure you are not blindly spending money with no sense of direction. Of course, this also forces them to commit to a set of results that some are uncomfortable engaging in.

But their primary job is to not just send you traffic, but to create conversions that are affordable and make financial sense. They can quickly help you arrive at conversion cost goals by asking a few simple questions. We will assume we are trying to arrive at the maximum conversion cost for each of your service and repair leads.

Here are the questions:

a) How much revenue does your average service call generate? b) What is your average gross margin from service calls? c) From these 2 questions, how much is your average gross profit per service call? d) How much of this profit are you comfortable spending to generate the call?

The rest is relatively easy. If your average gross profit from each service call is $300, I would say your maximum AdWords cost for each service call should be about 30%, or $90. Remember, each new customer you obtain has an annual revenue value of about $700 if you convert them to a service agreement.

So, in a way, you are investing in potential future revenue as well.

If you agree on this realistic number, this becomes a metric they MUST meet. Lower is better of course, but once you agree, they become obligated to meet this metric. If they won’t commit, keep looking. Of course, you can’t expect them to commit to a much lower number if it is unobtainable in your market. But don't agree to something that doesn't make financial sense either.

Hold them to $90 and hope they can do better. In many markets, conversion costs of $30-$50 each are possible.

4) Are they focusing on mobile visitors?

According to Google’s own data, mobile is on the move. Mobile visitors have exceeded those of desktops and this trend is only increasing. You must treat these searches much differently than those of desktop visitors. Failure here will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales and you’ll never even know it.

The good news is, practically none of your HVAC competition is getting this right. So, by taking advantage now of this weakness that exists in almost all markets for HVAC websites, you can turn the tide in your favor while your competition fails to capitalize.

This means each of your ad groups must have 2 sets of ads, desktop and mobile. This also means each of your landing pages must be mobile device responsive so that the experience is tailored to the very different needs of mobile searches.

The page must be short and to the point and only focus on a single consumer need, such as air conditioning repair.

There should be no page navigation (no links that take the visitor from the page) and no competing offers such as system replacements, duct cleaning, etc. Here are some explicit examples of our highest converting mobile pages. They are clean, concise, and to the point with very strong calls to action and contact details.

5) Does management go beyond just driving traffic?

I believe one of the most valuable services we offer as part of our HVAC AdWords management for every client is recording, monitoring, and critiquing the way in-bound calls are handled by staff. Getting calls is one thing; properly converting them into revenue is another.

When I ask a new client how well they handle in-bound phone calls, I always get the same answer:

“Oh, my staff does a great job and customers love us”.

While this may be true for some calls, it is almost never true for most or all calls. When I first began recording my in-bound calls about 6-7 years ago, I thought the same thing. Prior to recording the calls, I spent a lot of time training and coaching my staff.

I’ve had the honor of personally handling thousands of in-bound phone calls myself, and I considered my techniques to be practically flawless. But the first time I began listening to recorded calls I was shocked!

I quickly learned that my advice and training was not always soaking in and it brought me back to reality. And that reality was, I was losing calls because reps were sometimes careless or simply didn’t understand how to handle certain inquiries.

When we monitor calls for our clients, we can email the actual recording to the client so they can listen to the call with one simple click.

Each time we record a lost opportunity, 2 things happen: we have the client listen to the call and then we offer suggestions on how it could have been handled differently. These are insightful and experienced suggestions that can turn the event around so that is doesn’t happen in the future.

His websites have generated over 17,000,000 visitors and were featured in the INC 5000 list of fastest growing companies in America, 2 years in a row.

You can contact him directly at:

407-459-8804 or email him at [email protected]

#adwords for contractors #hvac marketing #hvac google tips

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