Search engine optimization, the process of ensuring a website’s high ranking on a search results page (mostly Google’s), continues to grow in importance as a marketing tool for HVAC contractors. And as its importance grows, the rules used by search algorithms change and become more selective. It now takes more than stringing together a sequence of keywords to score a top spot. This means that to stay at the top of search results, contractors need to invest in quality content.
Google controls around 90 percent of all searches, so most professionals in the SEO field focus on that search engine. Other search engines, such as Bing or Yahoo, can be part of an SEO strategy but provide less benefit, said Don Lafferty, director of digital marketing and a co-founder Comfort Media. Lafferty said Bing brings in a few visits a month for his clients versus a few dozen for Google. SEO done properly should serve all the search engines, he said.