Local search engine optimization refers to the practice of improving your performance for location data, location keywords, and specific keyphrase performance in search.

A big part of being visible in local search has to do with how well your Google Business Profile performs. Google Business Profile ranking is tied to relevance, distance, and prominence.

When done right, search engines like Google have a better understanding of your business offerings and location, so that when customers in your area complete a search for your service, you are connected.

A Basic Understanding Of The Local SEO Lexicon

What Is A Google Business Profile?

A Google Business Profile (“GBP” for short)  is a business listing made available by Google. They require some level of user verification upon creation, as to restrict spammy GBP creation.

What Is The “Map Pack”?

The “Map Pack” is the common way to refer to the top three Google Business Profile listings that show up in search. Many HVAC service-related terms that a home or business owner would enter into Google trigger a “Map Pack” to show up, usually below ad placement and above the traditional 10 blue links of a search engine results page.

What Are Citations?

Citations are other places on the web where one’s business contact information would commonly be found. That means popular places like BBB, Yelp, FourSquare, Facebook, and more. Depending on your industry, there will also be other lesser-known data aggregator sites or niche listings, like Data Axle or eLocal. 

What Is NAP?

NAP is an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone Number. Sometimes called NAP+W to include your website URL, it represents the core contact information for your business. NAP consistency refers to how accurately your citations match your proper business contact information.

How To Earn Solid Local SEO

In competitive marketplaces, it takes a well-established local presence to build your business to the top three in the Map Pack status.

Data within your Google Business profile, your own website, other citations, your location compared to the location of the searcher – all of that helps Google assess the key factors of relevance, distance, and prominence. That, in turn, determines how well you show up in Google for potential local customers. There are active steps you can take to help improve your performance in those key factors.

Complete Proper GBP Optimization

When you claim your Google Business Profile, you’re able to complete a variety of fields to best describe your business. That includes identifying your business NAP, what category your business falls into, a description of your business, the services you offer, media uploads, and more. 

Accurately completing this content in a way that is appropriately keyword-rich without being spammy creates a solid foundation on which to build your local SEO efforts. Without that, you significantly reduce your chances of success.=

Purpose-Driven Review Management

Increasing the number of reviews, upgrading the average rating of your business, improving the consistency with which you get reviews, and replying to reviews all positively contribute to how much Google and people will trust your business. 

This doesn’t happen naturally - your business needs to have an active plan to monitor and earn new reviews.

While you can certainly complete such endeavors manually, using automated review management systems can help you to improve your review performance while saving you hours of manual effort each week.

Follow Google’s Guidelines 

There is a long list of hacks and black-hat tactics for rapidly increasing your Google Business Profile ranking.

Over time, Google identifies every single one of them. From there, they generally turn those black-hat tactics from a benefit to a deterrent for your Google Business Profile success. The short-term reward is not worth the long-term risk.

Avoid Google Business Profile account suspension or deletion by following Google’s guidelines for long-term, sustainable growth for your business.

Content Marketing With Local Focus

Creating marketing pieces with a focus on your physical service areas can also help you earn more local business.

Commonly called “city pages” in marketing speak, these are pages of content meant to demonstrate your business's prominence in a specific physical area. It’s like a mini-home page that explains everything your business can do to help a specific town.

It’s important that these pages aren’t just rehashes of your existing content - your page content should try to identify how specific communities can be positively impacted by your services. 

Showing social proof with locally sourced reviews or project pages that feature the same city would be ideal, as well as any other content or local links that a potential customer in that area would identify with or otherwise find beneficial.   

The Benefits Of Solid Local SEO

When your business ranking improves, you maximize your reach into an audience of local customers who are in need of your services. Especially for HVAC service-related terms, users entering popular queries like “AC repair”  have an immediate need. When your business shows up in the top 3 of the map pack or the top of the 10 blue links, that is a low-cost, high-value business moment. 

Unlike other home service and construction business sales processes (like remodelers or roofers) when a customer may spend days or weeks in the vetting process, the assessment and selection process is very compressed for HVAC contractors. 

When your business is highly visible and your online review count/rating is above the stats of your competitors, you are very likely to earn a phone call. People inherently trust search engines like Google, so that visibility fairly immediately translates to more business. 

So long as you answer your phone and communicate in a timely manner, better local placement - as earned through local search engine optimization efforts - means better lead flow.