EP 1: How I'd Audit an HVAC Company's Local SEO

Most HVAC owners have never seen a real local SEO audit, just the sales-pitch version with a traffic-light PDF and a contract underneath it. In this first episode, we audit a real HVAC company live: their Google Business Profile, their reviews, their citations, their website, and their visibility across their service area on a rank grid.

By the end you will know exactly what a proper audit covers, and you will be able to run the 20-minute version on your own company this week.

What's inside this episode

What does a real local SEO audit actually include?

A real audit covers five areas: your Google Business Profile setup, your review profile against local competitors, your citation accuracy across the major directories, your website's location and service pages, and your actual rankings across the whole service area. Anything that skips one of those five is a sales document, not an audit.

Why does the Google Business Profile category matter so much?

Your primary category is the single strongest signal Google uses to decide which searches you can appear for. An HVAC company set to "Air conditioning contractor" competes in a different results set than one set to "HVAC contractor". We walk through how to check what the top three companies in your market use and when to match them.

How many reviews does an HVAC company actually need?

There is no magic number, the target is set by your market. If the companies holding the Map Pack in your city average 180 reviews and you have 40, that gap is the job. We cover how to read the gap, what velocity matters more than totals, and why review replies are part of the ranking picture.

What is a rank grid and why check rankings across the whole service area?

A rank grid checks your Map Pack position from dozens of points across your service area instead of one. Most owners check rankings from their own office and think they rank third. Drive four miles and they are invisible. The grid shows where the calls are actually being lost, street by street.

What should you fix first if you only have one hour a week?

Reviews first, then the Google Business Profile, then citations. One review request routine, one profile cleanup, one citation pass. We lay out the exact one-hour weekly order so the highest-impact fixes land before anything cosmetic.