American Home Water & Air
Background
American Home Water and Air (AHWA) is an HVAC and plumbing company in Phoenix, Arizona. We took over AHWA’s marketing operations in November 2019.
Several factors excited us about working with AHWA, including:
- AHWA’s exceptional reputation among customers in the Phoenix area developed over more than 35 years of service
- AHWA’s stellar team of HVAC professionals
- The fact AHWA previously spent virtually no money on advertising, which meant we had lots of room for growth via our proven digital marketing strategies
This case study offers a behind-the-scenes look at how we grew AHWA’s revenue by 32% within the first year through systematized, data-driven marketing strategies.
The Risks
Risks accompany any marketing campaign. Specific risks we considered before starting with AHWA included:
- The fact its primary location is in Glendale rather than Phoenix, which could negatively impact search engine rankings in the much larger metropolitan area.
- The HVAC industry’s competitive nature in Phoenix, one of America’s most populous cities.
- The difficulty involved in making up for years of little to no marketing efforts on AHWA’s part.
After careful consideration of these risks, we found no reason to consider them insurmountable. As such, we proceeded with the campaign launch and promptly hit the ground running to establish AHWA as Phoenix’s #1 HVAC company.
The Opportunities
Here are the low-hanging fruits we identified and capitalized on from day one after taking over AHWA’s marketing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A substantial chunk of any HVAC and plumbing contractor’s leads come from users searching for those specific services. As such, it’s very important that the contractor’s website be optimized to appear in search results for relevant queries (known as “keywords”).
We started off by conducting thorough keyword research and competitor analysis to identify low-hanging fruit opportunities (keywords with small to mid search volume and low competition) that we would be able to appear near the top of search results for relatively quickly.
Given that SEO was never done on the website previously, we knew that we wouldn’t be able to rank well for very competitive keywords and we didn’t want to spin our wheels trying to rank for those keywords while not having any immediate results. With a very focused keyword strategy laid out, we reoptimized the majority of the website’s existing pages.
We used a proprietary algorithm to analyze the first page of search results for target keywords (i.e. “air conditioning in Phoenix” and “Phoenix HVAC”). Our algorithm returned reports detailing what it would take to appear on the first page of search results for those target keywords. Typical changes included:
- Addressing specific questions or concerns users have about a particular product or service
- Incorporating keywords into strategic elements of the webpage
- Ensuring the content met specific length requirements
We only hit publish after ensuring each piece of content met our proprietary algorithm’s recommendations.
Link-Building
To further support our content efforts, we also began running a campaign to attract links from other local businesses and our network containing hundreds of websites in the home services sector.
Done correctly, this process helps Google recognize our website as being authoritative in Phoenix’s HVAC and plumbing industry.
We used another proprietary algorithm to identify the specific websites that would offer the most value in this regard.
Local SEO
We optimized all of AHWA’s profiles on all local directories such as Yelp, Angie’s List, etc. We also spent time improving the Google My Business Page.
A key aspect of this was leveraging our relationships with hundreds of local websites in the home services industry to promote AHWA. In addition to boosting traffic, this helped establish AHWA in Google’s eyes as an authoritative entity within the Phoenix HVAC industry. This, in turn, ensured our Google My Business Page appeared in all relevant search queries.
Another crucial aspect of our local SEO efforts was reducing our response time. Because AHWA’s previous owner got most of their business through referrals and local in-person visits, they neglected platforms like Yelp. We did the opposite, giving Yelp more incentive to boost AHWA’s listing.
As a result of our optimization efforts, we increased the total actions (this includes phone calls from the listing, requests for direction to the office, and direct visits to the website) taken on our GMB listing by 71% over the course of 8 months. We implemented a system that allows AHWA to e reviews automatically and that allowed the business to more than double its number of reviews on the Google My Business listing.
Paid Media
Not only did our SEO and Local SEO efforts pay off in folds, but our optimization of the paid media channels also yielded results. When we inherited the Yelp Ads campaign, the Cost Per Lead was higher than what we were used to and after several months of optimization and tweaking of the campaign, we were able to decrease our Cost Per Lead by 63%. We obtained similar results for all other paid channels we inherited.
Not only did we improve the paid campaigns, but we also opened up new channels of lead generation that were never experimented with before. We launched Facebook Ads and Google Guaranteed Program campaigns among several others.
Results
Here’s what we achieved by capitalizing on the aforementioned opportunities.
Organic Traffic
SEO results typically take a while to kick in, hence the relatively flat graph during the first few months, but once all of our initiatives started to generate results we have seen an increase in organic traffic of 1,638% in only 8 months.
Keyword Rankings
In addition, by means of producing high-quality content and combining it with consistent on-page and off-page SEO efforts, we were able to grow our keyword base by 1,470%. As of June 2020, AHWA is now ranking in the top 3 positions in google.com with 112 keywords and has a total of 315 keywords ranking on the first page of Google. American Home Water and Air’s website additionally ranks for 8,224 keywords in Google as of June 2020.
Local SEO
We have grown our local SEO numbers significantly across multiple channels:
- Yelp page visits rose 93.7% and the number of Yelp leads improved 162%;
- Total actions taken on AHWA GMB listing improved by 71.7%, as well as search views grew by 58.4%.
- We also increased the leads number coming from our GMB listing by 213%
- The amount of 5-star reviews on GMB rose 124.6%
By implementing tracked calls, we’ve been able to better attribute these results.
Paid Media
We significantly improved the performance of existing paid media channels and opened up new channels of leads being generated through new paid media channels. The cost per lead on Yelp Ads decreased 63%.
The Bottom Line
As a result of all the great metrics above and the systematization of other processes, we were able to increase American Home Water and Air’s revenue by 32% within 12 months of taking over operations. AHWA continues growing rapidly, exceeding even our expectations.
Explore why hundreds of companies in SaaS and home services industries trust Build Media Group to grow their business.
