Tuesday, April 9, 2013

New Search Engine Optimization Rankings

HVAC Business Solutions has updated its website to reveal the results of its various SEO campaigns with HVAC Heating and Air Conditioning companies.

HVAC SEO Results
The HVAC SEO Results page shows the last five months of progress of a handful of search engine optimization campaigns.  Most campaigns are very focused and target 5 keywords in a single city.

One of the more recent SEO campaigns is for Dave Lane Heating and Air Conditioning.  They started a campaign in January, 2013 and from the initial report they did not rank on any of the keywords being targeted.  HVAC Business Solutions defines "not ranking" as not appearing within the first 30 results, i.e. the first 3 search results pages.

After two months, HVAC Business Solutions acheived the #1 overall ranking on Google (organic search result) for two keywords and the #2 overall ranking for the remaining keywords, including air conditioning repair spring branch.

#1 Google Rank
The #1 Google Rankings page lists on a monthly basis the keywords ranked #1 overall on Google.  Each month HVAC Business Solutions runs a monthly report for each of its clients and if a keyword is ranked #1 overall on Google it is now listed on this page.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

How many mobile users...

Sent Text Messages: 76%
Used Downloaded Apps: 54%
Used Browser: 52%
Accessed Social Networking/Blog: 39%
Played Games: 34%
Listened to Music on Phone: 29%

The information above comes courtesy from comScore's November US Mobile Subscriber Share report.

Other interesting information from the report includes Samsung having a higher market share than Apple, 26% vs 18%, and Google's Droid operating system (54%) having a higher market share than Apple (35%).

This means if you are looking to develop an app - you might want to target the Droid operating system first.

Overall, 123.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (53 percent mobile market penetration).

Brian Starzec | HVAC Business Solutions, LLC | January 23, 2012

Friday, January 18, 2013

The #1 Search Engine Is...

Google.  Again.

Ok, that may not come as a surprise, but what might be interesting to know is that Google's share of the search engine market is more than all of the other search engines combined.

Here is the data for December, 2012:
  1. 66.7% - Google Sites
  2. 16.3% - Microsoft Sites
  3. 12.2% - Yahoo Sites
  4.   3.0% - Ask
  5.   1.8% - AOL
This information comes courtesy of comScore, Inc.

The other interesting point from this survey is that the percentages moved by only less than 1/2 of 1%, unlike the stock market that swings wildly every day.  This mean people are locked into their favorite search engine and do not switch. 

From a marketing investment perspective this is reassuring because of this stability.  You can feel comfortable investing into search engine optimization targeting Google because there is a very high probability they will continue to be the #1 search engine for the foreseeable future.

My recommendation for heating and air conditioning companies that have limited marketing budgets is to focus your resources on Google.  Our company has been providing Search Engine Optimization services for a long time and our experience has taught us that the techniques required to improve your ranking on Google is different than for Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo. 

Therefore, if you are going to target search engine ranking improvement for just one search engine, pick Google.

Brian Starzec | HVAC Business Solutions, LLC | January 18, 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings

comScore, Inc released their December 2012 U.S. Online Video rankings.  Highlights:
  • 38.7 Billion online content videos viewed
  • 11.3 Billion video ad views
  • 84.9 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video
  • The duration of the average online content video was 5.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
  • Video ads accounted for 22.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.9 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.
Remember this is for the month of December only.

The top sites for videos include:
  • Google (YouTube) - 13.2 Billion videos viewed
  • AOL - 692 Million videos viewed
  • Facebook - 420 Million videos viewed
  • Yahoo - 383 Million videos viewed
Creating video content is a great way to attract home owners to your company's products and services and it should be a part of every marketing plan.  While creating and publishing videos may seem challenging, with modern technology it is actually fairly straightword.  Here are a couple of tips:

Create a YouTube Channel for your Business
It is free to setup.  It will allow you to create a profile for your business and allow you store all of your videos.  When you load videos, you get to tag them, which means identifying keywords to your video which will again, if done correctly, improve your search engine ranking.  For example, when you search "hvac flat rate book" on Google, would you rather view one of many websites (our company is #1 overall by the way) or would you rather view the only video that appears - our company's video is #5 overall.

Use Smartphones to Record Short Videos
The quality of videos on Smartphones is absolutely acceptable for your business.  There is no need to buy expensive equipment or hire a production company.  Your techs can create a quick video showing the result of an installation and then captured feedback from the home owner.  The marketing return on that short 1 minute video would be significant.

Create Slide Shows/Animations
A video does not have to mean including real people or situations.  Turning a PowerPoint presentation into a slide show, with a simple voice over can be equally as effective and can be easily added to YouTube.

The bottomline is more and more people are viewing videos.  If you want to attract more home owners and customers, you will need to create video content to help educate them, build your online credibility and differentiate yourself from the competition.

Brian Starzec | HVAC Business Solutions, LLC | January 17, 2013