As an HVAC contractor, you probably never expected to learn about website design or search engine optimization (SEO). As more and more customers ditch the local newspaper ads and opt for Google Search, building a strong digital presence has become increasingly vital for the success of your business.
If you do not appear near the top of local business search results for keywords relevant to your company, your potential customers might choose the competition.
So, how can you rank higher in Google’s algorithm to reach your target audience and boost website traffic? Read on as our digital marketing experts at Relentless Digital, a web design company for HVAC contractors, will discuss how to leverage web design and SEO together for your HVAC business.
Defining SEO Web Design
SEO is the practice of crafting your online presence in a way that makes search engine crawlers bring your website to the top of search results. Different search engines, like Google, rank a website’s SEO in many different ways. Everything from your internal links, mobile-friendliness, and page titles to your keyword research, website speed, and more can impact how high your website ranks.
So what does that have to do with web design? Web design is the general practice of building a new website. Web designers typically create content for many different reasons, though making an SEO-friendly site is usually one of them.
Web design and SEO go hand-in-hand since a responsive website design can launch local businesses to the top of relevant search engine result pages.
Why Do HVAC Businesses Need to Prioritize SEO and Web Design?
HVAC businesses need to prioritize SEO and web design to:
- Generate more traffic: An SEO-friendly website increases organic traffic by ranking higher in searches, thus attracting more website visitors who can click through to your content.
- Gather converting leads: Google Search results intelligently display your website to visitors who express direct interest in what you provide. Rather than paying for an advertisement that reaches people outside your targeted audience, SEO focuses on only focusing your efforts toward high-converting user intentions.
- Prevent a poor user experience: SEO web design improves a website for a reason. Beyond increasing the site’s ranking, these practices help you build better user experiences that won’t deter potential customers.
- Evolve the marketing tool belt: SEO is not a one-and-done strategy but rather something you can continue evolving and utilizing as your company grows.
The Eight Pillars for Mastering SEO Web Design for Beginners
Designing for search engines may sound difficult, but you can learn how to master website SEO using the eight tips below. Whether starting with a brand new site or revamping an existing site, you can use the following adjustments to improve your on-page optimization.
1. Utilize Sitemaps
Sitemaps are a simple and easy place to start that can bring your technical SEO up to par with search engines’ requirements. Sitemaps are data-rich files that tell bots and crawlers how your website flows, including which pages link together and where everything meets.
When crawlers struggle to navigate your website, it hurts your content’s SEO rankings. You can create a sitemap using your web host server. Once you submit it to Google, the crawlers will have a better shot at analyzing your website, and its internal logic will become more apparent.
2. Prioritize Readability
When building your website, readability is a huge ranking factor. Readability refers to how well both people and bots can understand your text, images, and other content forms.
When optimizing how your content reads, consider the following:
- Header structure: Hierarchical header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, and so forth) break up your web page’s content, making it easier to read. This structure also informs Google what the most important information (H1) is, helping crawlers better understand your content’s purpose, especially when using keywords.
- Body structure: The way you break up body content can make a difference too. You should avoid huge block paragraphs that are hard to read by breaking up content wherever you can. Keep in mind that you must utilize body content between headings to display a decent balance of content.
- Fonts and colors: Choosing easy-to-read fonts and colors helps people understand the writing on your web pages.
- File names: Google crawlers look at image file names to understand the pictures. Skip the confusing strings of numbers or letters and opt for simple terms that describe what your images convey.
- Image alt tags: If an image doesn’t load, the browser might display the alternative text instead. Your alternative text should describe the photo and utilize your keywords for improved accessibility and crawlability.
3. Make the Site Architecture Easy to Navigate
Your website is like a digital folder. You don’t want it to be one big mess of paperwork; otherwise, your visitors and crawlers won’t be able to find anything. Instead, you should improve website navigation so that the most important pages are only a few clicks away.
Typically, you can create a menu, heading section, and footer that include links to all of your site pages. Try breaking these links up into subcategories. For example, you could use a structure like this:
- HVAC services
- Heating
- Cooling
- Ventilation
- About us
- About our company
- Contact us
4. Create URL Structure and Meta Tags Around Keywords
Each website page has a URL, title tag, and meta description. When you comb through search engine results, this will be the text you see that describes each option. Your URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions should help both crawlers and visitors understand what your page content covers.
Your meta tag, as a whole, should also include keywords that would match a user’s search intentions. Keep in mind what the average character ranges are so that you don’t go over or under the recommended sweet spot.
5. Stick With HTML
When developing websites, you may choose between HTML or custom Javascript. Javascript offers a lot of web development flexibility, though it can damage your rankings when not done perfectly. We recommend sticking with HTML in your web design process for an optimal SEO strategy.
6. Increase Page Speed Loading Times
Nobody wants to wait forever for a page to load. Site owners should prioritize page speed by compressing large files, removing duplicate content, and utilizing a site speed checker to diagnose other problems. You should always keep content as unique as possible, so eliminating identical pages will also help you appear better to crawlers.
7. Make It Mobile
Your customers need to access your website from their mobile devices. If the mobile version of your site doesn’t work well, you will not show up high in results. The best SEO-friendly websites make the mobile device experience just as good as the desktop.
Consider how different things appear on a smaller screen and how the navigation experience will change. Typically, you will need to convert header links into a hamburger menu for easy click access to multiple pages.
8. Remember to Write for Human Website Visitors, Too!
Remember that you’re not just writing for bots; you’re writing for people, too. Crawlers will even reduce your ranking for sounding too inhuman.
Avoid stuffing in too many keywords,swwA and keep the overall flow of content natural. Remember who your customers are, write authentic content, and make your design easy to use.
Transform Your Website Design and Rank High With Relentless Digital
Now that you understand how to leverage web design and SEO, you can begin crafting a website that will attract more high-converting customers. We recommend reading more about each SEO web design pillar before starting any makeovers. First, learn why mobile-friendly websites are important.
If you want to ensure success with your web design strategy, consider adding an experienced professional to your side. At Relentless Digital, we can take care of the entire web design approach for you, from building a navigational menu to researching keywords and implementing them across your content.
Our team at Relentless Digital specializes in digital marketing for HVAC businesses, so we know how to customize SEO strategies for your specific industry.
Contact us today at (262) 720-5739 to schedule a consultation with our experienced digital marketing services team at Relentless Digital!
