HVAC and roofing marketing: why they call the name they remember
Why emergency work goes to whoever comes to mind, what trades marketing costs, and how an owner stays visible without filming every week. Prices published.
On this page
- `roofing seo` runs about 3,770 US searches a month at a keyword difficulty of seven. The narrow trade terms are winnable in a way the broad ones are not.
- `trades marketing` is difficulty 73 and effectively unrankable. Target your actual trade, not the category.
- A boiler failing on a Sunday is not a considered purchase. They call a name they half remember.
- The referral you never got usually went to somebody more visible, not somebody better.
A boiler failing on a Sunday is not a considered purchase. Somebody with water coming through a ceiling is not running a comparison, reading reviews, or filling in a form. They call a name they half remember, and half remembering you is something that had to happen weeks earlier.
Why do people call the name they recognise?
Because urgency removes the shopping step. Under time pressure people stop evaluating and start retrieving, and whatever surfaces first gets the call.
The work itself is also hard to tell apart from the outside. Two roofers with the same reviews and the same price are, to a homeowner, the same roofer. The one who gets called is the one whose face turns up when they think about the problem.
That is also why the referral you never got usually went to somebody more visible rather than somebody better. Your neighbour recommends the name they can retrieve.
Should you target your trade or the category?
Your trade. This is the clearest data point in the whole vertical and most trades businesses get it backwards.
| Term | Monthly volume | Difficulty | Cost per click |
|---|---|---|---|
roofing seo | 3,770 | 7 | $40.40 |
hvac marketing agency | 980 | 21 | $73.65 |
marketing for roofers | 860 | 3 | $47.65 |
hvac marketing | 700 | 5 | $65.50 |
electrician marketing | 460 | 9 | $45.91 |
trades marketing | 1,700 | 73 | $28.95 |
The last row is the trap. It looks like the obvious term, it has volume, and at difficulty 73 it is not winnable by a business your size. The narrow terms above it carry more volume in aggregate at a fraction of the difficulty.
So the page that ranks names your actual trade. The category term is the one to leave alone.
What should the videos be about?
The phone calls you take every week, answered in public:
- What does a job like this usually cost, and what changes the number
- How long will it take, and how much disruption is there
- What are the warning signs before this becomes an emergency
- When is it worth repairing instead of replacing
- What should I do right now, before you get here
That fourth one is the strongest and the most counterintuitive, because it sometimes talks somebody out of a sale. It also makes you the person they call next time and the name they give a neighbour, which is worth considerably more than the job you talked them out of.
Does any of this work if you hate being on camera?
That is the reason this exists. Nobody in this trade got into it because they enjoy filming themselves, and the weekly-video plan dies in week three for exactly that reason.
You record with us once, for about an hour, from a van or a kitchen table. You read a short consent statement and a set of neutral lines rather than performing. We build a model of your face and voice from that session, and everything after it is produced from the recording. Approving a month of scripts takes a few minutes on a phone between jobs, and nothing publishes without your written sign-off.
The detail for this vertical is on marketing for trades businesses, prices are on the pricing page, and the process is on how it works.
Frequently asked questions
One hour of your time. A year of content in your face.
You record once. We write, produce, caption and publish your videos from then on, and nothing goes out without your sign-off.
We send the guide and nothing else unless you ask. No call, no sequence.