How does an HVAC company get recommended by AI assistants?

When a furnace quits on a cold night, the homeowner may want a company that will answer now. The documentation from Google, OpenAI and Microsoft points an HVAC company to the same groundwork as any local business. Heating and cooling work changes four parts of it: hours, phone number, address and service pages.

Where do assistants look?

ChatGPT “can search the web to answer questions with current information and links to relevant sources,” and OpenAI says it “may use an approximate location based on your IP address to provide relevant local results.” Microsoft says Bing and Copilot search experiences rely on “the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search.” Google lists checking that your Business Profile information is up to date among the fundamentals for its AI features. None of them publishes how its AI answers pick one HVAC company over another; how AI assistants choose local businesses covers what is known.

What hours should an HVAC company list?

Google asks you to “provide your regular customer-facing hours of operation,” and adds: “If applicable, you may use your current seasonal hours as your regular hours.” For holidays, special hours cover a business that “temporarily adjusts its hours of operation or remains closed for up to 6 days in a row.” Google also says businesses that “operate only by appointment” shouldn’t list hours.

If you take emergency calls around the clock, list those hours only if a person really answers. If customers visit your location, the hours on your profile should be the hours it is staffed and open to them. Put the same hours on your website in text. If you mark them up, Google’s format for a business open all day is opens “00:00” and closes “23:59”.

Which phone number belongs on the profile?

Google’s phone rules say: “Use a local phone number instead of a central call center helpline number whenever possible,” and “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.” Google also bars numbers that “redirect or ‘refer’ users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business.” Use the same business name everywhere, too: Google says your name should reflect your real-world name, “as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers.”

Should the profile show your address?

That depends on how you serve customers. An HVAC company with a showroom or parts counter that customers visit can be what Google calls a hybrid business. Hybrids “can show their storefront address and designate a service area,” as long as the location has permanent signage and is “staffed by your team and able to receive customers during its stated hours.” If you only work at customers’ homes, Google says: “If you don’t serve customers at your business address, remove your address from your Business Profile.” Either way, you can list up to 20 service areas by city or postal code.

How should the service pages be built?

1. One page per service. Bing says “URLs focused on a primary topic are more likely to be selected for grounding results,” and advises against “mixing unrelated concepts on a single URL.” Furnace repair, AC repair, heat pump installation and maintenance plans each get their own page, and each goes in your Business Profile’s services list.
2. Key facts first. Bing’s guidance is to “place essential information near the top of the URL” and “avoid long introductions before addressing the main topic.” Lead with what the service is, the area you cover and how to book.
3. Facts in text. Bing says images “should not be the sole source of information required to understand the topic,” and Google lists “making sure that important content is available in textual form.” If your hours, service area or offers sit only in a banner image, put them in text too.
4. Matching markup. Schema.org has an HVACBusiness type, a kind of LocalBusiness, and Google’s guidance is to “use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible.” Bing says “markup must accurately reflect visible content,” so the hours in your markup should match the hours on the page.

For seasonal work, Business Profile posts let you “share announcements, offers, updates, and event details directly with your customers on Search and Maps.” A post before heating season can announce furnace maintenance.

What about reviews?

Ask every customer once the job is done. Google says prominence is based partly on “how many reviews you have.” Its policy bars offering incentives for reviews, choosing to “selectively solicit positive reviews,” and asking customers to include specific content. The roofing page covers reviews and town pages in more detail.

What is the short list?

SEO and AI visibility for contractors describes how Ultruxy works with HVAC and roofing companies, and the AI visibility checklist covers the site checks in full. To see where your company stands, Ultruxy offers a free visibility report. How we approach the work is on the AEO service page.