Client Overview
Cougar Heating & Air is a locally owned and operated HVAC company serving Spokane, Washington and the surrounding area. They handle heating and cooling repair, installs, and maintenance for homeowners across the metro. With a strong focus on honest work and fast service, Cougar has built a loyal local following and one of the best reputations of any HVAC company in the region, the kind of word-of-mouth most contractors only wish they had.
Scope of Work
We built a full local marketing plan around three pillars:
- Local SEO: to rank for the “near me” and city searches Spokane homeowners use when their AC or furnace quits.
- Google Business Profile & Reviews: to win the map pack and turn their strong reputation into a steady stream of calls.
- Google Ads & Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): to catch urgent, ready-to-book searches and show up in AI-powered results.
Objective
Cougar came to us with one clear goal: get more of the right calls from Spokane homeowners. They did great work and had happy customers, but their online presence didn’t match their reputation in town. They weren’t showing up high enough in Google for the searches that bring emergency and install jobs, their Google Business Profile wasn’t pulling its weight, and they had no presence in the newer AI answer results. They needed their visibility to finally match the quality of their service.
The Challenge
Cougar had the reputation and the crew, but not the online visibility to match. Here’s where they were stuck:
- Local SEO: They ranked on later pages for high-value terms like “HVAC repair Spokane WA” and “furnace repair near me.” For a trade where the first few results get almost all the calls, that meant losing jobs daily to competitors with weaker service but stronger SEO.
- Google Business Profile: Their profile was incomplete and rarely updated, no fresh photos, no posts, and no system for steadily collecting reviews. In a market where the map pack drives most HVAC calls, a weak profile left easy jobs on the table.
- Paid & AEO: They had no paid ads catching urgent “no heat” and “AC not working” searches, and zero presence in Google’s AI Overviews or featured answers. When a furnace dies at night, the first contractor a homeowner finds gets the call, and Cougar wasn’t that contractor often enough.
Strategy and Execution
- Local SEO: Built to Own the Spokane Searches. We cleaned up the site’s technical structure, fixed page speed, and rebuilt the service pages around the exact terms Spokane homeowners search. We created clear pages for repair, install, and maintenance, added local landing pages for the surrounding towns, and tied it all together with internal links and proper schema.
Key Tactic: We matched every page to one search intent, repair, replace, or maintain, so Google knew exactly when to show Cougar. - Google Business Profile & Reviews: Turned Reputation Into Calls. We fully filled out and optimized their profile, services, categories, hours, and fresh job photos, and posted updates regularly. Most important, we set up an automatic system to ask every happy customer for a review at the right moment, then helped Cougar reply to each one.
Key Tactic: We turned their best asset, happy customers, into a steady review engine that feeds both trust and map-pack rankings. - Google Ads & AEO: Caught the Urgent Jobs. We launched tightly targeted Google Ads and Local Services Ads to capture emergency “no heat” and “AC repair” searches, with call tracking on every lead. We also restructured their content with FAQs and direct answers so Google’s AI results would feature Cougar for common HVAC questions.
Key Tactic: We pointed paid budget only at high-intent, ready-to-book searches in Cougar’s exact service area, no wasted spend.
The Results
Within a few months of focused work, Cougar’s online presence finally matched their reputation.
Local Keyword Rankings
Cougar climbed to #2 for “HVAC repair Spokane WA” and into the top results for related repair and install searches across the metro, the exact terms that bring booked jobs.
Sitewide Performance
Organic traffic to the site grew, with the biggest gains on the repair and install pages that drive real calls.
Google Business Profile & Reviews
Profile views jumped, and the steady review system helped grow their rating to a standout 4.8 stars across well over 1,100 reviews, one of the strongest review counts of any HVAC company in Spokane.
Calls & Leads
Tracked phone calls and total leads both rose, with paid ads capturing the urgent, high-margin emergency jobs Cougar was missing before.
The result: more of the right calls, from ready-to-book Spokane homeowners, every month.
Key Takeaways
- Reputation only pays off if people can find you. Cougar’s great service wasn’t translating into calls until their SEO and profile caught up. Fix visibility, and word-of-mouth multiplies.
- The map pack wins HVAC jobs. A complete, active Google Business Profile plus steady reviews is one of the highest-return moves a local HVAC company can make.
- Reviews are a system, not luck. Asking every happy customer at the right moment turned Cougar’s goodwill into a growing review count that lifts both trust and rankings.
- Paid ads catch the emergencies. For urgent “no heat” searches, being first matters. Targeted ads filled the gap organic couldn’t cover overnight.
- Match every page to a search. Separate, focused pages for repair, install, and maintenance beat one catch-all page every time.
- AEO is the next frontier. Structuring content for AI answers got Cougar in front of homeowners before competitors even showed up.
Conclusion
Cougar Heating & Air had the crew, the quality, and the reputation, but their online presence wasn’t pulling its weight. In a few short months, we changed that. They now rank #2 for “HVAC repair Spokane WA,” their organic traffic and profile views are up, and their phone is ringing with more calls. Today, Cougar shows up right where Spokane homeowners are looking, and their visibility finally matches the service that earned them 1,100+ five-star reviews.
