01industry.hvac
Portland heating companies pay Google up to $55 a click for searches the top three get for free. I build the foundation that puts you in the pack, in the organic results, and in the AI answer, then hand you the numbers every month.
Numbers pulled 6 September 2026 · Portland, OR and the metro
The furnace quits on the first cold night in October. Nobody in Portland asks a neighbor. They type furnace repair portland into a phone, and that click costs a heating company fifty-five dollars. The three in the pack get the call for free. Furnace repair near me ran 189,000 searches last October and 193,000 in January, three times what it runs in June.
This page is what I would do for a heating and cooling company in the Portland metro: the actual search numbers, the three places you have to show up, and the first ninety days written out. Every figure comes from Ahrefs on the date below.
02section.searches
The searches a Portland homeowner makes when the heat goes out or the bill goes up, how often, and what a click on each one costs a company that buys it instead of earning it.
| search | per month | per click | note |
|---|---|---|---|
| furnace repair near me | 138,000 | $6 | 59,000 in June, 189,000 in October, 193,000 in January |
| air duct cleaning near me | 79,000 | $5 | |
| dryer vent cleaning near me | 24,000 | $6 | difficulty 0 |
| heat pump vs furnace | 5,300 | $0.04 | Google shows an AI Overview |
| emergency furnace repair near me | 2,700 | $0.30 | difficulty 0 |
| furnace not turning on | 2,400 | $0.80 | difficulty 0, AI Overview |
| furnace tune up cost | 1,500 | $8 | AI Overview |
| furnace not blowing hot air | 1,100 | $0.70 | difficulty 0, AI Overview |
| furnace installation portland | 700 | $11 | difficulty 2 |
| hvac portland | 700 | $0.50 | |
| furnace replacement portland | 500 | $19 | difficulty 0 |
| furnace repair portland | 500 | $55 | difficulty 1, the highest click on this list |
| air duct cleaning portland | 450 | $9 | |
| heat pump installation portland | 300 | $19 | difficulty 1 |
| hvac repair portland | 300 | $40 |
Ahrefs, US, September 2026. Volume is monthly searches. CPC is what advertisers pay per click today. Multiply the two and you have what advertisers would pay for those clicks. The map ranks businesses that have both a complete Google Business Profile and a website that backs it up. Missing either one puts you below everyone who has both, before reviews are even counted.
03section.places
The map, the ten links under it, and the answer an AI gives when someone asks it instead of Google. They are three different games, and most Portland heating companies are only playing one.
The three-pack is the first thing on the screen and the last thing most heating companies work on. It runs on your Google Business Profile: HVAC Contractor as the primary category, every service listed from furnace repair to heat pump installation, photos from real jobs, reviews that keep coming, hours that say you answer at night, and whether every directory on the internet agrees on your phone number. Look at the capture: all three say Open 24 hours, and the company paying for the sponsored slot underneath them is closed until Monday.
Under the map for furnace repair portland, Portland Heating & Air Conditioning ranks second on a site with a domain rating of 8, which is the proof that a real page beats authority in this trade. Then Yelp, a Reddit thread, and Trane's dealer locator sit above Jacobs, Specialty Heating, and A-Temp, each of which ranks on a page written for furnace repair alone. A directory outranking you for your own service means the page it wants is missing from your site. Furnace repair, furnace replacement, heat pump installation, duct cleaning, emergency, Beaverton, Gresham, Vancouver: one page each, written for the person searching, with the service call fee on it, fast on a phone.
/services/furnace-repair
/services/furnace-replacement
/services/heat-pump-installation
/services/emergency-heating
/pricing
/areas/beaverton
one page each, written for the person searching
ChatGPT does not read the map. It reads what the rest of the internet says about you: Birdeye, Expertise, ConsumerAffairs, Yelp, the CCB record, the Energy Trust of Oregon trade ally list, and the specific pages on your own site. Asked for the best HVAC company in Portland, ChatGPT named Specialty Heating & Cooling on a Birdeye profile of 4.8 stars from about 1,900 reviews, then Sunset, Sky, Pyramid, and Comfort Connection. None of the five are in Google's three-pack. Asked who to call for quotes, it listed four phone numbers and linked each company's own website, and it told the reader to ask about the CCB license, the labor warranty, and Energy Trust rebates. Gemini, asked the same question the same day, did the opposite: it read Google's business listings and named AAA and Efficiency, two of the three companies on the map. So the map and the records are two different games, and a heating company has to win both. A company that has heated Portland homes for seventy years with a website from 2012 is invisible to the machine now writing the recommendations. Every page you publish is data for the search engine and the AI, and they repeat exactly what you give them.
04section.gaps
Every heating company I talk to is slammed from October to February. These are the gaps that keep the busy ones from growing the other seven months.
The after-hours call goes to voicemail while the on-call tech is on a roof. The furnace at eleven at night is the most valuable call of the year, and it is the one most likely to be missed. Maintenance plans get sold on the truck and tracked in a notebook.
The site says "heating and cooling" on one page and stops. It has no page for furnace repair, no page for heat pumps and the rebate, no service call fee, and no hours in text, so Google sends the person searching to a directory and the AI has nothing to quote.
Reviews get asked for when someone remembers. AAA has 1,400 because somebody built the habit. Every finished repair is a review and a maintenance plan customer, and most of them are never asked for.
05section.plan
Dated, in order, and you can stop after any step.
Day 1
How people find you now, where you show up for the searches above, what every directory says about you, what the AI answer says, and where the site loses the visitor. You get it in writing, with what each fix is worth.
Weeks 1 to 4
Google Business Profile rebuilt with HVAC Contractor as the primary category and every service listed, from furnace repair to duct cleaning. Citations cleaned so the phone number matches on BBB, Angi, Yelp, and the manufacturer's dealer page. CCB, NATE, and Energy Trust trade ally records current. Site speed fixed, schema added, one page per service with the service call fee on it.
Months 2 to 3
Emergency and furnace repair pages get the most work, because October is the first peak. A heat pump page with the Energy Trust rebate on it, because heat pump installation portland is a $19 click at a difficulty of one. A troubleshooting page that answers furnace not turning on in one sentence, because Google shows an AI Overview for it. Area pages for Beaverton, Gresham, Lake Oswego, and Vancouver.
Ongoing
Rankings for the searches above, calls and forms by source and by hour, a review engine that asks every customer at the right moment, and a maintenance plan reminder that goes out before the season. One report a month you can read in five minutes.
06section.tactics
The generic playbook works. These are the parts that work harder for a heating company in Portland.
The AI ranked five electricians by the visit fee each one published and put the one with no number last. State the diagnostic fee, what it covers, and whether it is waived when the repair is approved. Furnace tune up cost is 1,500 searches a month with an AI Overview, and the company that publishes the number is the one it quotes.
All three companies in the pack say Open 24 hours. Emergency furnace repair near me is 2,700 searches a month at a difficulty of zero. If you answer at night, the profile, the site, and every directory say so identically. If you stop at five, say that, and the AI routes the midnight call elsewhere on purpose instead of by mistake.
Heat pump vs furnace is 5,300 searches a month with an AI Overview. Heat pump installation portland is 300 at a difficulty of one and a $19 click. Energy Trust of Oregon trade ally status is the credential the AI cites, and the rebate amount is the fact the homeowner is looking for. One page carries all three.
Furnace not turning on is 2,400 searches a month and furnace not blowing hot air is 1,100, both at a difficulty of zero, both with an AI Overview. A page that answers each in one sentence, then says when to call, is the page Google quotes in October and the page the AI names you from.
A current CCB record, a BBB profile, NATE-certified technicians named on the site, the Energy Trust trade ally listing, a dealer page on the manufacturer's site, and reviews on Google and Yelp that agree with each other. The AI answer names the company it can check.
07section.proof
The proof is a client's result. West Coast Deals, an eight-channel store I have worked for since 2022, launched its own direct-to-consumer website in 2026. On a site under a year old, the same search and AI work took their Ahrefs organic traffic from about 20 to more than 450 between March and September 2026, with their ads switched off in August, and put their store in 5,400 AI answers in three months. Those are their numbers. The same playbook, the profile, the pages, and the records the AI reads, is what I would put to work for a heating company in Portland.
08section.pricing
The consultation is free. I come back with the scope of the project and what I would recommend, and the pricing is published: three monthly SEO plans with no setup fees, Local month to month and Growth and Superior with the website included on a three-month minimum, and three website builds at a one-time price. You can stop after any step.
form.consultation
Six fields, under two minutes. I reply within one business day with the scope and what I would recommend.
09section.faq
The profile and citation work moves the map first, usually inside the first two months. Organic pages take three to six months to settle.
It depends on the part and the company, and the service call fee is the number to publish. A company that states its diagnostic fee and what it covers is the one Google's AI Overview and ChatGPT quote.
Usually not. Most heating company sites need speed, structure, one page per service, and a fee on the page. If the site cannot be fixed, I say so in the consultation and give you a fixed price for a rebuild.
Generative engine optimization: being the company an AI names when someone asks it for one at eleven at night. It matters now because the question is being asked now, and the answer is drawn from your license, your certifications, your hours, your fee, and your site.
No. The consultation shows what each click costs you today, and furnace repair portland is fifty-five dollars a click. I will tell you when ads make sense, but I do not run them. The point of this work is to stop needing them.
I build the system that asks every customer at the right moment. The reviews come from your work. I do not buy, seed, or write them.
They get their own pages. Air duct cleaning near me is 79,000 searches a month and dryer vent cleaning near me is 24,000 at a difficulty of zero. October is fire prevention month, and a dryer vent page published in September carries it.
One page a month: rankings for the searches on this page, calls and forms by source and by hour, reviews gained, and what I did. Plus the dashboards themselves, which you own.
The consultation is free, and it comes back with the scope and what I recommend. Local SEO is month to month, Growth and Superior include the website on a three-month minimum, there are no setup fees, and website builds are one-time. Every price is on the pricing page.