Phil Risher says HVAC companies waste money chasing "repair near me" keywords when customers now ask AI diagnostic questions like "thermostat running but no cold air." AI recommends solutions and service providers based on those answers. Create content that solves real diagnostic problems, and AI will recommend you.
You've been optimizing the wrong pages on your website. AI already made its mind up about your business before the customer even asked. Here's what's actually happening. Right now, people don't just search HVAC repair near me on ChatGPT. They ask it a question and usually upload a picture and they ask it, hey, my thermostat is running, but there's no cold air coming out. What's going on? They start with actual diagnosing questions. Then they're looking for ChatGPT to give it an answer. Based off of what they put in, and then ChatGPT makes a recommendation from there. This is why when you're optimizing for HVAC repair near me, you're actually missing out on how people are searching now. If all you do is create content for the demand capture, HVAC repair near me, plumber near me, you miss out on the questions that people are actually asking, which is the diagnosing questions. So here's what you should do. This is why your SEO strategy has to shift. It's no longer about HVAC repair near me, find a company. It's, here's a problem that I have. Can I get an answer from AI? And if I need a company, who should I work with? So you should be taking the real problems from your customer calls, the real stuff that they ask. Like, I'm having a baby and I have a vent that's blowing on the crib. Should I get my ducts cleaned? Real question from a real customer. And that should be the starting point for content because that's what people are asking ChatGPT and you need to provide the answer so that way you're trusted and then they're going to show you as the source.
