How should an HVAC company set up and keep up its Google Business Profile?
Set the profile up in a Google account your company owns, choose HVAC contractor or the category that best describes your main work, and list AC repair, replacement, ductless mini-splits and heating work as separate services. Then keep it working all year. Add photos and posts that match the season, send a review request after every job from Jobber or Housecall Pro, and record which calls from the profile turned into booked jobs. The profile earns most of its calls in the first heat wave and the first cold snap, so it has to be in good shape before either one arrives.
Why does the profile matter most in a heat wave or a cold snap?
On the first 95-degree day of the year, a homeowner whose house is warming up by the hour doesn't compare five companies. She looks at the few HVAC companies Google shows on the map, picks one that shows open with recent reviews, and calls. If nobody answers, she calls the next one. The same thing happens on the first freezing night with a furnace that won't light. A slow-season search is calmer: a homeowner thinking about a new system in October reads reviews, looks at photos and checks whether you install the equipment she has been reading about.
Our article on showing up when someone searches for AC repair near them covers what that hot-day homeowner sees on her screen. This page is about the profile behind it: how to set it up, what to keep current through the year, and how to tell whether it is bringing in booked jobs.
How do I set up an HVAC company's profile in my own Google account?
Create the profile from a Google account that belongs to the company and that you, the owner, can always get into. Avoid a tech's personal Gmail or an agency's account. Everyone else, including your office manager or an agency, gets added later as a manager, and you stay the primary owner.
From there, enter your business name exactly as it appears on your trucks and invoices. Google says unnecessary information in a business name isn't permitted and can get a profile suspended, so "Smith Heating and Air" stays "Smith Heating and Air" and doesn't become "Smith Heating and Air AC Repair Best Prices". Add a phone number your business controls, a local number where you can, as Google asks. Add your website, your hours and your service area, then verify.
Google chooses the verification methods it offers you. They can include a phone call or text, an email, a live video call or a recorded video, and Google says its review can take up to five business days. Verify in the spring or fall if you can, so you aren't waiting on Google during the first heat wave.
Which categories fit an HVAC company, and should I change them with the seasons?
Most companies that do both heating and cooling use HVAC contractor as the main category. If one side of the work is a real line of business, you can add a category for it, such as an air conditioning or heating contractor category from Google's list. Google asks for the most specific category that represents your main business, as few categories as possible, and no category for every single service.
Some HVAC marketing guides tell owners to switch the main category to air conditioning in summer and back to heating in winter. We don't recommend it. Google warns that adding or editing a category may mean verifying the business again, and a profile stuck in verification in the first week of July costs far more than any edge the switch might give. Pick the main category that describes the whole company and leave it. Let your services, photos and posts change with the season.
How should an HVAC company set its service area and verify without a storefront?
Plenty of HVAC companies work out of a shop or warehouse that customers never visit, or out of the owner's garage. Google says that if you don't serve customers at your address, you should remove it from the profile and show a service area. Google allows up to 20 service areas, says the whole area generally shouldn't stretch beyond about two hours of driving from where you are based, and doesn't let you set a radius.
Choose the towns where you would send a tech for a no-cooling call on a Saturday. A replacement job you would happily drive an hour for doesn't need to be on the map. That homeowner usually finds you through a referral, your website or an ad, and a service area full of towns you can't reach quickly on a busy day leads to calls you have to turn down.
If Google asks for a recorded video, it wants one unedited recording of at least 30 seconds, made live on your phone through the profile. The video should show street signs or landmarks near your address, the tools and equipment you work with, and proof that you run the business, such as opening a space only the business can get into or showing an invoice or utility bill in the company's name. For an HVAC company that might be the sign at the end of your street, a stocked van with gauges and a recovery machine, and you unlocking the warehouse.
What services, photos and posts should an HVAC profile show through the year?
List each job you want calls for as a separate service with a one-line description in the homeowner's words: AC repair, AC replacement, ductless mini-split installation, heat pump installation, furnace repair, furnace replacement and seasonal tune-ups. A homeowner who has been reading about mini-splits wants to see that word on your profile, and Google lets you add custom services when the suggested ones don't cover your work.
Photos should come from your own jobs: a new condenser set level on its pad, a mini-split head mounted neatly with the line set covered, a clean furnace install, your techs in company shirts beside a company van. Keep house numbers and customers' faces out of the frame.
Posts work best when they follow the calendar. In spring, remind homeowners to book an AC tune-up before the first hot week. In early summer, post the hours you answer the phone. In fall, move to furnace checks, and before the first freeze, tell people what to check before they call about a furnace that won't start. Post only what is true. If your tune-up schedule is full until June, don't post that you have openings this week.
How do HVAC companies keep reviews coming in all year?
Peak months bring plenty of jobs and plenty of reviews. In the slow months the newest review can get old, and a homeowner shopping for a replacement in November notices when the last one is from August. The fix is to ask after every job, in every month, including tune-ups and maintenance visits.
Your software can send the request for you. Housecall Pro's help center says it sends a review request by default when you tap Finish on a job, and Jobber says that once your Google Business Profile is connected, it can send requests automatically after a completed job or a paid invoice.
Google's review policy rules out two habits. You can't offer anything for a review, such as money off the next tune-up, and you can't ask only the customers you expect to be happy. Reply to the reviews you get. When a customer writes that she waited two days for a tech during a heat wave, a short, honest reply about how full the schedule was and what you did to get there tells the next reader you pay attention. How to get more Google reviews without being pushy covers the routine.
How does the Google Business Profile connect to Local Services Ads for HVAC?
Local Services Ads are the listings at the very top of the page, above the map, where you pay for a lead instead of a click. Google says the reviews for those ads are managed through your Google Business Profile, and that your star rating and number of reviews affect where you rank in Local Services Ads. A steady flow of reviews on the profile helps you in the ads.
Answering the phone helps there too. Google says missed calls can count against how responsive your business looks in Local Services Ads, which matters on the days an HVAC company can least afford to miss them. The badge on the ads is now Google Verified, which Google announced in August 2025 would replace Google Guaranteed starting that October. Our Local Services Ads page covers the screening, the pricing model and the move of these ads into Google Ads accounts.
How do I get my HVAC profile back from a former agency or employee?
Look at who has access before you need it. The profile's settings list the owners and managers. If the primary owner is an agency you stopped working with, or an employee who left, ask them to transfer primary ownership to your company's account, and remove anyone who no longer works with you.
If you can't reach them, Google's ownership help page gives two routes. A business with a storefront requests access through Google, and the current owner has three days to respond before you may be able to claim the profile. A service-area business with no shop or office contacts Google support and chooses the issue for transferring ownership of a listing. Do this in a slow month. It is much harder to deal with while the phones are ringing all day in July.
How can an HVAC company tell which profile calls became booked jobs?
The profile's Performance view counts calls as taps on the call button. It can't tell you who answered, what the call was about or whether it turned into a job. That part has to happen in your own records.
There are three common ways to do it, and they work best together. A call tracking number your business owns can sit on the profile as the main number, with your regular number listed as an additional phone, which keeps the number under your direct control as Google requires. A tag on the website link lets your website analytics separate visits that came from the profile. Most important, the office marks the source of every new customer in Jobber or Housecall Pro, so at the end of the month you can count the booked jobs that came from the profile.
HVAC adds a wrinkle: a replacement quote from a July profile call may not close until September. If the source is recorded when the call comes in, the sale still counts toward the profile when it closes, and the quote stays on a list someone follows up. Keeping every lead in one place and following up on a quote cover both habits.
Sources
Google's guidelines for representing your business
Google's verification help page
Google's service area help page
Google's video verification page
Google's help page on services
Google's review content policy
Google's Local Services Ads reviews page
Google's performance help page
What a fix looks like
In March the owner checks the profile: the company account is the primary owner, the agency from three years ago is gone, and the service area lists the towns his techs can reach on a busy Saturday. The services include ductless mini-splits and heat pump installation by name. In April a tune-up post goes up, and every finished tune-up sends a review request from Housecall Pro. On the first hot Monday in June, a homeowner finds the company on the map with reviews from last week and calls. The office marks her as a Google profile caller in the software. Her old system can't be saved, so she gets a replacement quote, and the office follows up until she decides in August. When the owner looks at the summer numbers, that job counts toward the profile.
For HVAC companies, Home Service Guild sets up and keeps up the Google Business Profile in your company's name. The Home Service Guild Marketing Operations System keeps the calls it brings on the same list as every other inquiry, follows up on the replacement quotes, and reports the booked jobs that came from the profile each month.
The profile is one half of showing up on Google; the website is the other, and our HVAC SEO page covers how the two work together.
Questions owners also ask
What Google category should an HVAC company use?
HVAC contractor is the usual main category for a company that does both heating and cooling. Add a heating or air conditioning category only if it describes a real part of the business, and list individual jobs like mini-split installs as services instead of extra categories.
Can an HVAC company have a Google Business Profile without a shop address?
Yes. If customers don't come to your location, Google says to remove the address from the profile and show a service area instead, with up to 20 areas. You still give Google an address privately for verification.
Why was my HVAC company's Google profile suspended?
Google suspends profiles that don't follow its guidelines. Common causes are extra words in the business name, a visible address customers don't visit, and duplicate profiles for the same business. Fix the problem, then send one appeal through Google's appeals tool with documents whose name and address match the profile, and don't open a new profile while you wait.
How do I get my Google profile back from a former marketing agency?
Ask the agency to make your company's Google account the primary owner. If they don't respond, request access through Google if you have a storefront, or contact Google support about transferring ownership if you are a service-area business. Once it is back, keep the primary owner in your name and add any future agency as a manager.
How often should an HVAC company update its Google Business Profile?
Change it the same day anything about the business changes, such as hours, a phone number or a service you have added. Beyond that, add photos as jobs finish and a post when the season turns, so the profile looks current in March and October as well as July.
