The Challenge

In 2002, only one retailer sold heating, air conditioning, and indoor air quality products online.

Kentucky-based Alpine Home Air pioneered a then-unique model of selling HVAC units directly to consumers, passing on savings in terms of both time and money. The business grew from strength to strength, propelled by its mission of making indoor comfort both available and accessible to all.

By 2023, when they got in touch with us, however, things had begun to look different. Alpine has continued to grow, serving hundreds of thousands of customers over the previous two decades, but online HVAC retail was now a highly competitive space; household names like Home Depot and Lowes vied for attention alongside innumerable smaller competitors, and AlpineHomeAir.com had begun to lose out in several areas, especially the crucial 'mini split' related keywords.

The Results

What was required was a full-court press across all major SEO pillars: Content, Technicals, and Off-Page factors. Through a combination of hard work and focused triage efforts, we were able to make significant improvements in the navigation, content, and backlink profile in the places where it made the biggest impact, resulting in a 100% Improvement in average position for non-branded keywords, and crucially moving key 'mini split' keywords into the top 5.

When we evaluate the overall success of an SEO programme, we look first to non-branded keywords. In a competitive marketplace like HVAC retail, non-branded keyword gains are hard-won through concerted and ongoing SEO efforts.

In Alpine’s case, we saw an immediate improvement in the average search rank for non-branded keywords after our first round of site improvements in January. By July, we saw that the average position for these terms had improved by 100% – from 30th to 15th.

For a full view of all the tactics employed, download the full case study above.