This is a live, documented case study. I am publishing the real numbers at every stage, with real dates, as they happen. If you have ever wondered whether local SEO and a new website actually move the needle for a small trades business, this is the honest answer playing out in real time.
The business is The Air Department, owned by Brad Roberts. Brad is an HVAC and plumbing contractor based in Derry, NH. He is licensed in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Mass Save listed, and has been doing this work for years. What he did not have was any online presence at all.
Where Brad started (the day-0 numbers)
Before we did anything, I documented where things stood. This is the baseline every future number gets measured against.
- Website: none
- Google Business Profile: none
- Google search for "HVAC Derry NH": Brad does not appear anywhere
- Instagram: 67 followers, no bio link, no website
- Facebook: 49 followers, inconsistent phone number and city from Instagram
- Reviews: zero on Google (no profile to review)
- Calls from Google: zero
That is a hard zero across the board. No visibility, no web presence, no digital footprint. The good news is that is also what makes this a useful case study: everything that happens from here is attributable to the work, not to momentum he already had.
The competitive landscape in Derry, NH
Before deciding on a strategy, I pulled the current Google Places results for "HVAC Derry NH." Here is what the map pack looks like as of October 2026:
- Derry Plumbing & Heating: 4.8 stars / 256 reviews
- Daigle Plumbing, Heating & Cooling: 4.8 stars / 1,039 reviews
- Cal's Air Conditioning & Heating: 5.0 stars / 20 reviews
- Hatfield Brothers Mechanical: 5.0 stars / 11 reviews
The honest read: positions one and two are going to take 12 months or more to compete with. Daigle has over a thousand reviews and has been in business for decades. But positions three and four are absolutely reachable. Cal's and Hatfield are both there with 20 reviews or fewer. The map pack weighs category, relevance, proximity, and reviews -- not reviews alone.
More importantly, Brad can rank faster for specific service searches. "Mini split installation Derry NH" and "heat pump installer Londonderry NH" have much less competition than the broad term, and that is where we aim first.
What we built in week one
The site is live at airdepartmentnh.com. Here is what went in:
- 10 service pages covering HVAC service and repair, HVAC installation, boiler service and repair, boiler installation, heat pumps and mini splits, heating systems, air conditioning, plumbing, oil to gas conversion, and water heating. Each page has real body copy, a list of specific services, and four FAQs with answers.
- 5 service area pages for Derry, Londonderry, Windham, Salem NH, and Hudson NH. Each page has specific content about the housing stock and typical service needs in that town, not just the town name repeated.
- Schema markup on every page: HVACBusiness on the homepage, Service schema on service pages, FAQPage schema where FAQs exist.
- Contact form with spam protection, routed to Brad's email via Amazon SES.
- Google Analytics 4 and Search Console verified and tracking.
- SSL, fast hosting, mobile-optimized layout throughout.
The site is indexed and crawlable as of this week. No articles yet, no Google Business Profile yet -- those are next.
The plan and the honest targets
I set targets with Brad up front so we both know what we're measuring against:
- By day 30: Google Business Profile verified and complete. Site indexed. At least 5 reviews. Showing up somewhere for his services in Derry.
- By day 90: Top 3 on the map for 2 to 3 specific service searches in Derry. 15 or more reviews. First calls from Google.
- By month 6: Top 3 for "HVAC Derry NH" searched from Derry. Number 1 for at least one service-plus-town search. 30 or more reviews.
- By month 12: Competing for number 1 on the broad term. Starting to expand to the North Shore towns Brad is licensed to serve in Massachusetts.
These are honest targets, not marketing targets. Month 6 for "HVAC Derry NH" is aggressive but achievable based on who is currently in positions 3 and 4.
What is next
The two immediate priorities are the Google Business Profile (Brad is setting this up now -- verification is the critical path and can take a couple of weeks) and the first 10 reviews (Brad is reaching out to past customers this week). Neither of those can be rushed, but they are the foundation that the rankings build on.
I will post the 30-day update in late November with the real numbers: ranking positions, Search Console impressions, and whether any calls came through the site yet.
If you want to follow along or talk about doing the same thing for your business, reach out here.
