HVAC Website Design Analysis — Chicago, IL

 As Rebecca Black famously sang, “It’s Friday, Friday.” And you gotta get down on Fridays…

Soooo, let’s get down with our weekly dose of small business website design tips! If you’re a regular reader, you already know the 5 essentials of business website design. If you’re not, they are what they sound like, and this post will show you the essentials at work in a real website. This week’s business is Carey’s, a commercial HVAC company in Chicago, IL.

See the site in action: careyscommercialservice.com

Now. On to the essentials!

Design:

What was the first thing you noticed about the Carey’s website? For me, it was the headline and beautiful graphic of the Chicago skyline. The site is designed to draw your eye directly to that headline by starkly contrasting the text with the background and using empty space to really make the headline pop. My one suggestion would be to include the word “commercial” in the headline to communicate more clearly with the desired audience. Still, the layout of the site is professional is certainly a plus for a prospect of the business.

Marketing:

Here are a couple great marketing choices they made with this site…

1)    About Us Page – First off, an About page is crucial to building trust and affinity with online prospects. The internet is an extremely impersonal way to connect with a business, so when you have a robust About page, you allow prospects to get a feel for the personality of your business, which increases trust and leads to more conversions. Carey’s gets double points for using a real image on this page, rather than stock photography.

2)    Special Deal – On the Specials page, Carey’s offers special pricing to those who find them online. Right now the deal is 20% off labor, which is nothing to sneeze at if you’ve ever had your HVAC system repaired!

3)    Call-to-Action – There is a call-to-action in the top-right corner of the website. This is where people expect to find contact information, so I always encourage clients to have a call-to-action in that spot!

The only thing this website is missing, in my opinion, is a fill-in form for every page. This is the most common way to generate leads online, but Carey’s only has one on the Contact page! My suggestion would be to put a form on every page that offers the 20% off labor deal in exchange for setting up an appointment online.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization):

SEO is the practice of optimizing your website so that search engines can understand what your website is about and rank it for relevant keywords people might be using to search for sites like yours. The better your SEO, the higher your website ranks for certain keywords. Carey’s targets phrases like “heating and air conditioning” and “hvac maintenance,” as well as the names of all the towns they service.

Copywriting:

The copy on the Carey’s site doesn’t beat around the bush. It gets the necessary information out clearly and concisely, in a professional manner. This is a good strategy for a business often frequented by frustrated people enduring uncomfortable climates! Plus, Carey’s targets businesses, so professionalism is key for them.

Programming:

The programming of a site is all the stuff you don’t see that makes it work. It is an absolutely fundamental part of every business, because a faulty site looks unprofessional. But because this site is programmed well, there is not much to point out about it!

Does your site have all 5 of the small business web design essentials? Find out by downloading our Ultimate Small Business Web Design Checklist.

Best,
Joy