Case Study: Johnson’s Heating & Cooling
Business: HVAC contractor providing heating, cooling, and maintenance services
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Challenge: Relying on Google Maps and service aggregator sites. Not appearing in ChatGPT or Perplexity when homeowners searched for “emergency HVAC” or “furnace repair near me.”
The Problem
Johnson’s had been serving Omaha for 8 years with strong customer satisfaction, but were being overlooked by AI recommendation engines. Homeowners were asking ChatGPT “best HVAC contractor Omaha” and getting generic responses pointing to HomeAdvisor instead of Johnson’s name.
AEO Strategy Implemented
Month 1: Technical Foundation
— HVAC/PlumberService schema markup with service categories (heating, cooling, maintenance, emergency)
— Google Business Profile optimized for all service types and neighborhoods
— Emergency response time metadata added
— Certifications (EPA, ASHRAE, North American Technician Excellence) structured data added
Month 2: Social Proof & Authority
— 22 customer testimonials with structured review schema imported
— 5 educational articles published: “When to Replace Your HVAC System,” “Energy Efficiency Tips,” “Maintenance Checklist,” “Emergency HVAC Troubleshooting,” “HVAC System Types Explained”
— Google Business Q&A seeding (12 questions answered)
— Mentioned in 2 local home services blogs
Month 3: Citations & Expansion
— Added to 4 contractor directories with schema verification
— Featured in “Best HVAC Contractors Omaha” round-up on community blog
— Before/after case studies with video testimonials published
— YouTube channel created with 6 HVAC education videos + schema markup
Results: 90-Day Outcomes
ChatGPT Citations: Zero → Named in 3-4 responses per week for “HVAC near me Omaha,” “furnace repair Omaha,” “AC replacement Omaha”
Perplexity Citations: Zero → Appearing in 70% of emergency HVAC queries for Omaha area
Google AI Overviews: Zero → Named in 2-3 local AI searches per week for HVAC-related queries
AI Visibility Score: 12/100 → 68/100 (56-point improvement)
Lead Impact: 5 new customers in months 2-3. Direct attribution: “Found you in ChatGPT looking for emergency HVAC” and “Perplexity recommended you for our furnace issue”
Average Job Value: $2,400 per job (HVAC replacements)
ROI: 5 jobs × $2,400 = $12,000 revenue from AEO leads in 90 days
Key Success Factors
1. Emergency Service Signal: Adding response-time data to schema helped answer engines surface Johnson’s for urgent queries
2. Certification Verification: Structured certifications (EPA, ASHRAE) proved expertise to answer engines and customers
3. Video Content: HVAC education videos on YouTube with proper schema markup ranked faster than text alone
4. Review Velocity: 22 customer reviews created strong social proof signal
5. Service Coverage Data: Listing all service neighborhoods in schema helped hyperlocal queries
Quote
“We were spending $2,000/month on Google Ads with inconsistent returns. AEO cost a fraction of that and now customers are finding us through ChatGPT and Perplexity first. The leads are warmer because they’ve already researched and found us recommended by AI. This changed everything.” — Tom Johnson, Owner
Ongoing Performance
Johnson’s maintains a 65+ AI Visibility Score with monthly monitoring. They continue adding case studies quarterly and are now ranking for “emergency HVAC near me” across all five answer engines. They’ve reduced Google Ads spend by 40% and increased overall lead volume by 60%.