Channel advice written for contractors in general is worth roughly what it costs, because the economics change completely between trades. This page runs local SEO specifically for heat pump installers: the modelled cost, the volume ceiling, the skill it demands, and a plain verdict at the end.

The relevant economics for this trade: a typical project is worth EUR 9,000 to EUR 18,000, the buyer is a homeowner replacing a gas or oil boiler, demand peaks September to January and bottoms out in June and July, and it takes 3 to 5 genuine enquiries to sign one customer.

The numbers, at a glance

• What one enquiry costs once it works: nothing in media spend, against a permanent cost in review collection, photography and page upkeep

• The resource this consumes instead of money: about two hours a week for six months on reviews, photography and area pages, dropping to a lighter routine that never quite stops

• Time from a standing start to the first enquiry: three to nine months, assuming you begin with nothing in place

• Straight answer for heat pump installers: The strongest asset a heat pump business can build, and completely useless as an answer to a quiet diary next month.

How local SEO behaves in this trade

Local SEO and the map pack produces enquiries whose intent is as high as paid search, and the click is free. Once it works it is the cheapest enquiry source that exists, and it compounds rather than stopping the day you stop paying.

The constraint nobody mentions in the sales pitch: a verified address in the service area, which excludes anyone running a genuinely virtual operation. For a heat pump business working a single metro, that is the thing to check before anything else.

Against that, the cost of being wrong. It is slow, it is hostage to review velocity and proximity, and none of it puts a job in the diary this week. Skill required: Moderate but relentless. Reviews, service-area pages and photographs, forever.

What triggers a heat pump enquiry and how urgent it really is

Two events produce most heat pump enquiries: a boiler that has just failed, and an engineer who has said the current one will not see another winter. Both feel urgent and both then slow down, because an energy assessment, grant paperwork and a radiator schedule sit between the enquiry and the deposit. The mistake is reading the initial urgency as a short sales cycle. Book the survey quickly to hold the position, then manage a four to ten week process without letting the file go quiet.

The timeline, and where the cost really sits

There is no media cost here, which is precisely why the work gets under-resourced. The cost is time, it is paid in full at the beginning, and the return arrives long after the effort does.

1. The first two months: complete the profile properly, load genuine photographs of heat pump work on local properties, and write one page per service plus one for each suburb that actually matters to you.

2. Months two to six: a review from every completed job, naming the area and the work. Velocity and recency count for more than the running total.

3. Months three to nine: traction appears, and in this trade the first sign of it is servicing and repair calls for existing systems arriving before any installation enquiry does, which is the normal sequence in this trade and a reliable early signal.

4. From month nine: enquiries arrive at no marginal cost, which makes this the one acquisition asset that gains value instead of losing it.

One caveat, stated plainly for heat pump installers: none of this fills next month. The timing mismatch catches out every contractor who starts local work because the diary has gone quiet. The correct moment to begin is while you are busy, which is exactly when nobody wants to.

Who pays for a heat pump and what they are really comparing against

The buyer is the bill payer, and the alternative in their head is not another installer. It is keeping the existing boiler for another five years, which is cheap and requires no decision. Winning means beating the do-nothing option: a running cost comparison at their actual tariff and their actual consumption, written down, alongside the grant position. Conversations that stay on equipment specification lose to inertia almost every time.

Service and suburb pages work right up to the point they become doorways

A page per service and a page per meaningful area works when each one carries something that could only be written about that combination: a completed job, a photograph, a local constraint, a price reflecting local conditions. The same page with the place name swapped is the exact pattern search engines penalise. Ten genuine pages outperform eighty templated ones and take roughly the same total effort to produce.

Profile categories, service area and review motion for a heat pump business

Primary category heating contractor, with HVAC contractor and plumber as secondaries where those are accurate. List air source installation, cylinder replacement, radiator upgrade and annual servicing as separate services, since the servicing entry captures a steady stream of queries that later become replacement work.

• Service area: restrict to municipalities inside genuine survey distance, because a heat pump job requires two visits before any money is taken and travel time destroys the margin quickly

• When to ask for the review: after the first genuinely cold week following commissioning, not at handover. The review you want says the house was warm, and in October nobody can say that yet

• What to prompt the review to mention: the property type and approximate age, whether radiators had to be changed, and the running cost against the old boiler

• Photographs: outdoor units in situ against ordinary housing, cylinder installations in cupboards, and the commissioning paperwork, which is the reassurance this trade trades on

How to test this without risking a quarter

Set a fixed test budget, a fixed review date and a written definition of success before anything goes live. The most expensive mistake in heat pump acquisition is not choosing the wrong channel, it is running the right one for three weeks and abandoning it on incomplete data.

1. Write down the maximum you can pay for one signed job, derived from your gross margin rather than from your revenue.

2. Commit a test volume large enough to expect at least two signed jobs at 3 to 5 enquiries per customer.

3. Track every enquiry to an outcome, including the ones you never reached.

4. Judge the result against your own ceiling, not against a benchmark published by whoever sold you the channel.

Service area businesses give something up and should know what

Hiding the address and declaring a service area is the correct configuration for a business that travels to customers, and it costs visibility. The profile still ranks from the registered location, so declaring a wide service area does not extend reach the way people assume. What it does is prevent suppression for an address customers cannot visit. Understanding that distinction ends a lot of wasted argument about why the radius is not working.

Before you spend anything on local SEO

1. Take 10 to 20 percent of the gross margin on a signed job, which is the normal range, and you have your maximum acquisition cost per customer.

2. Divide your maximum acquisition cost per customer by 3 to 5, the enquiries this trade needs to sign one, and you have the most you can pay for a single enquiry.

3. Hold that maximum against what you would otherwise pay for an enquiry. Local search earns top priority precisely when every paid alternative prices above your ceiling.

4. Name the person responsible for the first call attempt and the target time. Every number on this page assumes contact inside minutes rather than hours.

How these figures were built

These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote.

How Flock Leads prices this

For comparison, this is what exclusive heat pump enquiries cost outright, with no retainer and no contract term:

• Starter - 10 leads for EUR 750, which is EUR 75 per lead

• Growth - 25 leads for EUR 1,750, which is EUR 70 per lead

• Scale - 45 leads for EUR 2,925, which is EUR 65 per lead

• Pro - 70 leads for EUR 4,340, which is EUR 62 per lead

• Max - 90 leads for EUR 5,400, which is EUR 60 per lead

No retainer, no contract term, and no lead sent to a second business. Unused volume rolls over under the Flock Lead Promise.

Want leads like this in your pipeline?

Flock runs the campaigns, screens the enquiries and hands you only the ones that match your service area, job size and capacity. You pay per lead, not per month.

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