How a Regional HVAC Company Won ChatGPT's Top Recommendation

A regional HVAC company serving three mid-sized cities in the US Southeast noticed something strange: roughly 15% of incoming leads mentioned finding them through ChatGPT. Those leads closed at 2.3x the rate of leads from Google Ads.

They wanted to understand why ChatGPT was recommending them — and whether they could replicate that effect in the neighboring cities where they had zero AI presence.

A manual ChatGPT audit ran 40+ queries of the form "best HVAC company in [city]" across their three markets and three competitor markets. Findings:

• In their home city, the company was cited in 80% of ChatGPT answers — tied to its long history of earned media coverage.
• In their secondary market, citation rate was 30% — mainly driven by a Google Business Profile with 500+ reviews.
• In their newest market, citation rate was 0% — despite having a service location there for 18 months.

The pattern was clear: third-party signals drove ChatGPT citations, and the new market simply lacked those signals.

1. Local business schema. Added LocalBusiness JSON-LD to every city-specific landing page with full address, service area polygon, hours, and aggregate reviews.
2. Reviews push. Systematic post-job review requests to lift the new market's Google Business Profile from 47 reviews to 400+.
3. Local PR. Sponsored a local Little League team and pitched the story to the city's main news site — earned a feature article with a backlink.
4. Citation building. Submitted to 40+ local business directories (Yelp, Angi, BBB, local chamber of commerce).
5. Educational content. Published 12 "how to" articles targeted at homeowner FAQs ("When should I replace my AC unit?", "What size HVAC do I need for a 2,000 sq ft home?") with FAQ schema.

After 6 months in the new market:

• ChatGPT citation rate: 0% → 75% for "best HVAC in [city]" queries
• Google Business Profile reviews: 47 → 423
• Organic leads from AI sources: 0 → 38/month
• Total qualified leads in the new market: +112%

The company now ranks this work as the highest-ROI marketing investment they've ever made.

Unlike SaaS or e-commerce, local business AEO is dominated by off-site signals: Google Business Profile, local directories, review platforms, and press coverage. On-site content helps, but the leverage is in getting cited by the third-party sources AI engines trust for local recommendations.

The lesson: for local businesses, AEO is roughly 70% citation building and 30% on-page work. Do the on-page work first because it's cheap, but don't stop there.