SEO Audit — Air Today Heating & Cooling

00 — Executive Summary

Overall SEO Health

52/ 100

Moderate health with a handful of high-impact, low-effort fixes available. Composite score across seven weighted categories.

Domain Rating

12

Ahrefs · competitors avg 60–90

Organic Traffic

369/mo

~$2,097 monthly value

Organic Keywords

119

12 ranking in top 3

Backlinks

938

484 referring domains

Business Type: Local HVAC Contractor (NAICS 238220)
Pages Indexed: ~136 (71 blog posts + 64 pages + 1 KML)
CMS: WordPress with Astra theme and Rank Math SEO
Hosting: Cloudflare CDN on Cloudways

Top 5 Critical Issues

01
Extremely low Domain Rating (12). Competitors average DR 60–90 — a massive authority gap that will bottleneck rankings on competitive keywords.
02
Missing security headers. No HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, or X-Content-Type-Options — both a trust and a technical SEO signal.
03
Location-page NAP inconsistency. Anderson, Simpsonville, and other city pages show the Greenville address in schema without clarification that the business merely serves those cities.
04
No FAQ schema on any page. Featured snippet, People Also Ask, and AI Overview opportunities are being left on the table.
05
Thin content on location pages. Templated ~800-word pages with minimal unique local substance — a cannibalization and quality risk.

Top 5 Quick Wins

01
Add FAQ sections with FAQPage schema on top service and blog pages.
02
Add missing security headers via Cloudflare Transform Rules — a one-hour fix.
03
Create llms.txt to establish AI search visibility.
04
Add AggregateRating schema with existing review data for star treatments in SERPs.
05
Consolidate duplicate Greer location pages (three URLs targeting the same city).

01 — Scoring Breakdown

Weighted composite

Technical SEO

25%

62 / 100

Content Quality

25%

62 / 100

On-Page SEO

20%

58 / 100

Schema & Structured Data

10%

50 / 100

Performance (CWV)

10%

72 / 100

Images

5%

35 / 100

AI Search Readiness (GEO)

5%

41 / 100

Specialist sub-scores

Specialist Area	Score
E-E-A-T Composite	65 / 100
AI Citation Readiness	48 / 100
GEO Readiness	41 / 100
Thin Content Risk	Moderate–High
Cannibalization Risk	High

02 — Technical SEO

Technical foundation

Score: 62 / 100. Strong hosting and redirect hygiene; missing security headers and verbose bot-blocking in robots.txt.

Crawlability

Check	Status	Notes
robots.txt	Warning	Overly verbose — blocks 100+ obsolete bots. Simplify.
Sitemap	Pass	Valid sitemap index with 3 sub-sitemaps, lastmod dates present.
Sitemap in robots.txt	Pass	Properly declared.
Crawl budget	Warning	136 URLs is fine, but duplicate location pages waste budget.
XML sitemap KML file	Warning	local-sitemap.xml points to a KML file — not standard.

Indexability

Check	Status	Notes
Canonical tags	Warning	Not explicitly detected on sampled pages — verify implementation.
HTTP → HTTPS redirect	Pass	301 redirect working.
www → non-www redirect	Pass	301 redirect working.
Trailing slash consistency	Pass	Enforced via 301 (/about-us → /about-us/).
noindex directives	Pass	None detected on content pages.

Security

Check	Status	Notes
HTTPS	Pass	Valid SSL via Cloudflare.
HTTP/2	Pass	Enabled.
HSTS header	Fail	Missing — add `Strict-Transport-Security`.
Content-Security-Policy	Fail	Missing.
X-Frame-Options	Fail	Missing — clickjacking risk.
X-Content-Type-Options	Fail	Missing — MIME sniffing risk.
Referrer-Policy	Fail	Missing.
Permissions-Policy	Partial	Only covers `private-state-token`.
security.txt	Fail	404 — not implemented.

URL Structure

Check	Status	Notes
Clean URLs	Pass	Descriptive, no parameters.
Consistent hierarchy	Warning	Inconsistent: /services/heating/furnace-repair/ vs /piedmont-ac-repair/ vs /anderson-hvac/ac-repair/
Depth	Pass	Max 4 levels.

Additional

Check	Status	Notes
llms.txt	Fail	404 — not implemented.
IndexNow	Unknown	Cannot verify without plugin check.
wp-json exposure	Warning	Link header exposes `/wp-json/` endpoint.

03 — Content Quality

Content & E-E-A-T

Score: 62 / 100. Forty years in business is a real asset — but it isn’t showing up in the content, the author infrastructure, or the trust signals that Google Quality Raters look for.

E-E-A-T Composite (65 / 100)

Experience

14/ 20

40+ years operating — exceptional. Missing: first-hand project documentation, technician voice in blog content, before/after case studies.

Expertise

16/ 25

71 blog posts show breadth. Missing: author bio pages with verifiable credentials (NATE, EPA 608) and outbound citations to Energy.gov, EPA, ASHRAE.

Authoritativeness

15/ 25

DR 12 vs local competitors at DR 60–70. Directory-heavy backlink profile; no Greenville media, no original data or research.

Trustworthiness

20/ 30

100% satisfaction guarantee prominent. SC Contractor’s License number is not displayed — required YMYL-adjacent trust signal.

Content depth

Page Type	Avg Word Count	Assessment
Homepage	~1,500+	Adequate for local HVAC.
Service pages	500–800	Thin Needs expansion to 1,500+.
Blog posts	1,000–2,000	Good depth on newer posts.
Location pages	800–1,200	Thin Templated; needs unique local content.
About page	600–800	Thin Needs team bios and history.

Duplicate & cannibalization risks

High risk — location pages

/greer-sc-hvac/ vs /greer-hvac-company/ vs /hvac-installation-and-repair-in-greer-sc/ — three pages targeting Greer.
/simpsonville-sc-hvac/ vs /hvac-installation-and-repair-in-simpsonville-sc/ vs /simpsonville-sc/ — three pages targeting Simpsonville.
/anderson-hvac/ vs /anderson-sc/ — two pages targeting Anderson.
/easley-hvac/ vs /easley-sc/ — two pages targeting Easley.
/piedmont-sc-hvac-company/ vs /piedmont-sc/ — two pages targeting Piedmont.

Medium risk — blog topics

Three spring-allergy-in-Greenville posts.
Multiple HVAC fan posts overlapping.
At least four “reduce energy / utility bills” posts.

Readability

Blog posts use accessible language appropriate for a homeowner audience, with good subheading use on newer posts. Older 2022–2023 posts are shorter and less structured. Service pages would benefit from bullets and comparison tables for scannability.

04 — On-Page SEO

On-page fundamentals

Score: 58 / 100. Title tags are mostly good; the homepage is missing its meta description; headings often duplicate the title tag.

Title tags

Page	Title	Issue
Homepage	Greenville, SC HVAC Repair & Installation \| Air Today Heating & Cooling	Good Keyword + brand, 68 chars
AC Repair	AC Repair in Greenville, SC \| Air Today Heating & Cooling	Good 56 chars
Blog post	How to Choose the Right HVAC System for Your Home? \| Air Today…	Warn Unnecessary “?” in title
Anderson	Professional HVAC Services For Anderson SC	Fail Missing brand name
About	About Air Today Heating & Cooling \| HVAC Experts in Greenville, SC	Good

Meta descriptions

Page	Status	Notes
Homepage	Missing	Not detected — critical omission.
AC Repair	Partial	Present in schema — verify meta tag.
Blog post	Present	155 chars, includes CTA.
Anderson	Present	Describes services.
About	Present	Good.

Heading structure

H1 tags present on all sampled pages.
H2 / H3 hierarchy hard to verify due to CSS-heavy rendering.
Heading text often duplicates the title tag — wasted opportunity.

Internal linking

Breadcrumb navigation on service and location pages.
Blog posts lack cross-links to service pages.
Location pages don’t interlink with each other or related services.
No visible internal linking strategy between blog content and service pages — a missed conversion path.

05 — Schema & Structured Data

Structured data

Score: 50 / 100. Core schema present; FAQPage, HowTo, and AggregateRating are all missing — the fastest available path to rich results.

Current implementation

Schema Type	Where	Status
HVACBusiness + Organization	All pages	Pass
LocalBusiness (NAP)	All pages	Warning Same Greenville address on every location page
Article	Blog posts	Pass Includes author + dates
BreadcrumbList	Service + location pages	Pass
WebPage	All pages	Pass

Missing schema (opportunities)

Schema	Where to add	Impact
FAQPage	Service pages, blog posts	High FAQ rich results
HowTo	Tutorial blog posts	High Step-by-step rich results
Service	Each service page	Medium Defines offerings
AggregateRating	Homepage, service pages	High Star ratings in SERPs
Review	Service / location pages	Medium Social proof
Offer	Service pages with pricing	Medium Price display
VideoObject	If videos exist	Low

Validation issues

NAP inconsistency: schema on Anderson / Simpsonville / Piedmont pages shows the Greenville address.
Missing areaServed property on location pages — each should specify its target city.
priceRange: "$$$" on About page may deter price-sensitive customers.
Author schema on blog posts lacks url to an author bio page (page doesn’t exist yet).

06 — Performance / Core Web Vitals

Performance

Score: 72 / 100. TTFB is excellent — Cloudflare + Cloudways caching is doing its job. The real weight is Astra’s inline CSS bloating HTML to 575 KB.

Server performance (via curl)

Metric	Homepage	Service Page	Blog Post
DNS	1.7ms	1.7ms	2.5ms
Connect	24ms	22ms	22ms
TLS	54ms	50ms	51ms
TTFB	184ms	105ms	129ms
Total download	254ms	164ms	183ms
HTML size	575KB	434KB	345KB

TTFB: excellent — all pages under 200ms.

Page-size concerns

Issue	Severity	Detail
Homepage HTML: 575 KB	High	Extremely large for HTML — 50K+ chars of inline CSS.
Inline CSS bloat	High	Astra inlines massive CSS — should be extracted to external files.
HTML across pages	Medium	345–575 KB range is 3–5x larger than optimal.

Caching

Check	Status
Cloudflare CDN	Pass `cf-cache-status: HIT`
Cloudways cache	Pass cache-provider header present
Browser caching	Unknown Check Cache-Control on assets

Known issues (WordPress / Astra)

Render-blocking CSS likely significant due to inline CSS volume.
WordPress typically loads jQuery + multiple plugin scripts.
Astra has decent performance defaults, but inline CSS can hurt FCP / LCP.
No evidence of critical CSS extraction or CSS purging.

07 — Images

Images

Score: 35 / 100. Weakest category. Alt text is generic or unverifiable; WebP / responsive srcsets can’t be confirmed from the crawl.

Issue	Severity	Details
Limited alt text diversity	High	Alt text detected on some images; many not verifiable.
Logo alt text	Pass	Descriptive: “Air Today Heating & Cooling - Greenville SC HVAC Contractors”.
Image optimization	Unknown	WebP / AVIF, lazy loading, srcset not verifiable from crawl.
Image file names	Pass	Descriptive (e.g., `air-today-heating-and-cooling-hvac-technician…`).
Blog featured image	Partial	“hvac system” alt text is too generic.

Recommendations

Audit every image for descriptive, keyword-relevant alt text.
Verify WebP format usage (Cloudflare can auto-convert via Polish).
Implement responsive images with srcset for mobile.
Add lazy loading to below-fold images.
Compress hero and feature images — target under 100 KB each.

08 — AI Search Readiness / GEO

AI search & generative engines

Score: 41 / 100. Crawlers aren’t blocked, but there’s no llms.txt, no FAQ structure, and passages are too short to be extracted cleanly by LLM-driven search.

AI crawler accessibility

GPTBot · Allowed ClaudeBot · Allowed PerplexityBot · Allowed Googlebot-Extended · Allowed Bytespider · Allowed

AI crawlers are not blocked — content is accessible for AI training and search.

llms.txt compliance

Check	Status
`/llms.txt`	Fail 404
`/.well-known/llms.txt`	Fail 404

Citability (48 / 100)

Factor	Score	Notes
Structured Q&A content	1 / 5	No FAQ sections detected on any sampled page.
Definition-style answers	1 / 5	Content is narrative, not structured for extraction.
Data / statistics	2 / 5	“40+ years” cited; no original data, surveys, or cost data.
Clear attribution	3 / 5	Business name and expertise are clear.
Passage-level structure	2 / 5	Headings used but content not structured for AI extraction.

AI systems prefer passages in the 134–167 word range for citation. Current passages are 1–2 sentences — far below optimal. The homepage brand passage is only ~30 words.

Platform-specific readiness

Platform	Score	Key gap
Google AI Overviews	45 / 100	No FAQ schema; thin service pages; no AggregateRating.
ChatGPT (web search)	35 / 100	No llms.txt; passages too short; no cited statistics.
Perplexity	30 / 100	No self-contained answer blocks; no source-cited data.
Bing Copilot	40 / 100	Limited content depth; Elementor markup degrades extraction.

What’s needed for AI visibility

llms.txt — define the business, services, and key pages.
FAQ sections — 5–8 FAQs per service page, answers in the 134–167 word range, wrapped in FAQPage schema.
Answer-first structure — each section opens with a direct 40–60 word answer before elaborating.
Original data — local pricing, repair timelines, seasonal trends.
Structured lists — numbered steps, comparison tables, bullets.
Citation-worthy claims — replace “40+ years” with founding year, job count, review count, technician count.
Off-site brand presence — no Wikipedia entity and unknown Reddit presence; both correlate with AI citation frequency.

09 — Backlink Profile

Links & authority

DR 12 against competitors at DR 60–90. Directory-heavy profile; almost no editorial links from local media or industry publications.

Overview

Domain Rating	12 / 100
Live backlinks	938
Referring domains	484
All-time referring domains	1,000

Top referring domains

Domain	DR	Links	Spam?
yahoo.com	94	1	No
bing.com	93	4	No
webflow.io	92	2	No
provenexpert.com	91	4	No
homeadvisor.com	91	1	No
za.com	90	3	Yes
yellowpages.com	89	8	No
digitaljournal.com	86	2	No
itxoft.com	85	2	Yes
groupon.com	84	1	No

Spam links

za.com (DR 90) — 3 links, first seen July 2024.
itxoft.com (DR 85) — 2 links, first seen December 2024.

Action: monitor via Google Search Console; disavow if negative impact detected.

Competitive gap

Competitor	DR	Common KW	Their traffic
angi.com	90	46	2.6M
homedepot.com	90	39	52.4M
trane.com	82	23	499K
carrier.com	84	22	648K
aireserv.com	66	19	96K
onehourheatandair.com	70	17	72K

Key insight: even the closest local competitors (Aire Serv DR 66, One Hour DR 70) have 5–6x higher domain authority. Building backlinks from local Greenville media, the Chamber of Commerce, and industry associations is critical.

10 — Organic Keyword Performance

Keywords & traffic

57% of all organic traffic goes to a single page. The dependency is real — and it’s the clearest case for broadening the content base.

Top keywords by traffic

Keyword	Position	Volume	Traffic	URL
air today heating & cooling	2	100	43	/
air conditioner repair service	10	1,100	33	/ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/
ac service repair	4	200	24	/ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/
air today heating and cooling	2	60	23	/
airconditioning repair near me	6	150	15	/ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/
ac repair and installation	9	350	13	/ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/
running hvac fan continuously	5	100	10	/blog/should-your-hvac-furnace-fan-run-continuously/
cheap ac repair near me	9	250	9	/ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/

Traffic concentration risk

57% of all organic traffic goes to a single page: /ac-repair-simpsonville-sc/.
Only 2 pages drive meaningful traffic (>40 visits/month).
71 blog posts collectively drive minimal traffic.
Branded keywords (“air today heating & cooling”) account for ~18% of traffic.

SERP feature opportunities

Feature	Current presence	Opportunity
Local Pack	Appears for repair queries	Optimize GMB, add reviews.
AI Overview	“running hvac fan continuously” triggers one	Add FAQ schema for more coverage.
People Also Ask	Appears on repair SERPs	Create content targeting PAA questions.
Sitelinks	Branded queries only	Improve site structure.

11 — Sitemap Analysis

Sitemap

Sitemap	URLs	Last modified
post-sitemap.xml	71	Apr 20, 2026
page-sitemap.xml	64	Apr 22, 2026
local-sitemap.xml	1 (KML)	Mar 24, 2026
Total	136

Issues

Missing changefreq / priority — optional but helpful for crawl prioritization.
KML in sitemap — unusual; search engines may not process this.
Duplicate location pages not consolidated — multiple URLs for the same cities.
All 71 blog posts have lastmod dates, indicating active content management (positive).

12 — Appendix

Page inventory

Service pages (14)

Core services well-covered: AC repair, AC installation, heating, furnace repair, furnace installation (gas & oil), heat pumps, preventative maintenance, ductwork, mini-splits, indoor air quality, new construction HVAC.

Location pages (~30)

Cities covered: Greenville, Simpsonville, Anderson, Greer, Easley, Piedmont, Seneca, Clemson, Mauldin, Taylors, Pickens.

Issue: multiple pages per city with overlapping targets.

Blog posts (71)

Active blog with consistent publishing (2022–2026). Topics cover repair troubleshooting (AC not cooling, furnace issues, strange smells), buying guides (HVAC selection, heat pumps, mini-splits), maintenance (filter changes, seasonal prep), cost / savings (energy tips, utility bills), and local content (Greenville-specific guides, property manager tips).

Read the Action Plan

A complete field report for Air Today Heating & Cooling.

Top 5 Critical Issues

Top 5 Quick Wins

Weighted composite

Specialist sub-scores

Technical foundation

Crawlability

Indexability

Security

URL Structure

Additional

Content & E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T Composite (65 / 100)

Experience

Expertise

Authoritativeness

Trustworthiness

Content depth

Duplicate & cannibalization risks

High risk — location pages

Medium risk — blog topics

Readability

On-page fundamentals

Title tags

Meta descriptions

Heading structure

Internal linking

Structured data

Current implementation

Missing schema (opportunities)

Validation issues

Performance

Server performance (via curl)

Page-size concerns

Caching

Known issues (WordPress / Astra)

Images

Recommendations

AI search & generative engines

AI crawler accessibility

llms.txt compliance

Citability (48 / 100)

Platform-specific readiness

What’s needed for AI visibility

Links & authority

Overview

Top referring domains

Spam links

Competitive gap

Keywords & traffic

Top keywords by traffic

Traffic concentration risk

SERP feature opportunities

Sitemap

Issues

Page inventory

Service pages (14)

Location pages (~30)

Blog posts (71)