Why SEO Is Dead for Home Services in 2025

This week, I sat down with Cary Blackburn, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Results Grow, an agency built specifically for HVAC and roofing companies. Carrie started a different marketing business back in 2010, then met her future business partner Steve, an HVAC owner in the greater Vancouver area, at a Chamber of Commerce event in 2012.

Steve became a client first, and Carrie helped grow his HVAC business from $70,000 a year to $5 million a year before he sold it to a multinational franchise company in 2017. In 2019, the two teamed up to found Results Grow, which now serves well over 200 clients across HVAC and roofing.

We covered why SEO has gotten so much harder over the last decade, what actually works on Meta and Google ads for home services in 2025, the differences between marketing HVAC versus roofing companies, and the biggest mistakes owner operators make when they try to run paid ads on their own.

The Key Takeaways

Below are the most essential insights from my conversation with Carrie that you can apply to your home services business today.

1. From Client to Business Partner

Carrie met Steve at a Chamber of Commerce function in 2012, where she gave a five minute presentation on SEO after his session ran long. Steve became a client that same day, and the working relationship eventually turned into a friendship, and then a full business partnership when they founded Results Grow together in 2019.

“After five minutes I had like three people come to me right away, like hey, we want to do this. Steve was one of them. He became a client of mine with that business, and we became good friends after because of our relationship there.”

— Cary Blackburn

2. Taking an HVAC Business From $70K to $5 Million

Steve’s HVAC business went from $70,000 a year in 2007 to $5 million a year by 2017, when he sold it to a large multinational franchise company. Carrie’s SEO work got him ranking across the entire greater Vancouver area, and once Facebook ads picked up steam around 2016, they layered in paid social alongside Google ads to keep scaling.

“His business went from $70,000 a year to $5 million a year by 2017. So he sold it to a big multinational company that has franchises all across North America.”

— Cary Blackburn

3. Why SEO Has Gotten So Much Harder

Twelve years ago, Carrie could get clients to the top of page one within six to eight weeks. Now it takes years, in part because Google fills the results page with AI overviews, ads, and map listings before any organic result appears, and because Google has cracked down on the tactics that used to game local rankings.

“If you’re a home service business and you’re spending $1,000 or $2,000 on SEO a month and you’re not going to get any results for a year, 18 months, two years, it’s a lot of money you’re putting out to not get any leads.”

— Cary Blackburn

4. What Actually Works on Meta and Google Ads

On Meta, Carrie’s team found that simple, newspaper style ads with a clear headline, product, price, and benefits outperformed lifestyle imagery, a discovery that came after 77 iterations of ad creative. On Google, the key is matching keyword to ad group to landing page so a search for “roof replacement” never lands someone on a general homepage, plus running weekly search term audits to build out negative keyword lists.

“I just went, you know what, I’m going to throw up something really simple where basically it’s a headline. Here’s the product. Here’s the price. Here’s the benefits with the warranties. Click here. And that all of a sudden just went boom. Started working like crazy.”

— Cary Blackburn

5. YouTube Ads Are Cheaper Than Most Owners Realize

Results Grow now runs YouTube ads for clients at a cost per thousand impressions that’s roughly 60 to 70 percent cheaper than Meta. A winning ad appeals to pain right away, amplifies it, offers a clear deal, shows real reviews, and closes with a call to action, all in about 30 to 40 seconds, often with Carrie herself on camera since many owners do not want to appear in their own ads.

“YouTube ads can be very successful because the CPM, the cost per 1,000 impressions, is substantially cheaper than Meta. We’re looking at like 60 to 70 percent cheaper than Meta.”

— Cary Blackburn

6. HVAC and Roofing Marketing Are Not the Same Game

HVAC companies tend to be larger and more structured because of the technical training required, while roofing has more small, one person operations. Leads for roofing tend to run cheaper than HVAC, but HVAC has more repeat repair business, since a roof is usually a full replacement rather than a repair, and repair searches for either trade almost never convert on social media.

“The HVAC businesses that we deal with tend to be more structured than the roofing industries because of there being more roofing businesses around and smaller businesses. I hate the term, but a lot of people call it a truck in a truck.”

— Cary Blackburn

7. The Three Biggest Paid Ads Mistakes Owners Make

Carrie’s top three mistakes: trying to run ads yourself instead of focusing on running the business, hiring a general marketing company that does not know your specific trade, and posting boosted images on Meta instead of building real ads with a clear offer. Real people answering the phone quickly, without a call tree, matters just as much as the ad itself once a lead comes in.

“Don’t hire marketing companies that don’t know crap about roofing or HVAC. You can hire a general marketing company, but they don’t necessarily understand the two industries that we do or the home service industry.”

— Cary Blackburn

Looking Ahead

Carrie’s biggest advice for home service owners right now is to stop putting new money into SEO and shift that budget into paid advertising, where results show up in weeks instead of years and spend can be dialed up or down on demand. Even a modest $30 to $40 a day on Facebook or Meta, run well, beats a year of SEO spend with nothing to show for it.

“If you spent that $1,000 a month on advertising and you close two jobs each month just on that $1,000, you’re way ahead of where you were on SEO. You need to start getting leads. You need to start getting jobs. Use paid advertising.”

— Cary Blackburn