An HVAC website needs one page for every question a customer asks before calling you, and no more. In practice that means a page for each service that earns real money, a page for each service area where you have something specific to say, and a handful of core pages. Add those up and you have your page count, which in turn points to a package: 5–7 pages for Essential, 10–15 for Professional, or unlimited pages and locations for Enterprise.
This guide walks through the method with three worked examples, then covers the most common scoping mistakes.
The formula
Use this simple sum:
Pages = core pages + service pages + area pages + support pages
| Part | What counts | Typical number |
|---|---|---|
| Core pages | Home, about, contact | 3 |
| Service pages | One per money-making service | 3–10 |
| Area pages | Communities with genuinely local content | 0–5 (or many for multi-branch) |
| Support pages | Reviews, financing, rebates, maintenance plans | 0–3 |
Each part has a test.
- Service page test: would a customer search for this service by name, and does it bring meaningful margin? If yes to both, it gets a page.
- Area page test: can you write at least a few paragraphs about this community that wouldn't be true of the next town over? If not, list it on the service area page instead.
- Support page test: does this answer a question customers ask often enough to deserve its own page? Financing and maintenance plans usually pass.
Example 1: a new furnace and AC company
The business: a newly licensed owner-operator with one van, serving one mid-sized city. Services: furnace installation, AC installation, and repairs and maintenance.
The count:
- Core pages: 3 (home, about, contact)
- Service pages: 3 (furnaces, air conditioning, repairs and maintenance)
- Area pages: 0 (one city, covered on the home page and contact page)
- Support pages: 0 at launch
Total: 6 pages. That's Essential: 5–7 pages in 2–3 weeks, $3,500 plus $149 a month.
What to watch: if the owner adds heat pumps in the spring, that's a seventh page, still within the package. A boiler line and two new towns would be the point to think about moving up.
Example 2: an established residential company
The business: ten years in business, four vans, serving a city and three surrounding municipalities. Services: furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioning, boilers, water heaters (tank and tankless), maintenance plans, and indoor air quality.
The count:
- Core pages: 3
- Service pages: 7 (one for each service above)
- Area pages: 2 (the two neighbouring municipalities with distinct housing and enough jobs to write about; the third is listed on the main area page)
- Support pages: 2 (financing, reviews)
Total: 14 pages. That's Professional: 10–15 pages in 3–4 weeks, $6,500 plus $249 a month.
What to watch: it's tempting to split furnaces into "furnace installation" and "furnace repair". That can be worth doing if both bring real search volume, but it would push the count to 15, the top of the range. Decide based on what customers actually search for and call about.
Example 3: a two-branch company with a commercial division
The business: two depots in neighbouring cities, a residential team and a commercial team serving property managers. Around twelve communities served between them.
The count:
- Core pages: 3, plus 2 branch pages
- Residential service pages: 7
- Commercial service pages: 4 (rooftop units, commercial boilers, maintenance contracts, emergency service)
- Area pages: 8 (communities with real local content)
- Support pages: 3 (financing, reviews, careers)
Total: about 27 pages, and growing. That's Enterprise: unlimited pages and locations in 4–6 weeks, $12,500 plus $449 a month.
What to watch: the temptation at this size is to add twenty more area pages that only swap a town name. Resist it. Thin pages can drag down the whole site. Add area pages when you have something real to say, and our results page shows how BoilerPart.ca made large page counts work by giving each page distinct content.
Five scoping mistakes
1. One page for all services
A single "services" page with eight bullet points can't rank for any of them. A homeowner searching for a tankless water heater wants a page about tankless water heaters.
2. Area pages with nothing local
Pages that read "We serve [Town]! Call us for furnace repair in [Town]!" are thin. Search engines recognise them, and so do customers.
3. Scoping for five years from now
Build for today plus about a year. A sound structure lets you add pages later without a rebuild. Paying now for pages you can't fill wastes money and produces weak content.
4. Forgetting support pages
Financing, rebates and maintenance plans answer questions customers ask on almost every call. A rebate page needs dates and links to the program administrator, because programs change often.
5. Ignoring language
If you serve Quebec, or French-speaking communities elsewhere, a bilingual site roughly doubles the content to write and review. Factor that into the scope from the start. Our Quebec page covers the language requirements to check with the official source.
A worksheet you can fill in now
Copy this into a note and fill it in:
- Core pages: 3
- My money services (one per line): ____ → count: __
- Communities with real local content: ____ → count: __
- Support pages (financing, reviews, rebates, maintenance plans, careers): ____ → count: __
- Total: __
Then match the total:
| Total | Package |
|---|---|
| 5–7 | Essential |
| 8–9 | Trim to Essential, or plan for Professional |
| 10–15 | Professional |
| 16+, or multiple branches | Enterprise |
Keep the worksheet. When you add a service or a town next year, rerun the count, and you'll know straight away whether the change fits your current package or calls for a scope change.
Turning the count into a budget
Once you know the package, use the first-year totals on our pricing page: $5,288 for Essential, $9,488 for Professional, $17,888 for Enterprise, all before GST/HST. Compare that against the margin on the extra jobs you'd need to cover it.
Then gather your inputs using the owner prep kit, and send us your filled-in worksheet. We'll confirm the package and page plan in writing before any work begins.
Frequently asked questions
Is a bigger website always better for SEO?
No. More pages help only when each one answers a distinct question well. A hundred near-identical pages can hold a site back, while fifteen strong pages can do very well in a local market.
Should I make a page for every town near me?
Only for towns you actively serve and can write something specific about: travel time, housing stock, common heating systems, or local jobs. If the only difference is the town name, leave it out and list the town on your service area page instead.
Do blog posts count toward the page count?
For scoping, count the pages needed at launch. Articles are usually added after launch as part of ongoing content, and the site structure should leave room for them.
What if my count lands between packages?
If you land at eight or nine pages, either trim to the seven strongest for Essential or plan for Professional and use the extra room well. We'll go through the list with you and recommend one.