If your primary goal is just to outrank that single company you're approaching it wrong though. Your site can still attract organic leads without outranking this person, and if you pick the right SEO I would expect 6-8 months (brand new site) to start to see a steady flow of organic leads.

That would roughly around a 1k budget per month in a bigger city.

I work with some folks in the construction/electric/home services type industries, and a lot of the people sitting in the top ranks (especially if they are local vs national) most likely aren't pouring a lot into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) if any.

I generally come across top ranking sites with little to no content, no real backlink profile, and wonk-ass web design. They are just ranking due to domain age at this point.

But again, its not like your site will be devoid of leads unless you outrank this person. A good SEO should be able to demonstrate a pretty steady growth in ranks/traffic/leads month to month.

Outranking that guy may take 1-2 years, but you should be getting steady leads long before that moment and maybe view it as more of a "vanity goal" you are aiming for.

comicsandpoppunk
In theory, you can outrank any other site, but in most cases, it won't be a quick win.

An established local giant probably have years of online marketing behind them to cement their position in the rankings and it will take you time to build up trust in the search engines.

No agency can guarantee you that you will outrank another company, unless they're doing their marketing as well, but any prospective agency should be able to give you an idea of how difficult it will be to outrank them based on competitiveness of keywords and a brief competitor analysis.

I would worry less about outranking a large company for a single keyword and look for a series of low competition, longtail search terms instead.

Also, while you're starting out and Return of Investment (RoI) is make or break, I'd suggest Pay Per Click (PPC) over Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

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plaus
It's all about local search. I'm not a professional SEO but have learned a few things by working with a consultant that my company has used for the past handful of years.

My wife has a very small business, at the beginning of quarantine I redid her website (from a free weebly site moved to WordPress) and helped her chase down some back lines to it. It ranks okay for local search terms in her niche. More importantly though was optimizing her Google My Business profile(and making sure she asks any happy clients for a review.)

She ranks above both national service providers and local ones on Google maps. For HVAC I would imagine your customer base is your neighborhood, showing up in the map pack is very valuable.

On the nonseo side – the local "Town Parents" group on Facebook. People are always looking for help in there.

timbo
For better results share your city or city size.

I manage and live in a city of 200k all working and living in 20miles of the center. Organic SEO has been easy with 12 or fewer competitors. We build citations with someone like bright local ($100) and then build lots of content rich pages both long on short tail. Within 12mo. we go from no rank to page one. With Pay Per Click (PPC) we are $157/lead on a $3k/mo budget. In a top 20 major metro market, same strategy, doesn't even move the needle. Monthly backlink building on long tail keywords was a start but damn, major markets there is HUGE dollars up for grabs if you get 4900 monthly searches by being on the 1st page. (Think how many Goodman 16 seer systems you could sell a month!) ha!

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deleted
It is possible, but like other people said it will take lots of consistent work. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Any marketing company that can guarantee you'll rank by a certain time is scamming you.

There are things you can start doing now that in the long run will help you rank; maintaining consistency of company name/address/phone number/hours everywhere online, reviews- quantity and quality, keep your Google My Business up-to-date, and of course ads. Ads will get you visibility on the search engine page and those clicks help build authority to your page, even more so if your website is optimized for the city in which your business is located.

And also back to Google My Business- they're rolling out a "Google Guaranteed" badge soon that merchants will be able to pay a fee to gave show up on their listing. It's slowly going to be available to more people, but keep an eye out for an email coming from Google about it in the coming months.

Speaking of badge- have you checked Google Local Service Ads? The approval process is a bit strenuous but that's a pay per lead program and not per pay click, and the leads run way cheaper than regular ads. It doesn't really affect organic rankings immediately, but every traffic generated helps establish your website which ultimately helps rankings. Plus, people who typically will contact you via Local Service Ads are more ready to close, so why not?
Ehtisham
You will not get an immediate Return of Investment (RoI) on your SEO investment, so if you are looking for immediate ROI, go for Pay Per Click (PPC) instead of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

That being said, you can get on the first page for relevant keywords with SEO, but that may take months (depending on a number of factors). That is why no SEO pro is committing to any kind of results and is only talking about action items. SEO, if done, right, will pay off in the long run though. My recommendation would be to get a PPC campaign going, optimize it until you get your required ROI, and then invest in an SEO campaign side by side (keeping in mind that it will bring results in the long run).
rankingpursuits
It is not compulsory to outrank your competitor to make money. What matters is how you make the most of the traffic that ends up on your website.

The best way is to plan out a funnel for your target audience. Write down the stages that your target audience goes through and how & where you can make them notice you.

Once you have your funnel stages planned out, it will be easier for you to understand what you need to do at each stage of the funnel.

Most people either miss this aspect of online marketing or ignore it.

You may get just 100 visitors per month but if you have a well mapped sales funnel then you can convert at least 5 to 10% of your visitors into customers.

Run local FB Ads (now is a good time since a some of the big brands are not spending on FB Ads. This will make FB deliver better experience to those who are doing advertising on its platform to keep them coming back for more. Win-Win for both.)

No matter what online marketing technique you use, you must have a Sales Funnel in place to make it work effectively.

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