July is the annual low point for chimney search demand in Central Massachusetts, and the site still finished the month deeper in Google than it has ever been. On Duty ranked in the top 3 for 662 queries, on the first page for 1,150 queries, and inside the top 20 for 1,499 queries, counted across every search the site appeared for. All three bands moved up sharply against June: 229 more queries held a top 3 spot, 324 more held the first page, and 367 more sat inside the top 20. Traffic followed. Clicks rose from 73 to 105 against 35,163 impressions, and the top 3 positions alone delivered 77 percent of every click the site earned, with the first page accounting for 96 percent. In the slowest month of the year the site widened its footprint and converted more of it.
Underneath those site-wide totals sits a narrower working list: the priority commercial terms we check by hand every day in each market, on desktop and mobile. Across that list, 258 terms hold a top 3 position and 418 hold the first page, with another 125 in striking distance on page 2. It is a deliberately small, hand-picked set, so it tells us how the money terms are moving city by city rather than restating the counts above. Ranked keyword count climbed on that list through July (top 30 went from 133 to 139 in the second half of the month), and the "chimney sweep, chimney sweep near me, chimney cleaning, chimney repair, chimney repair near me" head-term sweep at position 1 held throughout.
Multi-platform AI search continues to be the standout story. The site was cited 79 times across six AI search platforms in July. Grok and Google AI Overview are tied for the largest share at 22 citations each, and Google AI Mode pulled from 8 different pages across the site, the widest page spread of any platform. The Chimney Liner Cost Guide, Chimney Repair Cost Guide, Wood Stove Installation Guide, and Pellet Stove vs Wood Stove comparison, all of which we published on your behalf in February, are anchoring the citation set month over month.
August focus is straightforward: keep tightening the pages already earning AI citations, publish the fall-season pillars now so they can index before demand spikes, and finish shipping the pending on-page fixes (chimney cap cost FAQ block, verified pricing update) that have been carrying through several LHF cycles.
We pull from several sources so no single tool tells the whole story. The headline counts above come from Google's own reporting, which covers every search On Duty appeared for. The city-by-city and map pack numbers further down come from a daily rank tracker checking each market separately on desktop and mobile. AI citations come from the platforms themselves. Each number comes from whichever source measures it best, and stays with that source month to month.
Queries where On Duty currently appears on the first page of Google. These are the search terms actively bringing buyers to the site.
| Keyword | Position | Monthly Impressions |
|---|---|---|
| chimney liner cost | 5 | 766 |
| chimney cleaning | 3 | 533 |
| chimney repair | 2 | 492 |
| on duty chimney | 3 | 443 |
| chimney sweep near me | 5 | 352 |
| chimney repair near me | 6 | 320 |
| on duty chimney sweep | 1 | 226 |
| chimney leak repair | 2 | 209 |
| chimney liner replacement cost | 7 | 197 |
| chimney cap repair | 2 | 195 |
| chimney relining cost | 2 | 182 |
| chimney company | 2 | 181 |
| chimney crown replacement | 5 | 177 |
| chimney installation | 3 | 173 |
| chimney liner installation cost | 7 | 171 |
| chimney inspections | 2 | 171 |
| chimney service | 2 | 165 |
| chimney repair massachusetts | 5 | 151 |
| chimney liner | 6 | 143 |
| brick chimney repair | 1 | 119 |
Queries already ranking on page 2 where a small content or link push moves them onto page 1. These are the next wave of winsStriking distance keywords are search terms ranking close to page 1 (positions 11 to 20). They typically take less work to push onto page 1 than starting a brand new keyword from scratch.. The single biggest impression driver on the site this month, "chimney liner installation near me" (1,375 impressions), sits right at the top of this list at position 12.
| Keyword | Position | Monthly Impressions |
|---|---|---|
| chimney liner installation near me | 12 | 1,375 |
| chimney crown cost | 16 | 307 |
| chimney crown installation | 12 | 141 |
| chimney crown repair cost | 16 | 131 |
| chimney liner installer near me | 20 | 118 |
| chimney liner install near me | 16 | 110 |
| chimney liner services near me | 20 | 105 |
| how long does a chimney liner last | 19 | 87 |
| chimney cleaning near me | 12 | 84 |
| chimney rebuild cost | 15 | 79 |
| chimney crown repair costs | 16 | 70 |
| chimney cleaners near me | 16 | 63 |
| chimney fire cleanup ma | 13 | 55 |
| chimney liner installers near me | 18 | 55 |
These specific pages are the foundation for everything ranking. Each one drives traffic across dozens of related search terms. The number of ranking queriesA "ranking query" is a unique search term that this specific page shows up for on Google during the reporting month. One page often ranks for hundreds of related searches at once. shown next to each page is how many different Google searches each page is showing up for.
Real local 3-packWhen someone searches for a local service like "chimney sweep near me," Google shows a special box at the top with a map and three business listings. This is called the local 3-pack or "map pack" and ranking inside it is a major driver of calls. rankings checked across each metro On Duty serves. The head-term sweep at position 1 in Leominster and Worcester held throughout July, with the same coverage pattern extending across Fitchburg and Lancaster.
| Keyword | Leominster | Worcester | Fitchburg | Bolton | Lancaster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chimney repair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| chimney sweep | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |
| chimney cleaning | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| chimney sweeps | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney repair near me | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney sweep near me | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | |
| fireplace cleaning near me | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | |
| fireplace repair | 2 | 2 | 3 | ||
| fireplace cleaning | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| chimney inspections | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| chimney company | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| chimney service | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney servicing | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney sweep company | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney cap repair | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| chimney crown repair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| chimney leak repair | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | |
| masonry chimney repair | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| brick chimney repair | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |
| stone chimney repair | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| fireplace installation | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| chimney repair massachusetts | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| wood stove installation | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
This month's AI visibility picture comes from two complementary lenses. The first is our cross-platform snapshot as of July 31, which shows 79 On Duty citations across 6 of 7 tracked AI search platforms (Grok, Google AI Overview, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity). The second is a 30-day rolling window from Microsoft's own reporting through August 5, which shows 25 citations from Microsoft's AI ecosystem (Copilot and Bing Chat). The chimney-liner-cost cluster continues to carry the heaviest share of Google AI Overview citations, and Google AI Mode is now sourcing from eight different pages across the site, the widest page spread of any platform this period.
| Query the user asked Google | Cited page | Monthly Volume |
|---|---|---|
| chimney liner cost | /chimney-liner-cost/ | 700 |
| chimney repair cost | /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 570 |
| chimney crown cost | /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 500 |
| chimney liner replacement cost | /chimney-liner-cost/ | 250 |
| cost to replace chimney liner | /chimney-liner-cost/ | 250 |
| wood burning stove insert | /wood-stove-installation-guide/ | 500 |
| chimney rebuild cost | /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 300 |
| fireplace liner replacement | /chimney-liner-cost/ | 200 |
| chimney liner repair | /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 200 |
| chimney replacement cost | /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 200 |
Citation counts for each AI search platform tracked. "Citations" is the total number of times On Duty was named as a source in an AI answer. "Pages cited" is how many different On Duty URLs were pulled by that platform.
The Chimney Liner Cost Guide, Chimney Repair Cost Guide, Wood Stove Installation Guide, and Pellet Stove vs Wood Stove comparison were all published on your behalf as part of a coordinated February pillar push. They have been the top pages cited across AI platforms in every month since. That is the compounding return we build content for: one publish, months of citations.
Google's own reporting now has a new Generative AI features reportA beta report from Google that shows how often your pages appear inside AI-generated answers on Google (AI Overviews and AI Mode). Unlike traditional impressions, these show up when Google's AI synthesizes an answer using your content as a source. gives us Google's own direct measurement of how often On Duty pages surface inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. Every other AI view in this section relies on third-party crawlers. This one comes straight from Google.
| On Duty page | AI impressions | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| /chimney-liner-cost/ | 4,947 | 61.0% |
| /chimney-repair-cost-guide/ | 1,225 | 15.1% |
| /wood-stove-installation-guide/ | 592 | 7.3% |
| Homepage | 404 | 5.0% |
| /how-to-troubleshoot-a-smoky-fireplace/ | 300 | 3.7% |
| /service/chimney-cleaning-and-sweeping-leominster-ma/ | 135 | 1.7% |
| /chimney-liner-replacement-guide/ | 134 | 1.7% |
Three pillars we published on your behalf in February 2026 (the Chimney Liner Cost Guide, Chimney Repair Cost Guide, and Wood Stove Installation Guide) account for 83.4% of every impression Google's AI generated for On Duty this period. Add the Leominster chimney cleaning and sweeping service page we rewrote in Batch 01 (1.7%), and the share climbs past 85%. This is now the second independent data source confirming the same story: the cross-platform snapshot showed the same pillars leading AI citations, and Google's own first-party report shows those same URLs driving the impressions.
Note on the data: Google's Generative AI features report currently surfaces impression data only, not clicks. This is because AI-generated answers often satisfy the query in place without the user needing to visit the source. Treat these numbers as authority and exposure indicators rather than direct-traffic drivers.
August is the pre-season window: content published now indexes in time for the September to November demand spike. The plan for next month puts the pieces in place for that ramp.
The chimney cap cost FAQ block plus verified $1,440 to $5,460 pricing update, and the pellet stove troubleshooting FAQ block, have been flagged across multiple LHF cycles. Both consolidate real search demand already sitting on the pages.
Continue building out the content library that has been driving AI citations. Fall-focused topics (inspections, waterproofing, winter prep) published now will be indexed and ranking before demand spikes.
"chimney liner installation near me" at position 12 with 1,375 impressions is the highest-value single opportunity on the site. Additional internal links from the Chimney Liner Cost Guide and the Leominster fireplace liner service page are the fastest lever.