In your solar business, it makes sense to have multiple streams of solar lead generation, rather than relying on a single source.
Relying on door knocking? You or your rep could twist an ankle and be out of that for a week.
Facebook ads? Your account could get randomly shut down.
You get the idea.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means doing things to make it more likely for people who want to buy solar panels to find you on Google.
By working on making your solar company more visible on Google, you’ll be adding to an additional source of solar leads, and making your business more resilient.
Read on to learn the principles of SEO for solar power companies.
National vs Local SEO for Solar Companies
When you start looking into SEO for your solar company, it’s important to know that SEO works a little differently on the local level than it does nationally.
Local SEO
Your goal with local SEO is to become the number one result in your local area when people search for things like “solar company near me”.
How hard is it to do this? It depends on your location, and how big of an area you’re looking to target. Being at the top of the search results for the whole of New York City is going to be much harder than in Omaha, Nebraska.
Elements of Local SEO
Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile (sometimes called GMB) often appears as part of a local search result.
If you haven’t set one up, or ‘claimed’ it, then congratulations – you’ve just found a low hanging fruit to quickly improve your local search rankings.
If you do have one, make sure you have a process in place for gathering authentic (hopefully five star) reviews. The more reviews, and the better your average rating, the more likely it is that your solar business will be number one locally.
Also make sure:
- That all information is accurate and up to date
- You’ve included some (non stock) photos
- Contact details & website links are correct and working
For bonus points you should ideally post updates to your Google Business Profile, in the same way you would for a Facebook page. That could be photos of recent installs that have been completed, for example.
On Site Local SEO
Make sure that your business address is clearly visible on the site, as well as a phone number. Search engines pick up on this and use it as another signal that your business is actually based in the area.
Citations
Citations are a fancy way of saying links from local business directories. There’s a ton of local sites that list local businesses, such as the chamber of commerce.
There are a number of services which can help get you quickly listed on these sites, and doing so is another signal to Google that you’re a relevant local business.
National SEO
National SEO is where you’re competing with large national solar companies like Tesla, Vivint, etc as well as lead generation sites like Modernize, Home Advisor, and Solar.com.
As you can imagine, it’s a lot more competitive. It’s going to be very tough to appear for “solar company” or “solar energy companies” for the entire country.
Content Led SEO for Solar Companies
On a national level, you need to adopt a “content led” strategy, where instead of focusing on building up profiles, reviews and links within a local area, you are looking to capture the attention of people looking for specific information to do with solar.
For example, there are many questions that a homeowner might have around battery storage, such as:
- Does it make sense financially to get a battery for my solar system?
- Which is the best home solar battery?
- What size of battery should I get?
- Can I charge a battery from the grid when electricity is cheap, then use it later?
- Can I charge my Tesla from a home solar battery?
You get the idea. There’s obviously a ton more questions like that. And that’s just one area of the solar industry. If you create helpful, in-depth content that helps someone get the awnsers they need to any of those questions, you can start to get steady traffic from Google all over the country.