SEO (search engine optimization) along with paid search advertising are two essential tactics for successfully marketing your solar installation business online. Both require the use of relevant keywords in order to reach your targeted homeowner and commercial customers.
An effective SEO campaign requires creating original content around keywords relevant to your solar business's products and services. This unique content is used on your website to inform and educate your customers. This is called "content marketing". You bring in solar sales by providing your target audience with interesting, informative content.
Local SEO is the process of getting your solar panel company website to rank for local searches for SEO installation services. The goal is to appear high up in the search results, as well as having your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) appear in the Google Map Pack.
Search engine advertising involves creating pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to help you get your ads in front of potential customers precisely at the time they are looking for your solar company's services.
Both strategies (PPC and SEO) can get people to visit your website, where you'll have the chance to convert a solar lead into a paying customer.
Find Your Own Keywords
In this blog, I first discuss the methods and tools that you can use to identify additional keywords to enhance your solar installation advertising and SEO efforts.
Utilize Our Keyword List
At the end of this article, I will give you 74 terms related to solar panel business services. You are able to look over, change and then use these keywords in your digital marketing campaigns.
In each of the examples, I'm using a single seed keyword, such as "solar installers". This is a fairly obvious keyword to use. You may provide other related services that you’ll also want to plug into these tools to come up with additional keyword ideas.
KWFinder costs $29/mo. They have a free 10-day trial so you can check them out risk-free.
You’ll enter your keyword, location, and language, and it will deliver a lot of important information that is helpful for both SEO and PPC. While the actual numbers won't be 100% accurate (only Google has access to 100% accurate data about search queries). However, the information can assist you in choosing the most relevant keywords.
Mangools KWFinder results for "solar installers"
In this instance, we chose "solar installers" as our keyword and set our location at "Tucson, AZ" (1). Related Keywords (2) are provided after clicking the green button with the arrow..
You can also switch to "Autocomplete" as well as "Questions". Making content for your website based on Google Autocomplete or Questions is an excellent SEO strategy. These are typically lower-volume keyword phrases that aren't subject to intense competition - making it possible to get organic (free) website traffic to your solar company’s website.
Keyword Table (Left Panel)
Keywords (2) - These are the keywords you might want to study for use in paid search or SEO campaigns.
Search (3) - This is the average monthly search volume over the last 12 months, based on parameters for search (searches of "solar installers" for Tucson, AZ). We can see that around 10 people each month search for "solar installers" in Tucson.
CPC (4) - this is how much you will pay for each click for the keyword in Google Ads paid search. In the same way, using an example like the solar installers example, you'll determine that the expected cost per click will be approximately $24.82. This is an estimation, and the cost per click in your advertising campaign will vary widely according to a myriad of factors including ad position and your location. In the light of the information presented, it's fair to say it is likely that bidding on "solar installers" in an expected CPC of $24.82 is likely to be more expensive than bidding on "solar panels for home cost" at $9.44.
PPC (5) - PPC shows how difficult the competition is for paid search ads. 100 is higher and indicates extremely competitive bidding. 0 indicates very little competition and likely much lower click costs. A PPC value of 15 shows that there aren’t a ton of advertisers bidding on the keyword in Google - but those who are bidding are bidding quite high as witnessed by the $24.82 CPC value.
KD (6) - this is the keyword difficulty. It serves as a way to measure SEO difficulty. For solar, “solar installers” has a keyword difficulty of 33 which they claim to be "Possible". Keep in mind that you need to have great content on your website and a well-thought-out SEO strategy in order to rank for any keyword related to solar installation.
Keyword SEO Data (Right Panel)
The right-hand side of the panel has SEO data for the term which is highlighted in the left panel. In this panel, we can see the keyword difficulty highlighted again (7) in addition to the Search Engine Results Page (8) overview for the keyword based on our initial keywords search parameters. It is important to note that the top search result is held by netzerosolar.net. This provides you with valuable information about the businesses you’ll be competing against in the event that you attempt to rank for the chosen keyword phrase.
Convert and Make Lists
It is possible to create lists and export data through this interface. You can then analyze the keywords using your favorite spreadsheet (or keyword analysis tool).
Ahrefs is a full-featured SEO and PPC tool that provides keyword research data (among many other things).
You’ll go to the Keywords Explorer and enter a seed keyword. We've entered our keyword "solar installers" (9) and kept defaults of Google and USA for our search engine and search location respectively.
Input your seed keyword within Keywords Explorer - then click on "Related Terms"
From the results page, we click on "Related Terms" (10) to see our keyword results.
From the below results it is clear that we have 4,218 possible keywords to pick from. You can save these keywords as an excel spreadsheet or export them for offline analysis on your spreadsheet of choice.
Ahrefs provides a wealth of SEO and PPC information for “solar installers”
Here's a brief overview of some of the columns that may be useful to those solar campaigns.
Keywords (11) - A list of keywords to analyze for implementation in Google Ads or search engine optimization campaigns.
KD (12) - ahrefs “Keyword difficulty” value. Higher number = Harder to rank. The KD is an exponential scale, which means that the ranking for a keyword with KD 20 would be more than twice as hard to rank for keywords with a KD 10.
Volume (13) - This is the average monthly volume of searches for the specified keyword according to the parameters used in our original search.
CPC (14) - is the approximate cost per click you should expect when you're running PPC ads for this keyword. Ahrefs is based on Google data, however, cost per click is different with each search based on many different variables.
SERP (15) - Here you will see the results of the search engine for the word. Clicking here will show you who your competitors are for the keyword and where they rank on the search results page.
Export (16) - You can export ahrefs data to do an offline analysis in a spreadsheet.
Keyword Sheeter provides you with a list Google autocomplete suggestions based on keywords that you input. We start on the "Keywords Ideas Tools" tab (17), accept the default settings (18), and enter “solar installers” as our seed keyword (19). Then we press the “Sheet Keywords” button. Additionally, you can apply negative or negative filters to refine your search results.
Keyword Sheeter provides results based on Google Autocomplete
You can then copy the results to a spreadsheet. The cost of subscriptions starts at $9/month.
Google Ads can also be a source of new keywords through the keyword planner tool. For even more information on how to make search advertising work for your solar installation company, be sure to check out our article about “Google Ads for Solar Companies” (coming soon).
If you've already registered for Google Ads, you can access Google's Keyword Planner by going to "Tools and Settings" (21) then after that, selecting "Keyword Planner" (22)
Opening the Google Keyword Planner
Once you're in the keyword planner, you'll choose “Start with Keywords” (23), then enter all the services your solar installation company offers. We just entered “solar panel installation near me”, but you’ll want to enter many more keywords. When ready, click on the "Get Results" button (25).
Seeding keywords on Google's Keyword Planner
As you will find below Google returns 84 Keywords in the Keyword planner (26). You can find keywords (27) as well as the average monthly searches for each keyword (28) and the top of page bidding data (29) and (30).
You can refine or edit your results by clicking the refine keywords link on the upper right (32). Also in the upper right is a way to download your keywords so you can analyze them offline (the download icon). Finally, you can add keywords to your search by clicking the keywords in the Broaden your search section (31).
Keyword planner results for "solar panel installation near me"
Based on our experience and experience using several of the tools mentioned above, here is an initial set of 74 solar keywords you should consider using in paid ads or SEO.
This isn't an exhaustive list. It's best to conduct your own research to find the keywords that are appropriate for your business.
For paid search campaigns, you'll need to add qualifiers to a few of the words below.
Location qualifiers
For instance, lots of people use search terms like "near my home", "my area" or their location (e.g. "Solar Panel Installation Spokane, WA"). So, for certain keywords, you might want to add city names that you service as well as the "near me" qualifier.
Negative Keywords
If you’re running Microsoft Ads or Google Ads, be sure to enter any of the keywords below as negative keywords if you don’t offer that particular service.
