The short answer
The solar keywords worth targeting are local commercial terms such as solar installers plus a town name, solar panel installation plus a town, and solar quote plus a town, plus buyer-stage questions about cost, payback and financing. National informational terms like how do solar panels work bring traffic that never becomes a job for an installer.
- 01Local plus commercial is where installer revenue lives. Everything else is a supporting act.
- 02National informational terms are for manufacturers and publishers, not for installers.
- 03Group by buyer stage, then write one page per group rather than per keyword.
- 04The best local terms are not in any tool. They come from your own enquiries.
Solar keyword research goes wrong in a predictable way. Somebody exports a list, sorts by volume, and finds that solar panels has enormous search volume. A year later the site ranks for nothing that matters and nobody has called.
The reason is that installers and manufacturers compete for entirely different terms. Volume is the wrong sort order. Intent plus locality is the right one.
Which keyword groups actually matter?
| Group | Examples | Worth it for an installer? |
|---|---|---|
| Local commercial | solar installers [town], solar company near me, solar panel installation [town] | Yes. This is the revenue |
| Local service specific | battery storage [town], solar repair [town], EV charger installation [town] | Yes. Lower volume, very high intent |
| Buyer stage questions | how much do solar panels cost, solar payback period, is solar worth it in [state] | Yes, with a local angle |
| National informational | how do solar panels work, types of solar panel, monocrystalline vs polycrystalline | Rarely. Traffic that never converts for an installer |
The last row is where most solar content budgets are spent, because those terms have the biggest numbers next to them. Someone reading about cell chemistry in another state is not going to book a survey with you.
How do you find the terms the tools do not show?
Keyword tools have thin data on small towns, which is exactly where your money is. Four sources beat them.
- 01
Your own enquiry records
Read what people actually wrote in your forms and what they said on the phone. The language customers use is the language they search with, and it is rarely the industry's language.
- 02
Google Search Console
Once you rank for anything, the queries report shows real terms including long-tail local ones no tool reports. This is the single best source you have and it is free.
- 03
Autocomplete and related searches
Type solar plus your town into a search box and read the suggestions. Then read the related searches at the bottom of the results page. That is live demand data.
- 04
Your sales team's objections
Every repeated question in a sales call is a search somebody made first. Roof age, shading, payback, financing, what happens if you go out of business.
One page per group, not per keyword
Solar installers [town], solar companies [town] and solar panel installers in [town] are the same query with different wording. They want the same page. Building three pages for them splits the signal and produces three weak pages instead of one strong one.
Where each group lives on the site
- 01Local commercial terms go on service area pages, one per town. See how to write solar service area pages.
- 02Local service specific terms go on service pages, optionally crossed with towns where volume justifies it.
- 03Buyer stage questions go on blog articles, with the local angle written in rather than bolted on.
- 04National informational terms, if you touch them at all, exist to support the others internally, not to be the plan.
A realistic starting list
For a typical installer in three towns, a first year's targets look like this, and it is shorter than most people expect.
- Three service area pages, one per town, targeting solar installers [town] and its variants.
- Four service pages: residential installation, battery storage, EV chargers, repair and maintenance.
- Six to ten question articles on cost, payback, financing, roof suitability, the local utility and the local permitting process.
- One pricing or cost page, which is the most searched commercial question in the category and the one most installers refuse to answer.
That is roughly fifteen pages. Fifteen good pages beat a hundred templated ones, and it is achievable in a year alongside running a business. For what to expect from it, see how long does SEO take for solar companies.
Where the keyword work fits
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Common questions
- Should I target solar panels as a keyword?
- No. It is dominated by manufacturers, publishers and national comparison sites, and the searcher is usually nowhere near ready to book an installer. Target the local commercial version of the same interest instead.
- How many keywords should a solar company target?
- Fewer than you think. Fifteen to twenty pages, each targeting a group of closely related terms, covers most installers' first year. Depth per page beats breadth across pages.
- Are near me keywords worth targeting?
- You cannot target them directly, because near me is resolved by the searcher's location rather than by words on your page. You win them through the Business Profile and local relevance, which is the map pack work.
