Boosting local leads for solar panels, heat pumps, electric vehicle (EV) charger installers, and other sustainable energy solutions with search engine rankings is crucial for driving new local businesses and attracting high-quality leads.
Most potential customers start their search for these services online and look for providers in their immediate area. If you’re not appearing on your local map or near the top of search engines, you’re missing out on a lot of easy-to-win business.
If your renewable energy business isn’t easily found in local search results, you are missing out on connections with high-intent, high-quality customers looking for your exact services. You also risk losing out to competitors who have optimised their local search visibility by employing a robust lead generation strategy.
The often missed positives of winning work in the local area are reduced travel costs, reduced mileage on vehicles and wasting less time travelling. Which means more profit for your business.
The good news is you can take some simple steps to improve your local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and attract more potential clients from local searches. In this post, we’ll cover proven local lead generation techniques for renewable energy companies.
Table of Contents
Optimise Your Google My Business Listing
Google My Business (GMB) listings have a major influence on local Google search rankings and help attract potential customers. Most companies have set up a Google business profile at some point, but they are often poorly completed, forgotten about and outdated.
Keeping on top of your GMB listing will help you stand out from competitors and rank higher in local Google search queries, increasing the chance of your target audience finding you and improving the quality of leads you attract.
So, you’ll want to completely fill out and optimise every aspect of your Google business profile.
However, the basics of what to do are:
- Start by making sure your service area is accurately defined so you show up for searches in the proper geographic radius.
- Fill in your full business description, history, photos, specialities, and any attributes that apply, like “solar panel installer”, “heat pump installer”, or “EV charger installer”.
- If you can get some customer reviews. Reviews on GMB listings lend credibility and social proof to potential customers. Proactively request reviews from happy customers to build up your stars. Respond professionally to any negative reviews that come in.
Build Positive Signals to Strengthen Your Local SEO
Each time another website or directory mentions your business, address, phone number, website and other credentials, it sends the right signals to search engines that you are a genuine, trusted local business.
This helps establish your local SEO authority and visibility. The more quality mentions you can accumulate from reputable sites, the better for increasing local ranking potential. Here are some ways to build mentions:
- List your business on core local directories like Yelp, Apple Maps/Siri, Bing Places, and industry-specific directories. The more platforms your name, address and phone number (NAP) is present on, the stronger your citation foundation.
- Check industry associations like the Solar Trade Association, Renewable Energy Association, Electric Vehicle Association and Heat Pump Association for relevant directory listings.
- Major review sites like Google My Business, Facebook, Trustpilot, Yelp and others are vitally important for local signals. Ensure you have a properly completed listing accumulating reviews and customer referrals on each site.
- Get listed in your local chamber of commerce, if applicable. Also create a profile on your city’s tourism site showcasing local businesses.
- Aggregator sites like Acxiom, Infogroup, Factual, and Data24-7 provide expanded citation coverage. You can self-submit to improve accuracy.
- Include mentions on your own website. Having mentions of your NAP in bios, contact pages, and any other relevant spots acts as a citation, too.
As you build mentions, ensure your business name, full address and primary phone number are 100% consistent. Any discrepancies across listings can dilute your local optimisation efforts. Verify accuracy on all platforms.
Focus Your Content Strategy to Improve Local Rankings
One of the most effective ways to improve your local SEO is to create valuable content optimised for your target service locations and your target audience.
This helps search engines like Google search understand your relevance for local ideal customer searches.
When writing blog posts, service pages, FAQs and any other content marketing, incorporate geographic keywords for the areas you serve.
Specifically, focus on neighbourhoods, suburbs, cities and counties within your service radius. Use these exact local keywords prominently in titles, content, URLs, meta descriptions and image alt text.
Make sure to answer common questions from locals like costs, timeframes, comparisons of options, pros and cons, or anything else relevant to customers in each location. The content should clearly establish your expertise and authority within specific areas.
Here are some examples of using geographic keywords in content…
For solar businesses servicing Hampshire, blog topics could include:
- “How Much Do Solar Installations Cost for Southampton Homes?”
- “Solar Panel Installation Timeline for Winchester Residents”
- “Pros and Cons of Solar Energy for Homes in Basingstoke”
- “Top 5 solar businesses in Hampshire” – With your solar company being No.1
- “Solar solutions every Fareham home should have”
A heat pump installer in Berkshire could create posts like:
- “2022 Air Source Heat Pump Costs in Windsor”
- “Ground Source vs Air Source Heat Pumps for Reading Homes”
- “Can I Get Heat Pump Grants in Pangbourne?”
Optimising your educational content for localised keywords shows search engines you are highly relevant for those customer base searches. Over time, this can significantly improve your local search visibility and organic traffic.
Remember, like all online marketing, effective SEO strategies take time, but the effort compounds, so the sooner you start, the better.
Leverage PPC Ads to Improve Local Visibility
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads, such as Facebook Ads and Google Ads, present a fast way to start ranking for competitive local keywords by paying for visibility. The key is using very tight location targeting.
For a solar services company focused on Leeds, for example, you could set your PPC target location radius to within 10-25 miles of the city centre. Use bid adjustments to raise your priority for users within that radius. Make sure to include Leeds and surrounding neighbourhoods in your ad copy and keywords.
Some Google Ads PPC examples are:
Keyword: “solar panels for homes in Leeds”
Ad copy: “Leeds Top Rated Solar Company. Get Solar Panels for Your Leeds Home. Free Install Quote.”
Keyword: “Leeds solar company”
Ad copy: “Trusted Local Solar Services Provider in Leeds – Call for Your Free Solar Installation Quote Now!”
You can also reference nearby suburbs like “Solar Panels Hunslet”.
Insert location insertions like {City} and {Region} in your text ads to automatically populate with the searcher’s location.
Enable location extensions with your business address, phone number and map pin to boost your local relevance. Consider higher mobile bids, as these searches tend to be mobile-heavy.
An EV charger installer wanting to rank in London could take a similar approach with tight radius targeting, neighbourhood name keywords and “EV chargers {City}” ad copy formulas.
The key is crafting your PPC strategy around highly targeted, hyperlocal keywords and locations. This geo-focused approach will drive relevant traffic ready to take action.
The Rewards of SEO that Increase Local Leads for Solar, Heat Pump and EV Charger Installers
Optimising your local search presence is a long-term strategy which takes time and dedication, but the investment pays off tremendously for location-dependent businesses like renewable energy companies.
After all, if you can appear high in a Google search for your target audience, it stands to reason that you’ll attract more qualified leads, win more work and qualified leads and have satisfied customers singing your praises.
By ranking higher locally, your website will gain:
- Increased organic traffic from nearby searchers looking for exactly your services
- More conversions and sales from exclusive leads searching for providers in their area
- Enhanced local authority and click-through rates by answering consumer questions with content marketing
- Higher local visibility across Google search, maps and voice answers
- Stronger trust and credibility through customer referrals and reviews
- Reduced reliance on costly paid ads to drive local leads and traffic
As a bonus, if you rely on buying your sales leads from another company, you’ll get to a point where you no longer need to, as you’ll be generating your own consistently.
For a solar business, improving local search engine optimisation could mean doubling their qualified solar leads from organic searches month over month.
An EV charging business owner may see conversions from their service area increase by 30% just by appealing to their target audience.
If you don’t have the in-house expertise to optimise location-based search, why not get in touch to arrange a free audit with our experts?
They can review your current strategy, point out some easy wins and help you implement an effective strategy that’ll help you attract high-quality leads and keep your sales team busy going forward.
The initial call is completely free, and there is no expectation to buy any of our services.
