How to Beat Solar Lead Sellers and Generate Your Own For Less

Solar lead sellers want you to believe that generating your own leads is very difficult. Here’s how they’re misleading you and how to beat them.

Local vs National Solar Lead Generation

Sites like SolarReviews, Clean Energy Experts, and EnergySage compete on a national level. This creates a problem for them that you don’t have. People are searching for solar companies locally!

One reason customer acquisition costs are so high is there’s a fundamental disconnect between solar lead sellers’ business model and what people actually want. They try and sweep this fact under the rug because if regional installers found out and took advantage of it, aggregators would lose a ton of business.

How to Beat Lead Aggregators on Google

Google wants to connect local searchers with local businesses – NOT lead aggregators.

To see what I mean, search for “[YOUR CITY] solar installers.” Here’s what it looks like for my area when searching on an iPhone.

Let’s break it down by section.

Google Ads

Lead aggregators are nowhere to be found in this section. They may create specific ad campaigns for larger cities, but they simply don’t have the bandwidth to compete with a local installer using call only ads or avoiding common mistakes.

Local SEO aka Map Pack

Again, solar lead aggregators are nowhere to be found here. They also won’t ever be able to rank in the map pack, because they don’t have a local business!

Let that sink in. Google knows that people looking for solar installers near them want to actually see businesses nearby. For Google to do its job, they have to protect you. This opportunity alone creates a moat between you and SolarReviews!

Traditional SEO aka Organic Listings

You have to scroll all the way past the map pack to finally find a lead aggregator.

Note that Energy Sage had to create a local page to get that top organic spot! For solar installers who are actually in the area and know what they’re doing, you can outrank them, even with a lower domain authority.

That’s a lot of information to digest, but the key takeaway is this: Google wants to connect local searchers with local businesses – NOT lead aggregators.

How to Beat Lead Aggregators on Facebook

Similar to Google, Facebook rewards businesses who tailor their content to what their users want.

In the case of solar, Facebook users want to connect with businesses close to them.

Here’s how Clean Energy Experts handles this:

Notice a pattern?

Solar lead sellers aren’t doing anything special. They’re simply acting like they belong on your home turf.

I’ll have an upcoming blog post for how to optimize solar lead generation via Facebook. In the meantime, know that you can do it.

You Can Generate Your Own Solar Leads

I’ve already covered the downsides of buying solar leads. In short, you have to contend with:

1. No brand recognition
2. Inconsistent quality
3. No control over message
4. No knowledge of lead source
5. No exclusivity
6. Lower margin
7. Lower conversions

Instead of doing that, generate your own solar leads. If you can’t do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. If you’re going to be paying anyway, why not invest in building up your brand?

Solariety helps solar companies get more phone calls and quote requests from qualified homeowners. For a free consultation, visit our scheduling page and book a call.