Google Ads for Solar Companies: Keywords & Budget

Search for "solar companies near me" in almost any US or Canadian city and you will see ads above the map. Solar is one of the categories where Google Ads can work very well, because the person typing is a homeowner thinking about a five-figure purchase right now. It is also one of the categories where it is easy to burn a month of budget on DIY shoppers, job seekers, people who want "free panels" and renters. Below is the setup we use for solar installers: keywords to buy and block, account structure, tracking real appointments, and a budget worked out before launch.

If you want the wider picture, including Meta ads and lead forms for solar, start with our guide to lead generation ads for solar companies. This one goes deep on Google Search only.

Why Google Search works for solar, and where it fails

On Meta you interrupt people who were not thinking about solar; on Google you answer people who already are. Search leads usually know roughly what they want and expect a call. The trade-off is price. Solar clicks are often expensive, because every installer in your region is bidding on the same handful of phrases and one signed contract is worth a lot to each of them.

Google Ads fails for solar in three predictable ways:

Broad keywords with no negatives. "Solar panels" matches people buying a kit for a camper, a garden light or a phone charger.
Counting form fills as success. Bidding optimises toward whoever fills the form most cheaply, which is rarely the homeowner with a sunny roof and a high electric bill.
A service area wider than your crews cover. Leads 90 minutes away get declined or cost a day of driving.

Which solar keywords to buy

We sort solar searches by how close the person is to booking a consultation. The top group gets most of the budget; the bottom group usually gets none until the top is profitable.

Intent group	Example searches	What we do
Installer, local	solar installers near me, solar company [city], residential solar installation	Core campaign. Phrase and exact match, highest share of budget.
Product + install	solar battery installation, solar and battery backup, home battery installer	Separate ad group with its own ads and landing page section.
Price and quote	solar panel cost for home, solar quote, how much are solar panels for a house	Test. High volume, mixed intent; works if the page gives a real estimate path.
Incentives and savings	solar rebates [state or province], solar incentives, does solar save money	Small test only, and only if your copy is accurate for the current rules.
Research and DIY	how do solar panels work, diy solar kit, solar panels for rv	Exclude. Cheap clicks, almost no appointments.

We skip competitor brand names at the start: trademark use in ad text can be restricted, and it tends to raise everyone's prices.

The negative keyword list to start with

A solid negative list on day one saves more money than any bid strategy. This is our starting list for residential solar; adjust it to what you actually sell (if you do repairs or commercial work, remove those words).

Jobs: jobs, career, careers, hiring, salary, sales rep, training, certification, course
DIY and products: diy, kit, kits, amazon, home depot, wholesale, for sale, used, portable, generator, charger, rv, camper, boat, shed
Small solar gadgets: lights, light, string, lamp, fan, pool heater, fountain, phone, watch
Free and scam-bait: free solar panels, government free, scam, lawsuit, complaints, reviews (test this last one, some review searchers do buy)
Out of scope: commercial, farm, utility scale, cleaning, repair, removal, if you do not do them
Information only: how does, how do, what is, wikipedia, definition, pdf

Then read the search terms report every few days for the first month and weekly after that. Every irrelevant phrase you add is money you do not spend twice.

Account structure that stays readable

We keep solar accounts simple enough that anyone can see where the money goes:

Campaign 1: Brand. Your company name. Cheap, protects your name, and kept separate so it does not flatter the other numbers.
Campaign 2: Installer intent. One ad group per service (residential solar, solar plus battery, battery only), each with its own ads.
Campaign 3: Price and quote. Separate budget, so a high-volume, mixed-intent group cannot eat the budget of the core campaign.
One campaign per region only when regions differ a lot in price, crews or close rate.

Location settings matter more in solar than in most trades. Use the option that targets people who are in, or regularly in, your locations (Google calls this "presence"), not people who are merely interested in them. Target the ZIP or postal codes your crews actually cover, and exclude areas you never install in.

Ads and landing page: filter in the copy

Your ad and page should attract the right homeowner and politely discourage everyone else. In practice:

Say who it is for. "For homeowners in [region]" in a headline cuts renter clicks before you pay for them.
Sell the consultation, not "free panels". A free site assessment or a written savings estimate is a real offer. "Free solar" headlines attract exactly the leads your sales team complains about, and misleading claims can get ads disapproved.
Be careful with incentives. Tax credits, rebates and net metering rules differ by country, state, province and utility, and they have changed in recent years. Only mention a specific incentive if you have checked it is current for that area, and avoid stating savings as a guarantee.
Use assets. Call assets for people who want to talk now, sitelinks for battery backup, financing and reviews.

The landing page should ask the questions your sales team asks on the first call: do you own the home, ZIP code, average monthly electric bill, roof shade, and when you want to install. Three to five questions is enough. Fewer fills, more appointments: for solar that trade is almost always worth it.

Running a solar company and want Google leads that turn into appointments? Book 30 minutes with Nick. You leave with a concrete 7-day ad test, whether you hire us or not.

Book a free call →

Track appointments, not form fills

Smart bidding learns from whatever you mark as a conversion. If that is "form submitted", it will find you more people who submit forms. If it is "appointment held" or "proposal signed", it learns to find homeowners who buy.

Primary conversion at the start: a qualified lead (form or a call longer than about a minute). You need some volume for the algorithm to work with.
Capture the click ID. Store the Google click identifier (gclid) with each lead in your CRM, or turn on enhanced conversions for leads, so Google can match later events back to the ad click.
Import later stages from your CRM: appointment set, appointment held, contract signed.
Move the bidding target down the funnel once you have enough appointment events per month to learn from. Google does not publish a hard minimum for every strategy, so we look at whether the deeper event happens often enough to be stable week to week.
Give stages values if you use value-based bidding: an appointment worth a fraction of a signed contract, a contract worth your average gross profit.

Solar sales cycles can run weeks or months. Make sure your conversion window and your import schedule cover that, or the system will never "see" the sales it caused.

How to set a starting budget

Do not start from what other installers spend. Start from your own numbers. An illustrative example, not a benchmark:

Average gross profit per residential install: $6,000
The most you are willing to spend on marketing per sale: $1,500
Your close rate from held appointment to signed contract: 25%, so you need 4 held appointments per sale
That puts your maximum cost per held appointment at $375
If about half of qualified leads turn into a held appointment, your maximum cost per qualified lead is about $187

Then check Keyword Planner for your ZIP codes to see rough click prices for your core keywords. If the math says you need a $187 lead and local clicks mean you would pay twice that, fix the offer, page or close rate first, or start with a tighter keyword set. For the general version of this calculation, see how much a small business should spend on ads.

Fund the first test well enough to get a meaningful number of qualified leads in two to four weeks. Three leads a month cannot tell you whether a campaign works.

Performance Max and Local Services Ads

Google will suggest Performance Max early. It spends across many placements and needs a strong signal, so we add it only after Search is profitable and tracking reports real appointments.

Local Services Ads, the pay-per-lead boxes at the top of some searches, cover some home service categories but not all, and availability differs by country and region. Check whether solar is offered in your area before planning around it. We compared the two formats in Google Local Services Ads vs Search ads.

What we learned from a solar test

For Hybrid Power Solutions, a solar installer, we ran two Google Ads strategies head to head instead of committing the full budget to one plan. The winning strategy became the template the company used when it expanded into new regions. The lesson for any installer: run two clearly different setups (for example installer keywords only vs installer plus price keywords) with the same period and budget, and judge them on cost per held appointment, not cost per click.

Full details: Hybrid Power Solutions case study.

The part ads cannot fix: follow-up

Solar homeowners usually request quotes from more than one installer. The first company to call back often gets the appointment. If your leads wait until the next morning, a strong Google campaign will still look weak in your CRM. Route new leads to a phone or SMS alert, call within minutes during working hours, and have a text ready for after hours.

We wrote a full guide on this: speed to lead and why answering in 5 minutes beats a better ad.

Checklist before you launch

Service area drawn from where crews actually install, location set to "presence".
Brand, installer-intent and price campaigns separated with their own budgets.
Phrase and exact match only at the start, negative list loaded on day one.
Ads that say who the offer is for, no "free solar" promises, incentives checked for current accuracy.
Landing page with 3 to 5 qualifying questions: ownership, ZIP, bill, shade, timeline.
Calls tracked with a minimum length, click ID or enhanced conversions captured in the CRM.
Appointment and contract stages imported back into Google Ads.
Maximum cost per held appointment written down before the first dollar is spent.
Leads answered within minutes, with someone responsible for it.

More on how we run campaigns for local service businesses: local business ads.

FAQ

Are Google Ads worth it for solar companies?

They often are, because people searching for an installer are homeowners already shopping. Clicks are expensive, so they pay off only with tight keywords, a strong negative list, a qualifying landing page and fast follow-up.

What keywords should a solar company bid on?

Start with local installer searches such as solar installers near me or solar company plus your city, then solar and battery installation. Test price and quote searches separately, and exclude DIY, jobs, gadgets and free-panel searches.

How much should a solar company spend on Google Ads?

Work backwards from your gross profit per install, your close rate and how many leads become appointments. That gives a maximum cost per appointment. Then check local click prices in Keyword Planner and fund a test big enough to produce real numbers.