We captured 22 solar pages that were paying for Google Ads clicks and read all of them. These 6 are the ones that earn the click back. Everything we found is on this page, free.
Solar is a $25,000 decision and the entire conversion is... typing a zip code. Five digits. Everything on the page is either building enough trust to type those digits or giving someone a reason to close the tab. Local installers and national marketplaces approach this totally differently.
From real solar installation Google Ads campaigns in the US
The landing pages actually worth stealing from
So you know exactly what to avoid
EDGE Energy repairs solar systems across Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia, and it earned the top slot by selling to the customers its competitors walked away from. The opening paragraph speaks straight to the homeowner whose installer went bust and left the panels behind, which happens in this trade more than anyone in it admits. Above the navigation sits a full-width band naming an award a stranger could go and verify.
If you offer solar service/repair, lead with the emotional hook of abandoned customers ('one of the thousands left stranded by a company that vanished') before listing services. This reframes your company as the rescue, not just another vendor.
Solar installers go under constantly, and the homeowner left holding the panels is angry at somebody who is not you. EDGE names that person first, turning the ugliest thing about this trade into a reason to ring. If you service systems you did not fit, say so first.
Nobody types the name of the service they need. They type what they see: a red light, a flat day in the app, a bill that went the wrong way. Common Symptoms is the last bullet in each card, under the description and details. Write yours and put them first.
This is what a nervous homeowner can go and check. EDGE runs Six-Time ENERGY STAR Contractor of the Year as an underlined band above its logo and navigation, and the fuller line returns midway down. Whatever yours is, it does not belong in the footer.
White outline text on a hairline box, over a busy picture of a crew on a roof. The headline above is the same white and much bigger, so the thing you want pressed is the quietest white there. Fill your button in and give it a colour nothing else uses.
Cleaning, repair, removal, remote support, snow guards, pest abatement, subscriptions, maintenance and upgrades, laid out in one grid where nothing tells the visitor which card is theirs. Sort by what people search for, or give the ad its own page and leave the catalogue on the site.
Somebody clicked an ad about repairing panels they already own, and the bright blue strip above the header offers to work out how much solar could save them, with a button promising a quote in minutes. Go through every banner and strip on the page your repair ads point at.
Chicago installer RxSun puts two buttons side by side in its hero, and that is what got it into the file. Book Consultation is for the buyer who wants a person. Request Quote is for the buyer who wants arithmetic. Above both buttons the page prints exactly what the session covers, item by item, so nobody has to guess what they are agreeing to. The meal donation under the logo is the only line here another installer could not copy.
Offer two distinct CTAs above the fold: 'Book Consultation' for visitors who want face-to-face guidance and 'Request Quote' for visitors who just want numbers. Solar shoppers split cleanly between people who want a human to walk them through it and people who just want the math - forcing both down one path loses one of them.
Solar shoppers split down the middle. Half want a person to walk them through it, half want the arithmetic on a screen, and one button loses whichever half it missed. RxSun offers Book Consultation and Request Quote together. Give both doors, then watch which one they use.
People will not book a solar consultation because they picture a salesman in the living room for half an evening. This page says what the session covers before the visitor gives up the time. Write yours out, say how long it takes, and say plainly what you will not do.
Nothing else in this file gives a buyer something to repeat to a friend over dinner. The sentence quoted here sits near the bottom, but RxSun says it in small orange type under the wordmark too, above the headline. Find the thing no competitor can claim and lead with it.
That figure sits well above the federal credit alone, so it must be stacking state schemes, and the page never breaks it down. The deadline is no better: the same sentence ends potentially available for only a few more months, naming no date. Print the date it ends.
The address promises a free custom quote. The only figure on it is a percentage off, with no price band, no monthly saving and no payback period. The visitor must book the call to learn any of it. Put a range on the page and label it a range.
Below the hero it is a little house with a sun behind it and a pair of hands passing a dollar. The only photograph is the rooftop behind the headline, tinted so dark you cannot make out the panels. Photograph your own installs and name the town under each.
Aurora runs a quote comparison service rather than an installation business, and this page earns its place because the first screen asks for a postcode and nothing else. Small chips sit directly under the box answering what it costs, whether the data is safe and whether the prices are any good, which are the doubts that stop a stranger typing. The page also answers the questions people put into Google, rather than making somebody book a call to hear them.
Pair your quote tool with a specific average savings number ('Homeowners are saving $55/month') and an FAQ section that answers the top solar objections directly on the landing page, so researchers get their questions answered without leaving.
Every other company in this file promises to get back to you. Aurora promises the answer now, in the biggest type on the screen, where a comparison shopper reads it first. If your quote really is fast, time it and print the number. If not, fix that before the copy.
The second before somebody types is the second they wonder what it will cost, who gets their details and whether the prices are any good. Aurora answers all three in a row of tiny chips directly beneath the input. Yours are in a paragraph further down, which is too late.
Battery or no battery, how long panels last, what the tax credit does, what it does to property value. Those are the things your visitor has open in another tab right now. Aurora answers them here, and every answer is a reason not to go back to the search results.
Divide what a system costs by that figure and the payback lands somewhere past most people's mortgages. A saving that small makes the case against solar. If your headline number cannot survive a visitor doing the division, use a different one or show the whole sum.
It sits top right in a white pill, in type smaller than the sentence under the headline, on a page selling something the size of a car. Somebody who wants a human should never hunt for how. Set your number at headline weight, or accept that only typists convert.
A couple sit in wooden garden chairs with a laptop, under a tree, in front of a low dark house. There is a dark patch on that roof which may be an array, and nobody can tell at this distance. Put a roof your own crew finished there instead.
Sunrun is the largest residential installer in the country and this page wins on the shape of its form rather than on anything it says. You get asked for a postcode, then whether you own the house, then the size of your electric bill, a question a screen, and every screen prints how far through you are. A dark cookie card lands over the zip box on arrival, which is a shame, because that box is the whole page.
Replace your static lead form with a progressive qualification quiz (zip code > homeowner check > electric bill range > email > name > phone) so each step feels like the visitor is getting closer to a personalized answer rather than filling out a generic form.
Anybody comparing solar companies is quietly working out who will be around in a decade to honour the warranty, and Sunrun settles it before asking for anything. You probably cannot claim the country. You can claim your county, your install count or your years, so lead with whichever is true.
The page wants a zip code, and the rest arrives a screen at a time: do you own the house, what is the bill, then email, name, phone. Every screen prints how far through you are. Stacked in one grey column these read as paperwork. Asked in turn, people finish.
Answer the electric bill question and the next screen opens with that line, then asks where to send the quote. The questions left feel like finishing something instead of starting something. Put your own honest good news where people usually stop, and say it in their words.
Load this page cold, the way a paid visitor does, and a dark panel sits across the bottom left, over the a single field the page exists to fill. Nobody inside Sunrun sees it, because their browsers agreed months ago. Open your own page in a private window before bidding.
The visitor answers every question, including what they pay for electricity, and what they get is somebody ringing them. No estimate, no range, nothing about their own house. If you cannot give an instant figure, give a band built from the bill they just told you.
Say no to owning your home and the flow stops and offers a referral bonus instead. You still paid for that click, and Google will keep sending renters until you tell it not to. Fix the targeting first, then make the rejection screen earn something.
EnergySage does not install anything. It runs a marketplace, and it earned its place as the only winner here that names a price position before the visitor scrolls. Its subhead promises no phone calls, which sounds like a strange thing to sell until you remember what usually happens after you ask for a solar quote.
Put a specific dollar savings number ('$2,000+ average annual savings') in a visible callout box directly adjacent to your quote input field, so the visitor sees the reward and the action in the same visual zone.
Before the visitor reads the headline they have been told what normal costs and that this will beat it. That answers the fear running under the whole solar market, which is being talked into overpaying by a stranger on the doorstep. Name the benchmark you can honestly beat.
EnergySage never asks you to trust an installer. It asks you to trust the screening, and it sets the count of screened installers in a white card over the hero photo. If you run a network, sell the screening. If you fit panels yourself, print your accreditation list there.
Mastheads a homeowner already reads do a job your own testimonials cannot, because you did not write them. Something like it exists in your history too: a local paper, a trade title, a utility scheme, a supplier's case study. Dig them out and run them under the offer.
A solid dark button in the bar across the top, and a small postcode box in the hero with Next beside it. The bar sits above the logo, so its button is the first solid thing the eye meets, and it is not the field you want filled.
Three bordered cards headed Cash, Loan and Lease or PPA, each with bullets on tax treatment and upfront cost. Nobody who has not seen a price can pick between them, so the visitor guesses or stalls. Save the money question for when there is a figure to attach it to.
The person shopping solar quotes is usually the one in the house with a spreadsheet, and that reader treats a sentence like this as a sign somebody is working them. The column beside it already gives the rate rise and the outage rise as figures, without the theatre.
The Ankeny team behind this page fits rooftop solar across Iowa and the Midwest. It is in the file because it puts a real lead form straight under the hero, close enough that the first boxes are already on screen when the ad lands. It also names a forgivable loan that only runs in certain Des Moines and Cedar Rapids neighbourhoods, which is the sort of detail a national brand can never match. What it never does anywhere is put a figure against the saving its own heading promises.
Place your lead capture form directly beside the hero headline (not below it) so the visitor sees the value proposition and the action step in a single viewport without scrolling.
An ordinary Midwestern house fills the right half: attached garage, pumpkins on the porch, a black array running across the main roof beside the dormer window. A visitor near Ankeny sees a house shaped like theirs, which beats any render. Send a camera to your last local job.
How the tax credits actually work is the question that stalls the sale, and most pages answer with a federal paragraph the visitor has read elsewhere. This one names a local programme, says which neighbourhoods it covers and links to the eligibility check. Find the schemes in your state.
The boxes sit directly under the hero, close enough that the name and phone fields are visible when the ad lands. The promise of a free, no obligation quote sits beside them, so nobody thinks they are buying yet. Ask for what you need to ring somebody back.
Home, Services, Resources, Blog, Projects, About Us, Locations and Contact run across the top of a page bought with a solar ad. Each is a way out, and Blog and Projects are the tempting ones. Cut the header back to the logo, the phone number and the form.
Estimate Your Cost Savings is the promise printed beside the form, and no dollar figure appears anywhere. The visitor hands over a phone number to find out whether solar works on their street, and the careful buyer who came to compare will not. Print a typical system cost.
It sits in the top left corner, overlapping the start of the headline. Press it and you leave for a page called see your solar cost, instead of dropping to the boxes under the hero. If a button says the thing your visitor came for, point it at your form.
Pages that break the playbook in interesting ways
Skip the savings calculators and financing breakdowns. Lead with real workers in the field (hard hats, safety vests, hands on panels) and emphasize execution reliability over financial returns. This works for the homeowner who already decided on solar and now fears their installer will go out of business before the warranty claim. CDL's 60-year history as a railroad and electrical contractor signals permanence in a way no solar-boom startup can match.
Hero image of a real CDL worker in hard hat and red company polo standing in front of a ground-mount solar array - this is not a stock photo, it is their actual employee at their actual job site, and it signals 'we are tradespeople who build things' rather than 'we are a sales organization that subcontracts the work'
'Since 1964' company history spanning railroad, trade, and manufacturing before expanding into solar tells a story of institutional permanence - a company that has survived 60 years across multiple industries is more likely to honor a 25-year warranty than a company founded in the solar boom
Testimonials from generator installation customers (Sharon K., 'Alternative Energy') are candid and specific ('They ran off, got the parts, came back and finished it that day') - these read as real because they include minor complaints that were resolved, which is more believable than curated 5-star reviews
Zero financial information on the entire page - no savings estimates, no financing options, no tax credit mention, no pricing ranges, nothing that answers the first question almost every solar shopper types into Google: 'how much will this save me?'
Both testimonials are from generator installations, not solar - the page uses 'Alternative Energy' testimonials as a proxy for solar credibility, but a solar buyer wants to hear from someone who actually bought solar from CDL
The 'Get a Quote' CTA links to a separate quote tool page rather than embedding a form - this adds a click and a page load that increases drop-off, especially on mobile
Every winner answered the same questions. Find the row that looks like the traffic you are already buying, then go and take that page apart.
| Page | Entry path | Named offer | Phone in the first screen | Rating in the first screen | Standout move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1EDGE Energy | Call, Book Now, or Let's Connect | No | Yes | No | An award band above the navigation |
| #2RxSun | Book a call, or ask for a quote | No | Yes | No | The agenda for the call, written out |
| #3Aurora Solar | Postcode box | No | Tiny | No | Doubts answered under the input |
| #4Sunrun | Postcode, then a quiz | No | No | No | A question a screen, counting up |
| #5EnergySage | Postcode box | Yes | No | No | A price position in the top bar |
| #61 Source Solar | Form under the hero | No | Tiny | No | A local loan named on the page |
Read the keywords you are buying before you pick a row. Somebody typing solar panel repair already owns the panels and has a problem today, so they want a number to ring and a list of symptoms they recognise. Somebody typing solar panel cost is at the kitchen table with a calculator and will never pick up the phone, so they want a saving, a payback and a box to type into. You paid the same for both clicks, and most of the pages here serve neither: they take a postcode and promise a quote later.
Lines lifted word for word off the pages above. We name whose page each one came from, and a click copies it.
LET'S CONNECT
Enter your zip code to get a quote directly from Sunrun.
Request Quote
Lower Your Home’s Energy Bill With Solar
Questions? Speak to a real solar expert.
3 pages burning ad spend with fundamental issues
Every click to these pages costs real money. We found pages with nothing to back their claims, mismatched intent, weak CTAs, and messaging that ignores what the searcher actually typed. Here is what to avoid.
This is a SaaS pricing page for Aurora Solar's design software ($159-$259/month/user plans for solar professionals). The ad triggers on 'aurora solar com' but the page sells project design tools to solar installers, not solar panels to homeowners. A consumer searching for solar installation who lands here sees subscription tiers, API integrations, and 'unlimited users' - completely wrong audience. Every click is 100% wasted spend.
This is a B2B SaaS pricing page for solar design software, not a solar installation landing page - consumer visitors see monthly subscription prices and API documentation instead of panel specs and savings estimates
The ad targets a branded keyword ('aurora solar com') but routes to a pricing page that assumes the visitor already knows what Aurora does and is ready to compare plans - no education, no context for non-customers
Cookie consent banner on load obscures the pricing tiers, adding an extra click before the visitor can even assess whether they are on the right page
This is a retail electricity provider landing page for Texas deregulated energy market. The page promotes electricity rate plans, 30-day test drives, and bill management. There is zero mention of solar panels, installation, financing, or any solar-related content. The page appeared in solar keyword results because 'energy' keywords overlap, but a visitor searching for solar installation finds a utility company page about locking in electricity rates. Complete category mismatch.
Zero solar content on a page appearing in solar keyword results - the visitor searching for 'solar panels' or 'solar installation' finds electricity rate plans and account management features
The Texas-cowboy branding ('Lasso in one of the best electricity rates,' 'skedaddle on outta here') is charming for its target audience but completely irrelevant to solar panel shoppers
The ad targets 'utility companies houston tx' and 'electricity companies in baytown tx' which are legitimate electricity provider keywords - this page is in the solar capture pool by accident due to keyword overlap in the data collection, not because Energy Texas is bidding on solar terms
The ad triggers on high-volume residential keywords like 'solar plate for home' (135K searches) and 'california solar panels' (1,900 searches), but the landing page is specifically for commercial and agricultural solar installations. A homeowner searching for residential panels sees 'Solar Energy for Businesses & Farms,' warehouse rooftop photos, and customer stories about permaculture farms and Habitat for Humanity commercial buildings. The page has no residential content, no home photos, no residential pricing. At solar CPCs, sending 135K monthly searches worth of residential intent to a commercial page is a significant budget leak.
The ad targets 'solar plate for home' (135K monthly searches) but the landing page headline is 'Solar Energy for Businesses & Farms' - this is a fundamental audience mismatch where residential searchers land on a commercial page
Drone photography of commercial warehouse rooftops with large-scale panel arrays signals industrial scale, not the 10-20 panel residential system a homeowner is shopping for
The 'Commercial tax credits are still available to those who purchase prior to July 4, 2026' deadline reference is commercially-focused tax language that residential buyers will not understand or trust
The two strongest pages (EnergySage and Sunrun) both lead with a zip code input rather than a name/email form. This works because solar buyers want to know 'will this save ME money?' before committing to a sales call. A zip code is low-friction, feels like a tool rather than a form, and the visitor gets personalized savings estimates before being asked for contact details. Compare this to pages that lead with name/phone/email forms where the visitor gets nothing until a salesperson calls them back.
EnergySage shows '$2,000+ average annual savings' in a callout box next to the hero headline. This immediately reframes solar from 'should I go green?' to 'how much money am I leaving on the table?' Solar buyers are 60%+ Blue (analytical) persona and they want the number first, the story second. Pages that lead with sustainability messaging or vague 'reduce your energy bill' claims lose to competitors who put actual dollar amounts on screen.
EnergySage displays Bloomberg, Forbes, CBS, and other news outlet logos, names the visitor already knows and trusts. EDGE Energy leads with '6-time ENERGY STAR Contractor of the Year.' These third-party validations address the core solar fear: 'will this company still exist in 25 years?'
EDGE Energy targets the growing segment of homeowners whose original solar installer went out of business. 'Whether we installed your system or you're one of the thousands left stranded by a company that vanished' directly addresses the #1 solar fear and turns it into a customer acquisition channel. As the solar industry matures and more companies fail, this niche grows. It also builds trust for new installs: if they service other companies' orphaned customers, they clearly plan to be around.
Winners give the visitor a tool (zip code lookup, savings calculator, instant quote) that delivers personalized value before asking for contact information. Losers send paid traffic to pages that serve the wrong audience entirely: B2B software pricing pages shown to homeowners searching for solar panels, electricity provider landing pages shown to solar installation searchers, and commercial/farm solar pages triggered by residential solar keywords.
Solar clicks are among the dearest a small business buys, and the pages catching them mostly do the same thing: take a postcode and promise a quote later. The visitor is being asked to start a sales process before anybody has told them what solar costs on their street. The winners here get further by answering something first, whether that is a price position, a symptom list or an agenda for the call.
Put a rating on the page before anybody scrolls. Not a single winner in this file shows a star rating or a review count in the first screen. That is a hole the whole industry has left open. A homeowner letting a crew onto their roof cares more about the last customer's opinion than about anything you can write about yourself. EDGE Energy does run a Google review carousel and a score badge, and you reach them near the bottom of a very long page, which is a strange place to keep the thing that settles it.
Give the visitor a figure before you ask for their number. EnergySage puts a price position in the bar above its headline and an average saving in a white card over the hero photo, and it is the only page here that prints either before the visitor scrolls. Aurora and RxSun do print a figure, but you have to scroll to find it. Publish a band for a typical system in your area, with the credit taken off and left on, and label it clearly as a band. Then the call is about their roof instead of about whether they can afford solar at all.
Write the symptom your customer can already see. Every service card on the EDGE Energy page carries a Common Symptoms line: a red light on the inverter, a day of no production, buildup after pollen season. Nobody searches for the name of the fix. They search for what is going wrong. EDGE keeps that line last, under the description and the details. Write yours in the same plain words, then put them first, where a scanning eye lands.
Say what happens after they submit. Sunrun's reward for finishing a whole quiz is that somebody will ring soon, and that is all it says. EDGE Energy is the exception: it walks you through the call, the remote check on your system and the site visit if one is needed, and it says how long the visit runs. Write the same thing under your own button, and say who rings and how quickly. It is the cheapest change on this list.
Every line here came off a screenshot that somebody sat and counted. Put your own page beside it and tick what it already does.
Winner #3 here, quote.aurorasolar.com, shows two different phone numbers: (888) 778-6896 in the header, (888) 891-3531 down at the form. That reads like a lead broker. We caught it by reading the page, and postclick does the same to the page your solar ads point at. It tells you what's stopping a $25,000 buyer from typing five digits into your zip field, then designs new versions and builds the one you pick.
