The honest starting point
Most installers who ask "how do I get more clients" assume the answer is more leads. Usually it isn't. We see installers spend £600/month on Google Ads while letting half their enquiries go to voicemail and ignoring a Google Business Profile that would bring in free local jobs every week.
So before you spend a penny on ads, work through the list below in order. The early items cost nothing but time and bring the biggest return.
1. Finish your Google Business Profile
For local searches like "solar installers [town]", about 60% of clicks go to the Maps three-pack — not the blue links below it. If you're not there, most buyers never see you.
Claim the profile, then complete every field: service area, opening hours, MCS certification, services list, and at least 10 photos of real installs. Post an update weekly. A complete, active profile outranks a half-finished one even when the half-finished business is bigger. (More on this in why isn't my business on Google?.)
2. Build a review engine, not a review request
Reviews are the single biggest trust signal in the 10-second comparison a homeowner runs before calling. A profile with 30+ recent reviews at 4.7 beats one with 4 reviews at 5.0 every time, and recency matters — reviews from this month signal an active business.
Don't ask for reviews when you remember to. Build a routine: every completed install gets a same-day text with a direct link to your Google review page. One link, one tap. Installers who systematise this go from 4 reviews to 40 in a year.
3. Put real install photos on your site
The fastest-converting thing on any installer website is photos of actual jobs you've done — panels on a real UK roof, with a street or postcode-area caption. Stock photos do the opposite: they signal "we can't show our own work."
Six real install photos on your homepage beats any amount of brand polish. It answers the question every homeowner is silently asking: "Have they done a roof like mine, near me?"
4. Strip your contact form to four fields
Every extra form field cuts completion by roughly 10%. A 12-field form behind a cookie banner is a leak you're paying for. Name, postcode, phone, and "anything we should know?" — four fields, finishable in 60 seconds.
5. Answer the phone first time
78% of UK installer enquiries still come by phone, not form. If your phone goes to voicemail during work hours, you lose about a third of those enquiries to whoever picks up first. You're on a roof, we get it — but a part-time receptionist or a call-answering service at ~£600/month often pays for itself in a single won job.
6. Follow up fast, then follow up again
The installer who replies within an hour wins the job far more often than the one who replies the next day. Set up a simple rule: every enquiry gets a response the same day, and any quote that goes quiet gets one polite chase at day three and another at day seven. Most jobs are lost to silence, not to a "no".
7. Turn happy customers into referrals
A signed solar job sits next to four or five neighbours who just watched scaffolding go up. That's your warmest possible lead. Hand every finished client two things: a clear ask ("if a neighbour asks, we'd love the introduction") and something easy to pass on — a card, a referral discount, a link. Physical installs generate more enquiries than any ad campaign; make it easy for that to happen on purpose.
What about paid ads?
Ads work, but they're the last lever, not the first. If your profile is thin, your reviews are stale and your site has no real photos, paid traffic just lands on a leaky page faster. Fix items 1–6 first; then, if you want more volume than local SEO delivers, layer ads on top of a site that already converts.
The one-line version
You don't get more solar clients by shouting louder. You get them by being the most findable and the most trustworthy installer at the exact moment a homeowner is ready to call — and by never letting an enquiry you already earned slip away.
Want this done for you?
Presencly builds websites and runs local SEO for UK renewable installers — solar, heat pump, battery, EV charger. £999 build, £99/month hosting, plus a 90-day page-1 Google guarantee on one agreed keyword. We cover 15 priority UK cities and the surrounding regions.
Or request a free audit — we'll send a 2-minute Loom showing exactly where you're leaking clients, within 24 hours.