Why solar websites don’t convert (and it’s not the forms)

▶ 0:00If you have a solar business that has a website, you need to watch this video, or if you're looking to get another website done. So we're going to talk about conversion drivers versus conversion mechanisms. Now, fancy words, they get thrown around a lot, especially by like web developers. I have been a culprit of that at points, but I'm going to try and fix that in today's video.

▶ 0:16Basically, a conversion driver is something that actually encourages someone to take an action. A conversion mechanism is something that takes that intent and converts it into a lead. So the conversion driver comes first. It's what actually makes someone want to reach out to you, want to engage with the chatbot, want to enter their email to a newsletter.

▶ 0:36The conversion mechanism is the email input field. It's the multi-step quiz. It's the quote tool. It's the AI chatbot itself, right? It's the contact form. It's the phone number. It's the way in which they actually take that action. So an example of conversion drivers for solar websites would be having a team page and having professionally shot headshots. It would be having a really strong case studies area showing actual customer or client transformations. I mean, for some reason, every other industry seems to understand this except for solar. Solar is one of those things where you can actually reliably forecast and predict the return on investment over time. And you can do so in a way that is compliant with MCS,

▶ 1:19etc. It is absolutely beyond me why more companies are not actually charting that out and showcasing that on their websites. You are sending it in the proposal to the customer and it's more often than not one of the central pieces of conversation. And yet when it comes to actually showcasing what your service does on your website, suddenly that entire concept goes out the window, even though that's one of the main focal points of every sales conversation.

▶ 1:45It's why our clients case study write up pages perform so well. They have the highest conversion rate across any page on the rest of the site because people aren't used to seeing it. We actually chart out the savings over time and people are like, well, I thought I'd have to get a quote to see something like that. The other side to this is customer reviews, you know, having like a wall of love with customer videos, Trustpilot reviews feeding in, Google reviews feeding in, everything feeding into one place is going to really help.

▶ 2:09And then you've got examples of conversion mechanisms. So again, someone has just seen this wall of love. They've seen Barry talk about how great his installation was. They've seen Caroline talk about how great Infinite were. They're now going to use a conversion mechanism to actually take their action. So that could be the multi-step, that could be the contact form, that could be the quote tool.

▶ 2:30And this is where the problem arises. People confuse the conversion drivers with the conversion mechanisms and they couldn't be more different. I had a discovery call literally on Friday, really nice guy. And he's basically like, I'm not getting enough leads from my solo website. And he was spending two K a month on Google ads with an agency. They were getting a four pound cost per click. The keywords looked fine.

▶ 2:50So basically he was getting 500 high intent visitors to the website every single month, but getting zero leads. I think he said he got one phone call and one contact form submission that didn't really go anywhere. And the first thing that he was kind of pushing as the solution to this was, I've just added a new AI chatbot to my website and I'm going to get a new quote tool developed.

▶ 3:14I'm going to get a new, like, you know, they answer a few questions. It gives them like an estimated price. All of that's great, but I'd put money on the fact that it's not the fact that you don't have those things that's not getting you any leads. It's the fact that no one wants to use those things. I was like, okay, let me just bring up your website.

▶ 3:31Went on his website. You couldn't find a single picture of the owner on the entire website or any of the team members. You couldn't find a single case study. The best you get was a picture of some panels on a roof that could well have been stocked because they don't have any of the team in them. There's no uniform merch in there. So it could have just been a picture from anywhere.

▶ 3:49And I'm looking at him like, you don't need a new chatbot. Like you need a reason for people to actually use the stuff you've already got in place. One of our clients who have been running Google ads for a long, long while now, they're getting 4% conversion rate from those Google ads. But the only conversion mechanism that they have is literally the phone number and a contact form.

▶ 4:08Nothing fancy whatsoever. There's no multi-step that we bang on about. There's no AI chatbot because they don't need it. They've got enough proof on their website that they're good at what they do, that people will literally just take the most boring route. They'll email them. They'll submit their information into a 10 question form that's all on one page because it doesn't matter that much if you actually give them enough of a reason to.

▶ 4:35So you should basically focus on the why a visitor should get in touch rather than the how. The how should come later. The how should come as an optimization effort. The how should come when you're looking to take it from 6% to 8%, not when you're looking to take it from 0% to 3%. I stopped recording, but I've got to do the mandatory pitch.

▶ 4:52If you want a copy of this document, then click the link somewhere on this post. And if you want the implementation of everything that I've shown, then just carry on on that same link. You're going to go through to a multi-step page, which is basically going to ask you like a few questions about your business. And from that, we'll be able to determine if you're qualified to work with us and on what offer you can work with us on.

▶ 5:11And then we can book a call in and see what we can do to help you. Awesome. Cheers.