Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The rebate's gone, the cowboys are everywhere, the customer's been burned twice
Solar in Australia after the NSW rebate wind-down is a trust market. The customer has been pitched twice in the last five years, has heard a friend complain about a system installed by a non-CEC bloke who disappeared, and is now Googling 'how to tell if a solar installer is a scam' before they ring anyone. The lead-gen aggregators (Solar Quotes, SolarChoice, Energy Matters) sell the same lead to three competitors at $80 a pop and the cheapest quote wins, which is rarely you because you actually use Tier 1 panels and a Sungrow or Fronius inverter instead of the no-name kit the discount shops push. Worse: the battery-retrofit market is exploding (every system installed 5-10 years ago is now a Powerwall, Sonnen, or BYD candidate), but the marketing for retrofits is completely different from the marketing for new installs. New installs are sold by 'we're CEC accredited and we don't use the cheap panels'. Retrofits are sold by 'we'll match a battery to the system you already have, including the original inverter'. Two funnels, both fighting against a flood of post-rebate noise.
Good solar-installer marketing in the post-rebate market is two parallel funnels plus a trust spine. Funnel one (new installs) needs a service-area page library covering every postcode you work, with 'CEC accredited solar installer [suburb]' as the H1, a Tier 1 panel list named (LG, REC, Jinko, Trina), the inverter brands you stand behind (Sungrow, Fronius, SolarEdge, Enphase), and a 'why our quote isn't the cheapest' explainer that pre-emptively kills the price-shopping reflex. Funnel two (battery retrofits) needs a dedicated retrofit page per major battery (Tesla Powerwall, Sonnen, BYD, sonnen evo), with a 'we'll match a battery to your existing system' line and a quote form that asks for the existing inverter brand. The trust spine runs across both: CEC accreditation badge, Clean Energy Council retailer code of conduct, public liability, an installer-named bio per job. Get this right and you stop renting leads from aggregators.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the post-rebate reality: new-install volume per suburb (with realistic CPC assumptions now that the rebate's gone), battery-retrofit pipeline by inverter brand, and commercial pipeline if you do it. Briefs the other agents so the suburb pages, the battery-retrofit ads, the trust-spine content and the social cadence all push toward the right customer, not a generic 'solar in [city]' positioning that loses to the aggregators.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription. Ships CEC-accredited suburb pages for every postcode you work, a separate battery-retrofit page per major battery brand, a 'why our quote isn't the cheapest' explainer page that pre-empts the price-shopping reflex, and an installer-bio block per page so customers see who actually climbs on their roof. Two taps to push live.
Goes through your live site for what actually moves rankings in a trust-driven category: suburb-keyword H1s with the CEC accreditation called out, Tier-1-panel and inverter-brand mentions on every install page, schema for solar-energy-equipment-supplier (not generic electrician), internal links from suburb pages into the battery-retrofit pages so the retrofit funnel benefits from install-page authority, and a Google Business Profile with CEC accreditation and every battery and inverter brand attribute ticked. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Runs two parallel Google Ads campaigns. Campaign one is suburb-targeted on 'CEC accredited solar installer [suburb]' (high intent, lower volume, lower CPC than the broad 'solar quote' term the aggregators dominate). Campaign two is battery-retrofit on 'Tesla Powerwall installer [city]', 'Sonnen battery installer', 'BYD battery retrofit', filtered by existing inverter brand. Drops broad 'solar' bids that just feed the aggregator funnel. Uses Meta for the trust-content posts that build owned demand.
Turns every install and commissioning into a post: a 10kW Jinko Tiger Neo on a Hamilton tile roof with Fronius Primo, a Powerwall retrofit on an existing SolarEdge system, an overnight-load check 30 days after install, a commercial system on a Maitland warehouse roof. Builds the installer-bio trust that wins the customer who has read 'how to spot a solar scam' and is looking for someone real. You upload one photo per job, the agent drafts the caption in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces customers Google in the research phase: 'how to tell if a solar installer is CEC accredited', 'Tesla Powerwall vs Sonnen vs BYD for a 6.6kW system', 'is it worth retrofitting a battery to my 2018 solar system', 'what does the Clean Energy Council retailer code of conduct actually mean', 'STC rebate calculation by system size 2026'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull the trust-driven customer to your site before they ring an aggregator.
Your first 30 days.
- CEC accredited installer trust signal published above the fold with the accreditation number named
- Tier 1 panel comparison guide indexed with REC, LONGi, Trina, Jinko warranty terms
- Post-STC-rebate market positioning page live explaining the 2026 deflator change
- System-monitoring after-sales sequence (30-day, 90-day, 12-month) switched on for every commissioning
- Battery-retrofit pages live for Powerwall, Sonnen and BYD with payback calculator
- Sunlight Online quote-aggregator opt-out completed, lead source weaned
- Google Business Profile corrected to Solar Energy Equipment Supplier with CEC attribute set
- First fortnight of Tier 1 commissioning reels queued from photos you sent Sam
Solar after the rebate wind-down is a trust war. The customer has been burned or knows someone who has, the aggregators sell their lead to your three cheapest competitors, and the only way out is owned demand: a site that says CEC accredited up front, names the panels and inverters, pre-empts the 'why is your quote dearer' question, and posts the installer bio next to every roof. The installers who win the next three years are the ones who stop renting leads.
Agencies are too dear to actually build the trust spine and run two funnels for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but you tune the bids at 9pm and the battery-retrofit page stays a draft. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the CEC-accredited suburb pages, the per-battery retrofit pages, the trust-explainer content, the high-intent ads, and the commissioning social posts. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop paying aggregators $80 a lead to compete with cowboys.