Three months ago you signed with a provider who promised to make your solar business easier to find. Every month a report arrives, full of charts and terminology. The account manager sounds upbeat. Yet the phone is no busier, and requests for rooftop surveys, battery storage or commercial installations have not really moved. Who do you believe?
It is a common situation and an expensive one. A solar installer or equipment supplier lives on qualified enquiries: a homeowner worried about rising energy bills, a farm looking at a ground-mounted array, a warehouse owner with a large flat roof, a school or a small manufacturer weighing up storage. Every month spent with a provider who is not delivering is a month of surveys you never carry out. This guide gives you a simple way to check, without turning you into a technician.
The principle: never rely on the provider's figures alone
This is the rule that matters most. A serious provider does not ask you to take its word for anything. It shows you results you can check yourself, in tools you own. If the only numbers available are the ones in the provider's own slides, you cannot tell whether they are accurate, or whether they measure anything that matters to your business.
In practice, insist from day one that your company holds its own Google access in its own name: Search Console, which shows how often your site appears in Google results and how many people click through, and your Business Profile. Those accounts belong to you and stay with you if you ever change provider.
Three pieces of evidence to ask for
1. A dated report, every week
A monthly report leaves too much room for vagueness. A dated weekly report tells you what was done, when, and what changed since the previous week. That rhythm has a simple effect: it forces regular work and lets you spot a quiet patch quickly. A good report fits on one readable page and answers three questions: what was delivered, what improved, what comes next. Our guide on what a visibility report should show lists the sections that matter.
2. The figures in your own Google tools
Once a month, open your Search Console and compare it with the report. You do not need to understand everything. Check whether appearances in Google and clicks are rising over time, and for which kinds of searches. For a solar business, what counts are searches from people ready to buy or install: solar panel installers near them, battery storage quotes, commercial solar for a specific type of building. If the provider's numbers do not show up in your own tools, ask about it straight away.
3. The enquiries you actually receive
This is the evidence that matters for your cash flow. Ask whoever takes calls and emails to record, for every new enquiry, how the customer found you: a Google search, an AI assistant's answer, a referral, social media, a comparison site. A shared spreadsheet is enough, as long as it is kept up every day. After a few months you will know exactly whether search-driven enquiries are rising and whether they are for the installations you want.
Warning signs
Some signals should make you act quickly.
- The provider will not give you access or keeps accounts in its own name. Your data belongs to you.
- The report changes its measures from month to month, so that only the good news is ever shown.
- You are promised the top spot on Google or in AI assistant answers. Nobody controls those decisions, and the promise often hides the absence of any real commitment. See our guide on guaranteed first-place promises.
- Results are always about visits, never about customers. Traffic from people reading general explainers about how solar works does not fill your installation calendar.
What is reasonable to expect, and when
Be demanding, but realistic. Visibility builds over time: first signals usually appear within a few weeks and progress becomes clear with consistency. At three months, judge the trajectory: work delivered every week, figures moving up in your own tools, the first enquiries. At six and twelve months, judge the volume and quality of quote requests. Our guide to results at 3, 6 and 12 months for a solar installer gives more detailed markers.
How Traffic Engine submits to this test
Traffic Engine is Kolonell's service for making your business visible when buyers search for what you do, on Google and in AI assistant answers. It is built around the checks described above: a dated report every week, results followed in your own Search Console and a measured review at three months. The guarantee covers what Kolonell controls: if what your plan includes is not live on time, the following month is free. Kolonell guarantees delivery and measurement, not the decisions of Google or an AI assistant.
Kolonell applied the approach to its own website first, and the Search Console curves for kolonell.com are published on the offer page and refreshed daily. You start with the Visibility Audit at €690, deducted from the €1,500 setup if you go ahead within 30 days, then choose a monthly plan from €1,100, on a 12-month commitment. See the offer and the published curves.
Your next step
If you already work with a provider, run the three checks above this week. If you do not, get the free website score to see where you are starting from.