What buyers ask AI before choosing a solar installer

Before they think about installers, buyers ask an assistant three things: what a system of a given size costs fitted, how many units it will really generate where they live, and what subsidy they can claim. Only after those do they ask who to call, and by then the answer is being assembled from whoever published those three numbers.

The companion page on how a solar installer gets recommended by AI covers what to fix on your site. This page is the question list itself.

The questions, in the words buyers use

Three different buyers type these. A homeowner with a roof, a housing society secretary asking on behalf of a whole building, and a factory owner looking at a captive plant. Their questions barely overlap.

Cost

• "3 kW rooftop solar cost with installation"
• "Is solar worth it or will I never recover the money"
• "Loan for rooftop solar, which banks give it"
• "Cost per kW for a plant on a factory shed"

Generation

• "How many units does a 5 kW system give per day"
• "Will it work in the monsoon"
• "My roof faces east, does that matter"
• "How much does shading from the water tank reduce output"

Subsidy and paperwork

• "Who is eligible for the rooftop solar subsidy under PM Surya Ghar"
• "Net metering process and how long the DISCOM takes"
• "Can I put solar on a flat, or does the society have to do it"
• "Do I need an empanelled vendor to get the subsidy"

Equipment and after sales

• "Does the panel have to be on the ALMM list"
• "On grid, off grid or hybrid with a battery"
• "Who repairs it after five years if the company shuts down"
• "What does the warranty actually cover"

What a good answer looks like

For cost, a range by system size with a date on it, and a list of what is inside that price: panels, inverter, structure, wiring, earthing, the net meter application, and what is charged extra.

For generation, a seasonal range for the districts you actually work in, with the conditions that reduce it named. This is the one number buyers cannot get reliably anywhere, and publishing an honest version of it is the strongest thing a local installer can do.

For subsidy, a plain summary with the official national portal and your state DISCOM linked, and the date you last checked. Schemes and rates change, so an undated subsidy page is read as wrong.

For warranty, three separate statements: the panel performance warranty from the manufacturer, the inverter warranty, and your own workmanship warranty. The third is the one buyers discover is missing after the first leak.

Where you are probably missing

• No price anywhere, only an enquiry form, so the most asked question in your trade is answered by somebody else.
• Generation quoted at its best case, with no season and no conditions, which a careful assistant will not repeat.
• Subsidy figures with no date and no source.
• Empanelment status not stated, although it decides whether a buyer can claim at all.
• No list of the districts you serve, even though almost every question carries a place.
• Nothing for housing societies, where the buyer is a committee, the decision needs a resolution, and the common area metering question is completely different.

What to publish first

• Installed cost by system size, as a range, dated, with inclusions and exclusions.
• Realistic generation for your service area, season by season.
• The subsidy and net metering process as it stands today, with official links and the date.
• Your workmanship warranty and your service response time.
• One page for housing societies and one for industrial roofs, because those are separate buyers.

Then work down the question list. Every question above that you cannot answer in one sentence on your own site is a page worth writing this month.

A worked example of one answer

Take the generation question, which is the hardest one to answer honestly. A weak page says the system is highly efficient and uses premium panels. Neither sentence can be quoted, because neither says anything.

A strong page says this instead. Name the district. State the roof conditions you are describing: unshaded, south facing, tilted on a standard structure. Give the monthly reading range from systems you have actually installed there, taken from the meter, with the months and the year written down. Then name the four things that reduce it: shading from a water tank or a neighbouring wall, an east or west facing roof, dust in the dry months, and the monsoon weeks. Finally say what you do about each one at the survey stage.

That page can be quoted in a sentence, it can be checked by the buyer against their own bill after installation, and it is something no platform and no national brand can write for your district. It is also the page that stops you from selling a system to a roof that should not have one.

What this page does not cover

It does not cover plant design. Panel layout, string sizing, structure loading and earthing are engineering decisions and no buyer is searching for them. It does not give you a subsidy figure, because the amount and the rules change and the only correct source is the official portal on the day the buyer reads it, which is why your page should link there rather than restate it. And it cannot help with a district you do not serve. If you cannot send an engineer to a place within a working day, being named in an answer about that place only produces an enquiry you will disappoint.

Common questions

Our prices move every quarter. Should we still publish them?

Yes, as a band with the month written next to it, and change it when it moves. A dated band that is slightly out of date is still quotable. A page with no number cannot be used at all. Buyers already know that solar prices move, and saying so on the page is not a weakness.

Will honest generation figures lose us sales to installers who exaggerate?

You will lose some enquiries from buyers chasing the best case number, and you will lose them at the enquiry stage rather than after the site survey. You also become the page that a careful buyer, and a careful assistant, is willing to repeat. Exaggerated figures are what produce the complaint threads that later decide the answer about your company.

Is it worth explaining the subsidy when the government portal already does?

Yes, but not by copying it. Your value is the sequence: what the buyer does first, what the DISCOM needs, what usually causes a delay, and how long each step took for your last few customers. Link the official page for the amounts and rules, and own the practical part.

Do reviews matter more than website pages for an installer?

For a question that carries a locality, listings and reviews usually carry more weight, because that is where assistants find local businesses at all. For a question about cost, generation or subsidy, your own pages matter more, because nobody writes that detail in a review. You need both, and most installers have neither.

We do commercial and industrial roofs as well. One page or two?

Two, and preferably three. A homeowner, a housing society committee and a factory owner ask different questions, buy on different terms and need different proof. A single page that tries to serve all three answers none of them well enough to be quoted.

Where to start this week

Write the cost page and the generation page, in that order, and put a date on both. They are the two questions every buyer asks first, and they are the two your competitors have not answered. Everything else on the list above can wait a week.