Why an Irish installer’s website wins or loses the job
Founder, Glenn Halpin
2 July 2026 · 6 min read
84% of Irish consumers trust a business with its own website. Only 20% trust one without. In a market of 740+ registered installers, what they find when they look you up decides what happens next.
Here is the uncomfortable truth about solar in Ireland right now: the work is there, and so is everyone else. A record 34,088 households installed solar under the SEAI scheme in 2025, and there are over 740 registered installer companies competing for them. The homeowner cannot tell the good ones apart by their vans. They tell them apart by what they find when they look you up. And they will look you up.
Your next customer is already online
The CSO's 2025 figures put it beyond argument: 95% of Irish households have internet access, 95% of adults are recent internet users, and 95% of those go online every day. Solar is a five figure decision. Nobody spends that kind of money on a company they cannot find, and word of mouth does not skip this step any more, it just changes the search from "solar installer near me" to your name. Either way, what they find decides what happens next.
What Irish homeowners think when you have no website
The national domain registry, .IE, has researched exactly this, and the numbers should sharpen the mind of any installer relying on a Facebook page and a mobile number:
- 84% of Irish consumers trust a business that has its own website.
- Only 36% trust a business that is on social media alone.
- Only 20% trust a business with no website at all.
- 74% trust a business using a professional email address on its own domain. For a free Gmail or Hotmail address, that falls to 39%.
- 91% associate a .ie address with a genuine Irish business.
Read those again with your customer's eyes. They are about to hand a stranger thousands of euro and let them up on the roof. Every signal either builds that trust or burns it, before you have said a word.
What a solar installer's website is actually for
Not decoration. A working installer site has three jobs, in this order:
- Get found. When a homeowner in your county searches for solar, or asks Google or an AI assistant who to talk to, your business needs to be in the answer. That is a build quality issue: fast pages, proper structure, local relevance, and content that actually answers what people ask, starting with the SEAI grant.
- Be believed. Your SEAI registration, Safe Electric certification, insurance, real photos of real installs, your face and your name. The homeowner is not comparing panel brands at this stage, they are deciding whether you are real, local and safe.
- Be contactable without effort. A phone number that taps to call, a short form that works on a phone, and something for the majority who are not ready to talk yet, which is where most sites lose almost everyone. That problem is big enough that we wrote a separate guide on turning visitors into leads.
The pages that do the work
You do not need a big site. You need a sharp one. A home page that says what you do and where, in plain words. A services page for solar, batteries and EV chargers. A proper SEAI grant page, because that is the single question every Irish homeowner types in, and the installer who answers it clearly gets the visit. An about page with a real photo, your years on the tools and your registrations. And a contact page with no friction in it. Five pages, done to a high standard, will outsell a sprawling site that says nothing.
The bar is rising because the market is
Ireland added around 1 GW of solar in 2025, roughly double the year before, and the installer base keeps growing with it. The average rating among registered installers is already 4.7 stars. In a market that crowded, the website stops being a nice to have and becomes the thing that separates "the company that came up when I searched, looked serious and answered my grant question" from the hundreds that did not. The good news for a small operator: this is one of the few battlegrounds where a one van business can genuinely look every bit as strong as a national brand.
Where Caolú comes in
Building exactly this, for exactly this trade, is what our Websites & Leads service does: a fast, mobile first site built to be found on Google and in AI answers, your brand done properly, a business email on your own domain, and the Solar Calculator built in so the visitors who would have left become named leads instead. One setup fee covers year one, and from year two a small monthly keeps it fast, secure and reporting to you every month.
Sources
This guide is grounded in the following sources, checked at the time of writing.
- Internet Coverage and Usage in Ireland 2025, Key Findings — Central Statistics Office (official), November 2025
- 95% of households now have internet connectivity — RTÉ News, 7 November 2025
- Consumers are more trusting of businesses that have a website — .IE, the national domain registry
- Record year for home solar PV installs in Ireland in 2025 — Solar Power Portal, 2026
- State of Solar in Ireland 2025: Data Report — SolarInfo.ie, 2026
- Ireland adds 1 GW of solar in 2025 — PV Magazine, 26 February 2026
Questions installers ask about websites
I get all my work from word of mouth. Do I really need a website? +
Word of mouth still starts the journey, but it does not finish it any more. When a neighbour recommends you, the homeowner looks you up before they ring you. If nothing comes up, or what comes up looks abandoned, a share of those warm referrals quietly goes to the next name on the list. The website is what catches the work your reputation already earned.
Is a Facebook page not enough? +
No. The .IE registry research is blunt about it: 84% of Irish consumers trust a business with its own website, but only 36% trust one that is only on social media. A page helps, but on its own it reads as a hobby, not a business.
Does a Gmail address really cost me jobs? +
The same .IE research says 74% of consumers trust a business using a professional email on its own domain, against 39% for a free Gmail or Hotmail address. On a five figure purchase, that gap is jobs. A proper address on your own domain costs next to nothing to set up.
What pages does a solar installer actually need? +
Fewer than you would think, done properly: a home page that says who you are and where you work, a services page, an SEAI grant page that answers the question every homeowner is already asking, an about page with a real face and your credentials, and a contact page that makes enquiring effortless. Five good pages beat twenty thin ones.
How important is mobile? +
It is the whole game. Most homeowners will meet your business for the first time on a phone screen, often sitting on the couch after a big electricity bill. If the site is slow, or they are pinching and zooming to read it, they are gone to the next installer before you ever knew they existed.
I already have a website but it does nothing. Is that normal? +
Very. A site that was built once, years ago, and never touched since is the most common setup in the trade. It usually loads slowly, looks dated on a phone, says nothing about the grant, and gives visitors no reason to enquire. The fix is rarely a patch, it is a rebuild done properly, and it costs less than most installers expect.