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Renegade Solar

Renegade Solar install solar panels and batteries for businesses and homes across Manchester, with Ashley covering anywhere in the city but focusing mainly on north Manchester from his base here in Prestwich.

Ashley's different from a lot of solar installers because he's been doing this for ages and runs a fully independent company. While many solar companies are basically agencies with call centres that farm the work out to random subcontractors who've never worked together before, Ashley has worked with the same trusted parties for years. You get his expertise directly, not some call centre taking a margin.

His old Wix site was letting him down badly - it was painfully slow, ranking for nothing except his business name, and was getting maybe one enquiry a year. Worse, the Wix editor made it nearly impossible for him to properly showcase his accreditations or explain his services in detail. He had test products stuck on there from Wix's e-commerce system that he couldn't figure out how to remove. It was pretty messy.

My Solution

I built Ashley a super-fast static Eleventy site that actually works for his business. Unlike with Wix, this one loads quickly and lets him easily update content through PagesCMS.org - he just logs in with his email and can add new accreditations, update service areas, or tweak his messaging without wrestling with clunky drag-and-drop editors.

The site now properly showcases all his certifications and qualifications instead of hiding them away, and clearly explains his service areas across Manchester. The HTML is totally flexible, so if Ashley ever wants to add features like solar calculators or interactive maps, we can do that easily - unlike Wix where you're stuck with whatever widgets they've decided to offer.

The contact form uses FormSpark with BotPoison spam protection, giving Ashley a reliable way to receive enquiries without the monthly costs of premium Wix forms. Since he's in renewable energy, I've halved his monthly hosting costs to just £20 - cheaper than what he was paying for Wix.

Technical Details

The site is built with Eleventy, giving it perfect Lighthouse performance scores and great mobile responsiveness. Instead of the thin, generic pages that most solar websites use to try ranking in loads of areas, I'm working with Ashley to create actually useful content that helps potential customers understand what they need.

Many solar companies just spam out dozens of near-identical pages targeting different postcodes with barely any real information. Ashley's pages actually explain the process, his experience, and what makes his approach different - and they're ranking really well because Google can tell they're genuinely helpful.

I track his search positions with SerpBear, monitoring how he ranks for his target keywords across Manchester. This data helps us refine his content strategy and identify new opportunities as we expand his service offerings.

Ongoing Support

Ashley gets free access to my marketing advice Patreon as part of his package. We're constantly working on ways to differentiate his business from the faceless agencies and call centres that dominate the solar market. This includes expanding his service offerings through the website and helping him communicate why working with an independent, experienced installer matters.

I help him avoid the common trap of racing to the bottom on price by focusing on the value he provides - his years of experience, direct involvement in every job, and working with the same trusted team. We're also expanding the range of services promoted through the site, making sure potential customers understand the full scope of what he can do.

Results

The transformation has been massive. Ashley's gone from getting about one enquiry a year with his old Wix site to getting roughly one enquiry a week now. The site has seen exponential growth in search impressions, clicks, and actual customer enquiries - exactly what you want to see.

He's now ranking on the first page for several valuable search terms across Manchester, and the leads keep coming. The site always loads in under a second and gets perfect scores in Lighthouse performance tests. And all this while actually reducing his monthly costs compared to what he was paying Wix.

Most importantly, the enquiries he's getting now are from people who've actually read about his approach and understand what makes him different - so they're much better quality leads than the occasional random contact he used to get.

Source Code

The complete source code for this project is available on my Git forge. This means Ashley owns his website for life rather than renting one from Wix. Anyone can build on this codebase in the future, and if I get hit by a bus, he won't lose anything - unlike with proprietary website builders.