SEO in Sacramento When One Roof Can Mean Two Utilities

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

Two neighbors in the same metro area type the same search about rooftop solar, and the honest answer for each depends on who sends the electric bill. SEO in Sacramento for an energy contractor has to split on that line, because SMUD answers to its own elected board while PG&E customers fall under state net billing rules. This page writes one service page twice, once for each customer, side by side, then what the work costs. Progression is based in New York, works with Sacramento businesses remotely, and offers on-site sessions on request.

One roof, two bills

A homeowner on a quiet street in the metro area asks a contractor what her new panels will earn back. The neighbor across the road asks the same thing, and the true answers differ, because one of them is a SMUD customer and the other is not.

A single service page cannot answer both. Any sentence about what a customer is paid for extra power is true for one utility and false or incomplete for the other. The rest of this page shows how to write the page twice so that each reader gets her own answer.

SEO in Sacramento starts with the name on the bill

SMUD describes itself as a community-owned, not-for-profit electric service that is not governed by the California Public Utilities Commission. Its elected Board sets policy and rates for SMUD customers, and SMUD says changes the Commission proposes would not affect its rates. SMUD also says it has provided electricity to Sacramento County for over 75 years.

The Commission’s net billing page covers a different territory: the large investor-owned utilities, which include Pacific Gas and Electric. There, customers who have applied for interconnection since April 15, 2023 take service on the net billing tariff.

Two sets of rules means two sets of searchers. Someone who types a question about solar payback is usually thinking about her own bill, and a page that answers the wrong utility’s rules loses her within a paragraph.

Which utility serves a given address?

Do not guess from a ZIP code or a city name. Each utility publishes its own service area map, and the map is the only reliable answer for a specific address. A page can say which utilities serve the area in general and send the reader to the map for her street.

What does SMUD’s rate look like?

SMUD’s Solar and Storage Rate applies to customers approved to install solar or battery storage on or after March 1, 2022. The standard residential rate remains the Time-of-Day (5 to 8 p.m.) Rate, with the solar and storage rate added as a component. The Solar and Storage Rate page has the details.

What does PG&E’s side look like?

Under the net billing tariff, the Commission says compensation for power sent to the grid reflects the value of that generation to the grid. Earlier net energy metering tariffs are closed to new enrollments. A contractor should link the utility’s and the Commission’s pages rather than restate rates it does not control.

• Name the utility in the first paragraph of every rate sentence.
• Link the utility’s own rate page from the sentence.
• Never copy a rate from one utility’s page onto the other’s.
• Date every figure.

The fork

Take one contractor’s residential solar page and write it twice. The table sets the two versions beside each other, line by line, so the differences are easy to see. Everything in the right-hand column is advice about wording, and the rates themselves come from the utilities.

The sell back line

For SMUD customers on the Solar and Storage Rate, excess electricity that is neither used nor stored in a battery is sold back to SMUD at 9.6 cents per kWh from June 1, 2026, whatever the time of day or season. That is a sentence a page can print, with the date, and the SMUD link beside it.

The PG&E version cannot print that number, and should not borrow it. Write the PG&E sentence from the Commission’s description, and let the installer’s proposal carry the customer’s own figures.

The existing customer line

A SMUD customer approved to install solar before March 1, 2022 can stay on the Net Energy Metering rate through December 31, 2030, unless she adds battery storage with SMUD incentives, modifies or replaces her system, or moves. A page for existing customers should say exactly that and no more.

Someone who moves into a home that already has solar after March 1, 2022 lands on the Solar and Storage Rate. A contractor selling to home buyers can use that sentence on a page for new owners.

The utility question on the form

The cleanest fix is the first question on the form. Ask which utility sends the bill, give a does-not-know choice, and let the answer route the visitor. The estimator then starts every conversation knowing which rules apply.

What if a visitor does not know?

Offer a short page that shows where the utility’s name sits on a bill. Many people have the bill within reach, and a two-line explanation is worth more than a wrong guess.

Where does the answer go next?

Into the lead record, the follow-up email and the call notes. A question asked and then lost is a question asked twice, which is the sort of friction that sends a visitor to a competitor.

• Put the utility choice first, before name and phone.
• Include an option for businesses that are not residential.
• Pass the answer into the customer record automatically.
• Use it to pick the follow-up email.

Service area pages that do not lie

Contractors often build one page per city to rank for local searches. That is fine when each page says something true about the place. A city page that serves two utilities should say so and link both maps.

Avoid listing a city under one utility just because most of it is. Utility boundaries do not follow city lines, and a sentence that is wrong for one street teaches readers not to trust the rest. Send the reader to the utility’s map for the address.

How should a city page begin?

With the work the contractor does there, the utilities that serve the city in general terms, and a link to each map. Then the page can branch to the two utility versions.

Can one page cover a county?

A county page can name the utilities that operate in it. It should not claim which utility serves a town unless the utility’s own map shows it. When in doubt, say less and link more.

• Keep one page per utility per service, not one per city per utility.
• Link each utility’s service area map from every city page.
• Say which utilities serve the area in general terms only.
• Leave address questions to the map.
• Add the utility name to the page title only when the page is written for one utility.
• Check each city page again when a utility changes its program.

What changed in 2026, and what to update

Rates move. SMUD’s sell back figure took effect on June 1, 2026, and a page written before that date may carry an older number. A dated section at the top of each utility version lets a reader tell at a glance whether the page is current.

Keep older figures off the page entirely. A reader who sees two numbers cannot tell which applies, and a search engine that crawls both may show the wrong one.

How often should the page be checked?

Whenever a utility announces a change, and at least once a quarter. Put the check on one person’s calendar.

Beyond solar

The same split applies to every energy service a contractor sells. Batteries, vehicle chargers and heat pumps all come with incentives and rate plans set by the customer’s utility, so each page needs the utility named.

Battery storage

SMUD’s page ties battery incentives to its own programs and says an existing Net Energy Metering customer who adds storage with SMUD incentives moves to the Solar and Storage Rate. A battery page for SMUD should say that plainly.

Chargers and heat pumps

Say which utility’s programs the page describes and link the program page. Leave the dollar amounts to the utility. A page can be useful without printing a rebate figure that will be out of date next season.

• Write one battery page per utility.
• Link the utility’s incentive page from each service page.
• Do not print a rebate figure you cannot date.
• Review every energy page when a rate changes.

Proof that matches the reader’s utility

A proof block earns trust when it looks like the reader’s own situation. A SMUD homeowner wants to see work done in SMUD territory, and a PG&E homeowner wants the same for hers.

Describe finished jobs by the type of home, the size of the system and the utility, without naming the customer. If the contractor cannot say which utility served a job, leave the job out of the utility pages and show it on the general page instead.

Reviews and questions

Customer reviews often mention the utility without being asked. Pull those lines into the right page, with the reviewer’s permission, and keep the rest on the general page.

• Tag every finished job with its utility in your records.
• Use job photographs only on the page for the utility that served the job.
• Collect the utility’s name in every review request.
• Keep the general page free of rate claims.
• Add a short question and answer block to each utility page, written from real customer questions.
• Review the tags once a quarter, with the page check.

What the work costs

Two versions of a page take more work than one, but the work is not doubled: the research, the structure and the form logic are shared. Agencies price the whole program by scope and by how many pages move.

Progression’s published packages

Our SEO services pricing page publishes three monthly tiers, shown here on their own.

We publish no Sacramento premium and no price per utility. The forked pages are part of the scope, and the first proposal is free.

A brief for your contractor site

Fill this card in before the first call. It gives a writer what is needed to fork the pages and keep them honest, and it makes a quote from any agency easier to compare.

A checklist for each forked page

Use these six checks before any utility page goes live.

Send the filled card with a link to your current solar page. Our local SEO services page covers the wider work, and our web design in Sacramento page covers the site itself.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this one:

• Local SEO services
• SEO services
• SEO services pricing
• Web design in Sacramento
• SEO company by city

Frequently asked questions