The lawn and landscaping business is one of the most hyper-competitive industries in the United States. From your teenage son going door-to-door asking if they can mow your lawn for $20 to the large multi-million dollar companies. A quick search of Craigslist yields a plethora of companies vying for your business (It is worth noting that many of these companies on Craigslist are suspect, so buyer beware).

Any lawn and landscaping company’s overall marketing strategy needs to be dominated by the Internet. Online marketing for landscaping businesses is a complex process, with many different methods to choose from. Right now, your ideal customers are looking for landscapers like you on the Internet, regardless of whether you offer residential or commercial landscaping services. A constant flow of leads is attained by appearing on Google in as many places as possible.

With more than 10 years of experience producing leads for small businesses through effective digital marketing, Wynmore Media knows how to generate them. However, the Internet is not being used to its fullest potential by most small businesses, and as a result, they do not see the number of leads that they could get. In this article, I will be discussing six key digital marketing strategies for lawn and landscaping companies.

Landscaping Business Online Marketing: Effective Strategies for Lawn and Landscaping Companies

Google is used by almost 46 percent of web users looking for local services such as landscaping. For your landscaping business to succeed, you need to leverage online marketing. When these customers are searching on Google, showing up on the front page is a must.

Most internet traffic is referred from either Google or Facebook. Your landscaping business is missing out if it’s not listed on both. A combination of Google Ads and Facebook Ads has been effective in marketing landscaping businesses.

1. Getting Your Lawn and Landscaping Website Listed On Google Is The Foundation Of Your Online Marketing Plan

A lawn and landscaping company website serves as the “hub” of their business, so it is crucial that they correctly represent their business. Your lawn and landscaping business in 2021 and beyond needs to rely on online marketing in order to be successful.

Wynmore Media team ensures that all of our sites include the following elements when designing a website for a client:

1. We make sure that your phone number can be clicked on if on a laptop or desktop, or tapped on if on mobile.
2. A contact form that is easily accessible
3. An attractive home page with a good layout and color scheme.
4. Quality photos. This can be stock photography, but images of your office, team, before and after photos at the client’s work site are preferable.
5. Secure with SSL. This has been made easy since SSL is now provided free of charge with each hosting account.
6. Videos. Adding videos to your website can draw attention to your story.
7. Facebook Chatbox. Adding live-chat to your website can help drive more leads your way.
8. Search engine optimized.
9. Service pages. Add all relevant service pages of all of the services that you offer.

2. An Optimized Google My Business Listing Can Be a Driver For Lawn and Landscaping Leads

The fact that you can claim and optimize this page for free makes it an essential part of your landscaper marketing. Despite this fantastic (and free) digital marketing tool’s immense power, we are always amazed by the lack of effective use of it by landscaping companies.

People looking for businesses near their location can view local Google results by searching for terms like: “landscape company near me.” These results can be found on both Google Maps and Google Search.

If you have a Google My Business listing, it can help you get on the first page of Google and drive you even closer to owning more real estate on that coveted first page. With an optimized Google My Business page and excellent search engine optimization, you will be able to get your business in front of the right people at the right time.

Your Lawn and Landscaping Google My Business listing should correctly include the following items:

• Add your EXACT business name
• Add your phone number
• Maximize categories
• Add your list of services
• Add lots of great photos of your work, your team, your facility if you have one, your equipment, etc.
• Add a thorough business description
• Add your hours
• Add your business location
• Create your ‘Shortname’
• Fill out the Google business list to 100%

3. Managing your online reputation is the brand new word-of-mouth marketing tactic for your lawn and landscaping company.

Prospective customers are interested in how others have found their experience in doing business with you, so they search online. Your organic rankings can be improved, your conversion rate can be increased, and you can attract new customers with more reviews. You can greatly improve your online reputation by asking your customers to write a review. Online reviews are the new digital version of word-of-mouth marketing.

The best way to manage online reviews is to ask happy customers for feedback and deal with negative reviews professionally. Landscape business owners love and hate online reviews. Your organization can maintain a good reputation online by maintaining simple strategies.

A large collection of good reviews from your satisfied landscaping clients is your best defense against bad reviews (even fake reviews).

If your customer says they are pleased with the job after your walk-through, you could say something like, “Excellent to hear Mr. Customer, would you mind if I send you a link to my Google business page later today so that you can see the same review online?”. I would greatly benefit from it.”

Review sites such as Google Business, Facebook, and other local business listing websites accept reviews from your happy clients.

Be professional and calm in your response to negative reviews.

If others read the bad review and your response, they may also become interested in buying from you. Your best course of action would be to offer to “make right” legitimate complaints and to care for your customers. Business mistakes are bound to happen to you, or to your team. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you truly valued the opinion of others, many people would give you a second chance if you could make it right. A steady stream of reviews from happy landscaping customers is the best defense against an unfavorable review. Every interaction with a customer is one more opportunity to improve your reputation online, so you should be trying to get this right every single week.

Use Paid Facebook and Google Ads To Get Your Lawn and Landscaping Business In Front of Your Potential Customers

You can create online ads with Facebook’s advertising options with Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords), Google’s online advertising program, to reach audiences who are interested in the products and services that you provide. A landscaper’s overall digital marketing strategy relies heavily on Google ads. A properly managed Google Ads campaign allows your landscaping business to be used to find your ideal customers WHEN and WHERE they are searching for you.

4. Your lawn and landscaping business can benefit from paid advertising on Facebook

Google and Facebook account for almost 80 percent of all traffic. You might be able to get a homeowner interested in your work by posting a photo on your Facebook page. Your website may attract their attention, which would lead them to contact you.

Paying for Facebook advertising is the way to get results.

Facebook’s advertising options are some of the most targeted in digital marketing, which means landscaping companies will benefit from good lead generation tools provided by Facebook. Our experience indicates that some of these simple Facebook paid advertising strategies work.

Facebook Ads

You can get your landscaping business in front of your potential customers by getting your business listed prominently on Facebook, which has over 2.8 billion active users. Your business gets more consideration from potential customers when you create a Facebook Ad campaign that is tailored to the right customers. Combining this approach with an effective remarketing campaign will allow you to reach those customers when they’re ready to book their next project.
Remarketing Ads

5. Make Videos To Promote Your Lawn and Landscaping Company

The video is worth ten times more than a thousand words. Lawn and landscaping companies can benefit immensely by using video marketing to help differentiate themselves from the competition. Virtually all social media platforms are favoring videos of some kind. For example, on Facebook it is Facebook Live, on Instagram it is Reels, and on LinkedIn it is the quality of the videos overall. Additionally, there are multiple ways to use it. Ads for YouTube Videos, Facebook Videos and Video Remarketing on your website home page.

There is no need to have a long video, just one that introduces you, explains what makes you different, and showcases what you do. If you need a video for these purposes, a good local videographer can assist you. Show your best work, include a customer testimonial (Do not rely on customer testimonials on video! These are ONLY good for brand awareness purposes. Reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc are more important.), and convey your primary value offering. Make your call to action simple and clear at the end of the video. Your landscaping leads will be inbound thanks to this strategy.

6. Landscaping Website SEO – Factors To Consider And How To Implement Them

It All Starts With a Well Designed Website

If you want to rank highly in Google, you need a well-built landscaping website. Websites created by do-it-yourselfers usually rank poorly. Although a website might be “pretty”, it will not show up on the first page even if it is created properly. Your website should be built using WordPress. Make sure your website is user-friendly by building or re-designing it to provide a good user experience.

On-Site and Technical SEO

A well designed lawn and landscaping website has a lot going on under the hood. In order for your site to be well optimized for search engines, you must have properly constructed service pages, good titles, good meta descriptions, image names (also known as alt text), image descriptions, and on page copy that targets the keywords you’re trying to rank for.

Blogging for Business

In your efforts to rank for more keywords relevant to your business, including new content to your site is certainly going to help you. Many landscapers have no interest in writing posts, BUT adding new content to your site is definitely going to help. By establishing up to four new blog posts per month about relevant topics that are focused on keyword phrases you’re trying to rank for, you will be able to improve your organic rankings.

Link Building Strategies To Improve Your SEO

Make sure your Google My Business (GMB) profile contains all the necessary information. Creating off-site directories is an important part of good SEO. Also make sure to get listed on the Best of the Web directory, Moz Local, Yelp, Best of the Web Directory, Alignable, and the plethora of online directories that exists on the web. Be sure your name, address, and phone number for your business is consistent on all directories online. It can be detrimental to your rankings when there is conflicting information.

Get More Reviews

You can improve your SEO by encouraging your customers to give online reviews. Over time, consistently ask your customers to leave online reviews (preferably in your Google My Business listing).

Create an Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

You can improve your Google rankings over time by making sure your Google My Business profile is optimized with your correct business information. Most importantly, make sure you are posting daily with either new photos or updates. Whatever you post on your social media profiles, you also post on your Google My Business profile. The more you post, the increased chance of people finding you. Read this classic article by Neil Patel, How to Optimize Google My Business and Leverage It for More Sales.

Share To Your Social Media Profiles

Use social media channels like Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn to share content about your services, photos of you at work, and other useful content to boost your ranking. Also, post to your Google My Business profile the same way you post to your social profiles.

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