The Quick SEO Guide for Lawn Care & Landscaping

Published on March 26, 2019

“I’m ready to grow my lawn care business, and I know SEO plays a huge factor in that… but I don’t know a whole lot about it.”

Your lawn care or landscaping company could always use more business. You’ve tried some of the best lawn and landscape marketing strategies out there. But…

What you really want is for potential clients to find you on the internet. You want LOTS of high-quality leads, without spending thousands on advertising.

That’s where SEO comes in.

SEO — or search engine optimization — will help your website rank high when people in your area use Google to search for lawn or landscaping services. Local SEO is a subcategory of SEO. Essentially, the goal is to target people in your area.

So, if you are in Florida, you probably don’t want people from New York to find your lawn care services. Fortunately, Google and other Search Engines (like Bing or Yahoo) can tell where you are. All you have to do is rank well, and people near you will find your business!

In this article, you’ll find out:

  • The function of SEO
  • How you can utilize it
  • Resources that’ll help you
  • Answers to the most frequently asked questions

Here are 7 easy and effective SEO methods that will get your services seen by future clients:

1. Optimize Your Pages for Local Keywords

In order to do well in local search, you need to optimize for local keywords in the search results.

This will require research to determine which keywords are applicable for your pages and locale. Use tools like Google’s Keyword Research Tool to help you out.

Here’s a quick list:

  • [Your City] Landscaping – (i.e. Florida Landscaping)
  • [Your City] Lawn Care Services
  • Best Mowing Services in [Your City]

Once you determine your main keywords, try to use them on your website pages.

Be careful: avoid over-stuffing your pages. It will hurt your SEO efforts if Google detects that you are trying to “game the system.”

2. Be Consistent with Your “NAP” Data

NAP data means name, address, and phone.

If your NAP data is inconsistent, search engines will avoid ranking your site for local results – which means nobody will find you.

Search Engines crawl the Web to find mentions of your business. If you have NAP data that doesn’t match, they will penalize you for that.

Make sure your data is consistent everywhere.

3. Make It Easy to Find Your Contact Information

People aren’t going to want to hunt for your contact information, so your top priority should be to make it easily accessible.

You’ll want to place it in several places (i.e. top right-hand corner and bottom of the page). You may even consider putting it in bold with bright colored text.

You’ll want to all of your contact data:

  • phone number
  • physical address
  • hours of operation
  • social media
  • all other means of contact

It’s also wise to include your personal work number and at least one other contact option into your page headers, as well as your homepage.

4. Are You on “Google My Business?”

Listing your local business in Google My Business (GMB) is a must-do.

Why?

GMB is like the Yellow Pages for the internet, only much more popular… oh, also, it’s free.

Without it, you won’t show up on Google maps. This is crucial for you to be found on Google - particularly in mobile search (the most popular form of search).

Moreover, GMB gives you the wonderful ability to manage and highlight your customer reviews … which is yet another vital aspect to rank up your services on local searches.

5. How to Quickly Optimize your Metadata

This is one of the more “technical” SEO tips we’ll give you here.

Metadata simply means data about other data.

In SEO terms, this refers to information that identifies and qualifies your Website:

  • your page titles
  • your page descriptions
  • your headlines and subheadlines, etc.

Page Title

Optimize it for your keywords and make it no more than 60 characters… or else Google will cut it off.

Meta description

Create a compelling and informative description that is 154 characters or fewer.

Headlines

Make sure you only have one H1 tag (the highest level Headline) per page. It should contain your primary page keyword.

6. Where Can You Get Relevant Citations?

A citation is when your “NAP” Data (Business name, address, or phone number) is referenced online.

This is key if you want to rank well on Google.

The easiest places to get cited are online directory sites like…

  1. Yelp
  2. Manta
  3. Youtube
  4. Facebook
  5. Citysearch
  6. Angie's List
  7. Superpages
  8. Yahoo Local
  9. Yellow Pages

Fun fact: SEOMoz will tell you what citation sites are popular in your area.

7. Gather and Display Reviews

Online customer reviews and testimonials displayed on your Website will land you more local credibility (and local text).

It will also provide amazing social proof for your visitors and prospective customers.

The SEO benefit lies mainly in the “local” aspect of the reviews; that is the same local names and cities showing up on your page.


Not sure how to get online reviews?


How Long Will These SEO Efforts Take Me?

Most of these methods can be accomplished quickly, such as Contact information, Keyword research, Metadata and NAP consistency.

Schedule an hour each day, for the next several days, and you’ll knock this out quickly.

The others, such as Google My Business, local citations, reviews and on-page optimization, will take more “watering and fertilizing.”

Don’t expect your page to shoot up to the top of Google overnight. Proper SEO takes time and attention to detail.

Can I do any of this SEO stuff myself?

Your ability to optimize your company’s website for local SEO will depend on your comfort level with editing or updating your website.

If you built or helped to build your site, you should be able to make all or most of the above changes on your own.

If you didn’t, send this article to the person or company who did - or another local web design firm. Ask them to make sure your site is properly optimized for search.

The costs should be minimal, and they will pay for themselves through traffic. Plus, you’ll win even more leads as your site ranks higher.

employee mowing lawn

Conclusion

Put these SEO strategies into place, and your page will climb up Google’s search ladder. Soon, you’ll get more traffic and better leads on your website.

This article is essential in providing you with:

  • Basic info about SEO
  • Ways to take advantage of SEO
  • Resources that’ll help you
  • Answers to the most frequently asked questions

Best of all, most of your competitors aren’t even thinking about this SEO stuff, so you should see results fairly soon.


Related: Top 7 Things Your Lawn Care Website Needs


Updated March 26, 2019 7:00 AM

Bill Colrus

Bill Colrus serves as a marketing writer and social media editor for Service Autopilot. Bill got his start as a reporter for his hometown newspaper while still in high school, and has spent more than two decades creating content and content strategies for publications, companies, and clients. He takes pride in providing service business owners with practical information and inspiration that will help them achieve their goals.
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