How to Pull Off a Website Redesign for Your Lawn Care Business

If you are a lawn care or landscaping business owner — or any type of small business owner — your primary focus is probably on ensuring your customers are happy and satisfied. After all, happy customers often attract new customers. But referrals aren’t the only way to grow your business. Remember that custom website you launched when you were just a startup? If you’ve ignored it over the last few years, it’s probably time to turn your marketing efforts toward a website redesign.

Why Should I Update My Website Design?

Like technology changes in push mowers and string trimmers, the technology used in small business website designs change as well. Here are some important reasons to consider a redesigned website.

It’s Incorrectly Designed for Mobile Devices

Over 50% of all website traffic is from mobile devices, which means that if your initial web development was geared to desktops, your site won’t look very good on a smartphone or tablet. When your website doesn’t render correctly on a mobile phone, potential customers will look elsewhere.

It Offers a Poor User Experience

Your website should be user-friendly, eye-catching, and fast-loading. Users should also be able to find the information they need quickly. Your website visitors want a simple, clean homepage that loads fast and has obvious navigation options. If your site doesn’t do this, it needs to be updated.

It Inaccurately Represents Your Brand

If you haven’t touched your website in a while, you have probably added additional services, rebranded your company, or changed your service area. Your website needs to accurately reflect your brand to distinguish your offerings from competitors and stay relevant in your market.

Your Site isn’t Visible

People search online for everything. If your website doesn’t show up on Google (or Bing or Yahoo) when someone is looking for a business in your niche, they will turn to your competitor. Don’t lose potential customers with a site that doesn’t show up in search results.

What Should Be Included in a Website Redesign?

Whether you tackle a website redesign yourself with a WordPress template, or you contact a web design agency, make sure you have what you want in mind. You definitely will want your new website to be better than your current website, but what does that mean? Better functionality, a higher conversion rate, high-quality graphics and images, better ranking in search results — the list can get long. Thankfully, a lot of what you need will be considered a standard offering for today’s web pages and websites. Here are some must haves to consider.

A Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system will make it easy for you to change and add content to your website yourself. This is especially important if you want to engage in any content marketing, which you probably do. Content marketing is a marketing strategy aimed at customer wants and needs and solving their problems. Your content connects you to your customers and sets you apart from your competitors. Content should be relevant, timely, and entertaining, like customer testimonials, FAQs, and DIY videos. A CMS will make content marketing a lot easier than needing a developer to login every time you want to update content.

Digital Marketing Functionality

Digital marketing (which is essentially just marketing done via the internet) includes email marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click ads, etc. Redesigning your website so that it’s easy to engage in digital marketing — whether through plugins or integrations — will help you reach more customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is what drives users to your website when they perform a Google search. When someone enters “lawn care and landscaping businesses near me” into a search engine, does your website appear in the results? There are specific web design tools and techniques to help optimize your site, and many website builders (e.g. Wix, Squaresoace, WordPress, etc.) have built-in tools to help with this.

How Often Should Websites be Redesigned?

Some experts suggest a refresh every three to five years. However, if you have any reason to redesign your website, as listed above, it may be time. How much does it cost to hire someone to redesign a website? The cost depends on factors including the complexity of the site, the amount of content needed, the functionality you’re looking for (e.g. an e-commerce site will likely cost more than a site that won’t process sales), and how much work you are willing to take on yourself. For small businesses, a combination of DIY and a freelancer may be your least expensive option. Set a budget and contact your local Chamber of Commerce for web design companies.

Make a Good First Impression

Your website could be the first impression a potential customer has of your business. Assess whether your current website can make that a good first impression. If you’re doubtful, it’s time for a site redesign.
If you are a lawn care or landscaping business owner, turn to Green Group. We partner with lawn care businesses to invest in their people and processes. Check out our Learning Center for more business tips and tricks. We are Helping Happy Grow ®.