SEO Tips for Your Landscaping and Lawn Care Business

If you rely at all on digital marketing to grow your lawn care company, then you’ve probably heard about the important of search engine optimization or SEO. You may have even heard about the important of keyword research and about optimizing the content on your lawn care website.

As a landscaping and lawn care expert and business owner, you’re undoubtedly adept at a lot of things, and while you won’t be able to pull off what an SEO agency could, there are still a lot of SEO tricks and tips that can improve the amount of traffic you get to your website and the conversions that result. Here are some SEO tips and tricks just about any lawn care business owner can pull off. No coding knowledge required! But first, here’s a short explanation about what search engine optimization is and how it can help you.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization — or SEO — is an effort that takes place behind the scenes and on web pages with a goal of getting a website and its pages to rank higher in search engine results on Google search, Bing search, etc. Search engines are a primary way that your potential customers find out about the products and services they want to buy, and the higher you rank in the search results, the more customers you’ll get.

While there is a lot that goes into a comprehensive and expert SEO strategy, regular Joes and Janes can accomplish a lot on their own. Here are five tips you can employ that will boost your search engine results in no time.

Google My Business (GMB)

For any business with a local reach (e.g. landscaping businesses and lawn care companies), Google My Business (GMB) is essential. What is it? GMB is a free listing that you can claim and optimize so that when anyone queries Google with something along the lines of, “landscaping services near me”, your business will be among the local search listings.

Now, just having a GMB listing will do wonders for your local SEO efforts, but to really take advantage of it, you need to also do the following:

• Use your real business name
• Write an accurate description that lists your lawn care services and distinguishing selling points (e.g. why should someone pick your company?)
• Put your website in your listing
• List your local business phone number
• List your hours of operation and make sure they are correct
• Upload high-quality, professional photos and videos of your work
• Solicit reviews from satisfied customers

Add Title Tag and Meta Description

Ever notice the particulars of search results when you type a query into Google? The large blue text is taken from the title tag of each page listed in the search results, and the blue text beneath it is taken from the meta description of each page listed. When Google’s algorithm is “deciding” which pages to list in response to a query, the title tag and meta description inform the algorithm about what each page on your website is about. Including and updating the title tags and meta descriptions on each page on your website will help you rank higher. Here’s how to do it best:

• Title tags need to have 60 characters or less
• Meta descriptions should be between 120 and 160 characters
• The title tag should be the title of the page
• The meta description should be a summary of the page with a “call to action” that entices the searcher to click
• Titles tags and meta descriptions should both include queries/keywords you’d like to rank for
• Title tags and meta descriptions should all be unique — no duplicates across pages

Backlinks

A major way to improve your search engine optimization is to get backlinks from reputable sites. While you can pay companies that provide SEO services to do this for you, there are also creative and legitimate ways to get backlinks on your own.

Reach out to partners with websites. Do you purchase seed or equipment from another company in your town? Ask for a backlink and provide them one as well. Sponsor local softball tournaments, charity events, and the like and ask that your website be linked to through all their marketing and promotional materials. Reach out to industry publications, magazines, and websites. Reach out to podcasts and web series creators in the lawn care space and ask to be a guest.

While it can take some effort to get backlinks, the benefit is hard to overstate, so it’s well worth it.

Business Listings and Citations

Another way to get a jump on the competition when it comes to landscaping and lawn care SEO is to create accurate business listings and citations online. A citation or business listing is any online reference to your business that includes your business name, address, and phone number (NAP).

The majority of citations are in business directory listings, and some of them allow you to include other information beyond NAP, such as your website, social media handles, and sometimes descriptions of services.

Google My Business is a type of business listing and citation, but it is certainly not the only one. Others that are important to create and have include:

1. Facebook
2. Yelp
3. The Yellow Pages
4. The White Pages
5. Bing maps
6. Bing Places for Business

There are literally hundreds of places online that you could list your business information. Start with these six and branch out from there. One important thing to note: Don’t deviate from the format you use to list/cite your business. Inconsistent citations can have deleterious effects on your local SEO efforts.

Keywords and Content

Boosting your search engine rankings also relies on keywords and content. Where do you find the keywords that will boost rankings and assist in conversions. The best free tool is probably Google Keyword Planner, but if you’d like to get granular, tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are invaluable. Still, armed with just a little bit of keyword and search term knowledge can help you optimize your site tremendously and earn you new customers.

Here are some basic steps to take to improve your site’s content with lawn care-related keywords:

1. Do Your Research. Using a keyword research tool, find out what keywords are most applicable to your business.
2. Update Your Content. In a way that still reads naturally, update your website’s content so it includes more of the keywords you need to include.
3. Plan More Content. Set a blog post schedule that will add regular new content to your site that incorporates relevant keywords, while simultaneously addressing common customer problems. (See our Learning Center for examples.)
4. Post Regular Content. Create and post regular content to your site and your social media pages. Google loves fresh, keyword-relevant content, and you’ll be rewarded in search engine results for doing it.

So there you have it, an initial and mostly uncomplicated approach to improving SEO for your landscaping and lawn care business. While there is a lot more you could tackle — measuring results with Google Analytics should be a great next step — starting here will pay dividends.

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