As a Niagara web design company, we've had many landscaping companies come to us that have already a bit of search engine optimization general knowledge and ask, "what are the best SEO (search engine optimization) techniques that I can use for my landscaping business?"
We've had other landscapers with less SEO knowledge instead ask us, "how can effective search engine optimization help my landscaping business?"
TL;DR - 5 effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for landscaping companies and landscapers are:
Before we dive into what we believe are some of the most effective SEO search engine optimization techniques for landscaping companies at the time of this post, some of our audience reading this post may not know what SEO or search engine optimization is.
So, let's do a quick once-over!
Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is the process of improving your website in a few different ways in order to bring more local or non-local traffic to it.
In other words - help rank your website on the first page of Google so your customers see you when they search for a landscaper or landscaping company.
And if your landscaping company is visible where people look - hint, on the first page of Google - you'll be getting a lot more leads, calls and emails, which translates to more revenue for your landscaping company.
What landscaping company doesn't want that - right?
SEO - not only for for landscapers or landscaping companies, but just in general is so important in this day and age for a couple of reasons.
Two main reasons why SEO is important, especially local SEO
Let's run a quick scenario here.
Let's say you're a potential customer and you want some landscaping work done on your home. Or maybe you're a business owner and want some commercial landscaping done for your business.
What are you going to do first?
You're going to Google "Niagara landscaping company", "landscapers near me", "landscaping company Niagara".
The first thing you're going to do is Google your city + whatever you need. Because that's what people do now.
You, me, everyone.
We recently helped out a company in the landscaping niche, specifically custom home building. They wanted a brand new website, and they wanted to rank high in Google for some local keywords.
They knew how valuable ranking on the first page of Google was, because they knew that's where their customers were searching for their services.
We obtained from pretty good search engine optimization results for them, and at this point in time they rank not only in the Google Map pack, but also rank on the first page of Google for a number of different local keywords.
SEO is so important for landscaping companies and landscapers because it positions their business where people are searching.
And once you're there, you'll never have to worry about ebbs & flows in jobs again. Because you'll always be where people are looking.
Okay - now that you have a good grasp on what SEO / search engine optimization is, and how valuable it is for your landscaping company, let's dive into the top 5 most effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for landscaping companies.
I can't tell you how many times, specifically going to a landscaping company's websites, where I've seen so much wrong from a user experience standpoint.
The content is scattered. There's not enough content. The navigation is confusing. The images are huge thus creating slow page loading. There's no SSL certifications. The website isn't mobile friendly. The colours are all off. There's no content that pulls people in. The web design is outdated and doesn't impress.
And that's just the tip of the ice berg.
Users want one thing from your website - the want to get in, find the information they need, and get out.
Or - instead of get out, contact you.
But having a landscaping website that is not easy to navigate or use, or doesn't impress - in which case creates roadblocks for your potential customers.. that's a really bad thing.
So bad, that they may just.. leave your website and go somewhere else. And that somewhere else is - you guessed it -
Your competitors.
Improving your landscaping website's user experience is absolutely key if you want to attract new customers and have them contact you.
If you have a website that's lacking, you won't get customers. If you have a website that's amazing, you'll get more customers.
It's that simple.
Not only does having a website with a great user experience significantly help convert users into customers..
Having a website that performs well from a technical standpoint greatly helps your website's search engine optimization efforts.
This is actually - in my opinion - one of the most important SEO techniques that any landscaping website needs.
You can do all the other SEO techniques to help your landscaping company's website rank on the first page of Google. But if the actual code - the actual foundation of your website is garbage (looking at your WordPress, Wix and Squarespace), then all those efforts will be wasted.
Before you embark on any other search engine optimization techniques, you need to make sure your website is built properly.
And by that I mean, not using a website builder like Wix, Squarespace or WordPress.
Page builders like those greatly affect your website's performance - things like page speed, page load times and more are negatively affected when using platforms like the above. The reason is, the foundation and code that page builders use are so bulky and slow. They're just not performant in any way, shape or form.
And to make things better, page speed and page load times are key SEO ranking factors when it comes to ranking on the first page of Google.
So if you have a website that is custom coded, clean and fast - you will rank better in Google.
If you have a website that uses a page builder like Wix, Squarespace or Wordpress - you won't rank as well, or at all.
It's super important that your landscaping company's website is cleanly coded in order to maximize your SEO efforts. It's a great SEO technique that we here use when build out our websites.
Once you have a website up for your landscaping company that is technically performant and has a great user experience, you will want to build local SEO city landing pages to help target people in local areas that are searching for landscaping services.
We've actually done this for not only our clients, but even our own website.
We built a city-based landing page to capture Grimsby-based clients, that focuses around the keyword "Grimsby web design".
At the time of this post, the page ranks #1 on the first page of Google for that keyword - and we get consistent inquiries from people living in Grimsby that need a new website.
It's not only because we just built a random page, but we know how SEO search engine optimization works. That's why it ranks so well.
The great part of owning a landscaping company is that your work is local.
And having city pages built into your landscaping website, for cities that you service, is a great way to expand your reach.
We recommend 5-10 unique city pages for the clients we work with. Imagine being on the first page of Google for 10 cities?
That's a lot of reach. And that's a lot of new, consistent revenue for your landscaping company.
You may be asking, "what is a backlink?" - and "why does my landscaping website need them"?
If you get a website built, and your friend's website puts a link that goes to your website from their website, that's a backlink.
It's that simple.
Part of how Google ranks websites is not only the quantity of backlinks a landscaping company's website may have, but also the quality of those backlinks.
Example - say if I own a landscaping company and I get the flower shop across the street to link to me.
That's not a great thing for my SEO - why?
Well, is it a backlink? Yes. But it's not a relevant or quality backlink.
The flower shop across the store is a small business. It also has nothing to do with landscaping.
But what if a large, landscaping supply company wrote about my landscaping company, and in that article linked out to my website?
That's an amazing thing for your SEO.
Why? Well, it's a large, prominent company - and it's a large, landscaping supply company.
It's relevant, and it's quality.
The more relevant and quality websites you have pointing to your website - in other words, the more authority a website has that points to you, that tells Google that you must be important.
And Google favours importance when it comes to displaying landscaping companies in search results.
The more (and of more quality) backlinks you have, the higher chance of your landscaping company being on the first page of Google.
Adding local schema to your website - especially if you're a local landscaping company - can be a huge factor in terms of ranking on the first page of Google.
What is it, though?
Local schema are a set of data that when implemented into your website properly, allows you to create enhanced local descriptions of your website - otherwise known as 'rich snippets'.
In this day and age, schema is especially important in how a search engine interprets the context of your landscaping website's code that determines the quality of a search result.
In other words - if you make it easier for Google to read and interpret your website, chances are they'll favour your landscaping website.
And what happens when Google favours a website?
They'll rank it higher.
First off, leave it up to a professional.
There's been countless times I've seen people that don't know what they're doing - web developer or client - that attempt to do search engine optimization on their own.
More often than not, those websites get permanently blacklisted from Google.
How awful is that?
We do SEO - it's one of the things we excel in and can do for your landscaping business. And we do it right.
In terms of the technical aspect, you don't just 'add SEO' to a website.
Integrating SEO is partially a website thing - meaning you absolutely do optimize your landscaping website for SEO, but there's a lot of 'off-page' search engine optimization work that goes into SEO efforts as well.
It's no different for a landscaping company.
They key is to make sure it's done properly, and spread over time in order to rank not only your landscaping company website, but any website period.
Entirely depends on the SEO company you decide to work with.
However, I will repeat the old-age saying of, "you get what you pay for".
We've inherited clients where someone charged them $200 for SEO. The results were not only lackluster (they weren't found at all in Google's search engine), but they also damaged the reputation of the company.
So, usually when a company charges more for a service, you get better quality and better results.
It also depends on your search engine optimization goals, and the amount of work involved to get you there.
Are you ranking on the second page for some keywords and want to get up to the first page? It may not be that difficult, depending on the competition.
Do you have a brand new website and you're not ranking at all? Well, that's arguably a lot more work.
All in all, it completely depends where your landscaping company is at in terms of current Google rankings, and where your landscaping company wants to be.
Again, this entire depends on how competitive it is in in your area.
It also depends on how many landscaping companies are actively trying to rank in Google, and stay there.
If there's not much competition in your area, and / or you live in a small area? You can probably start to see a massive increase in your Google rankings in under 3 months.
Live in large city with lots of competition? At least a year.
We find that it can take anywhere from 6-12 months to start seeing any sort of meaningful results.
This isn't because we work slow - we work consistently. It's just the nature of SEO. It takes a while for Google to trust a website, and serve them up in the first page of their search engine.
They won't just serve up any results first. You need to be trustworthy and credible.
Therefore, it just takes time for your landscaping company to rank.
We've gone over a lot here! So we're hoping that you've learned a bit here and can apply it to your landscaping company.
So all in all - improving your website's user experience, building a performant website, targeting local areas with local SEO city pages, getting relevant and quality backlinks and implement local schema are 5 effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for landscaping companies.
These techniques - if applied correctly - should help increase your ranking in Google.