Landscapers and lawn care
Local SEO for landscapers and lawn care companies.
A hardscaping project averages $8,000 and a mowing visit averages $50. Running one marketing plan across both is why most landscapers conclude that leads are too expensive. We rank you for the jobs that carry the margin.
- $8,000
- average hardscaping project, against a $50 mowing visit
- ~$240
- what you can afford per lead on those projects and still profit
- $25 to $75
- what a landscaping lead actually costs in most markets
- $10K to $500K
- annual value of a commercial maintenance contract
What you can afford to pay to win one project
This is the calculation most landscapers have never run, and it changes what you are willing to do to be found.
| Average hardscaping project | $8,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Close rate on qualified enquiries | 30% | |
| Leads needed per won project | 3.3 | |
| So your affordable cost per lead is about | $240 | |
| What those leads actually cost | $25 to $75 | the gap is the opportunity |
You can afford roughly $240 a lead. The market charges you $25 to $75.
That gap is the entire argument, and it exists because most landscapers price their marketing against a mowing round instead of against a patio. The same reasoning applies to outdoor kitchens, retaining walls, irrigation and full garden design. Rank for those and the economics stop being tight.
Assumes a 30% close rate on qualified enquiries. If you close at 15% your affordable lead cost halves, which is still several times what the market charges. Run it with your own close rate.
Not all landscaping leads are the same purchase
The same lead costs wildly different amounts depending on which job it turns into.
- Weekly mowing round, per visit
- $40 to $90
- Typical landscaping lead cost
- $25 to $75
- Affordable lead cost on hardscaping
- ~$240
- Average hardscaping project value
- $8,000
Spring is won in autumn
Rankings take weeks to move. The season does not wait, and by the time the phone should be ringing it is already too late to start.
Autumn
Build the position
Profile, coverage and review work happens now, while jobs are still routine and there is time to ask satisfied customers for anything.
Late winter
Be found first
Homeowners start planning spring projects six to eight weeks before they call. Whoever holds the map pack then collects the enquiries for the whole season.
Spring and summer
Convert and contract
The rush arrives and your share of it is already fixed. The work now is turning project clients into annual maintenance agreements.
The work that fills a landscaping schedule
Project pages for the work with margin
Patios, retaining walls, outdoor kitchens, irrigation, full garden design and turf installation. Each is a distinct search with real volume and far less competition than landscaper near me, and each is worth multiples of a maintenance round.
A commercial page that speaks to a facilities manager
Contracts running $10,000 to over $500,000 annually are not won by the same page that sells a homeowner a lawn. Different language, different proof, different search behaviour, and almost nobody in your market has built one.
Google Business Profile built around real projects
Every service listed individually, service areas defined by the suburbs you actually cover, and a photo library of finished work rather than stock lawns. Homeowners are buying an outcome they cannot picture until they see it.
Suburb by suburb coverage
Landscaping is proximity driven and route density decides your margin. We measure where you rank across the suburbs you can service efficiently and close the gaps, rather than chasing work an hour away.
Review volume built in the quiet months
Reviews order the map pack and they are far easier to collect in September than in the middle of a spring backlog. Timed properly this is the cheapest ranking lever you have.
Seasonal service visibility
Spring cleanup, leaf removal, snow clearing and irrigation start up all have sharp seasonal search peaks. Ranking them turns the same customer list into four revenue events a year instead of one.
Four different buyers, four different searches
| Search type | What they type | Where their head is at | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project | patio installation, retaining wall builder, landscape design near me | Planning a specific investment, comparing two or three quotes. | Highest |
| Commercial | commercial landscaping contract, grounds maintenance company | Facilities manager, business hours, procurement process. | High |
| Maintenance | lawn mowing service near me, garden maintenance [suburb] | Wants it handled, price sensitive, high lifetime value if retained. | Medium |
| Seasonal | spring cleanup, leaf removal, snow removal near me | Sharp seasonal spike, easy upsell to an existing customer list. | Medium |
The first 90 days on a landscaping company
- Days 1 to 30
Audit and foundations
Profile and citation audit, service area and service entries corrected, ranking measured across the suburbs you can profitably reach, project photography assessed.
- Days 31 to 60
Project coverage
Pages built for the high value project work, commercial page created, review request routine installed while the schedule still allows it.
- Days 61 to 90
Authority and timing
Citations and local links, profile posting, everything positioned to land before the pre season planning window opens.
- Ongoing
Seasonal rotation
Coverage extended suburb by suburb, seasonal services pushed on their own calendar, grid re measured monthly.
Local SEO for landscapers, answered
What can we actually afford to pay for a lead?
Far more than most landscapers think, provided you know which job you are buying. On a hardscaping project averaging $8,000 with a 30% close rate you need roughly 3.3 leads per job, which means you can spend around $240 a lead and still be well ahead. On a $50 mowing visit you can spend almost nothing. The mistake is running one marketing budget across both and concluding that leads are too expensive.
Should we be chasing maintenance or design and build?
Rank for both, but understand what each one is for. Maintenance is low ticket and high frequency, and its real value is that it makes the customer yours for every future job. Design, hardscaping and outdoor living carry the margin. The strongest position is ranking for the big jobs and converting those clients onto an annual maintenance agreement, which is what turns a one off project into a decade of recurring revenue.
Our work is completely seasonal. Does ranking help in winter?
It helps most in the eight weeks before the season starts, which is exactly when most landscapers begin thinking about marketing and are already too late. Rankings take weeks to move. Work that begins in February arrives after the spring rush has been allocated. The operators who own their market start in autumn, and in snow regions they use the same rankings to sell snow removal to the customers they mowed for.
Is commercial work worth ranking for separately?
Yes, and it is a completely different page. Commercial contracts run from $10,000 to over $500,000 a year and are essentially all recurring. The searcher is a property or facilities manager working in business hours with a procurement process, not a homeowner browsing on a Sunday. One page cannot speak to both, and almost every landscaping site tries.
How does a small crew compete with the big local operator?
By not competing where they are strong. The large operator usually holds the head term in the main town and neglects the outer suburbs, the specific services and the review recency. Proximity is heavily weighted, so a two crew operation can own its surrounding suburbs outright while the big name rings up leads it cannot service quickly. That is a winnable fight and it is where we start.
Find out what you rank for beyond mowing.
We will measure your position across the project searches that carry real margin, check your coverage across the suburbs you can service efficiently, and show you what spring could look like.