Secret Gardeners: How to Grow Your Landscaping Business with SEO

 

Ever feel like you're the best-kept secret in the gardening world? With so much digital noise these days, even the most seasoned landscaping pros can go unnoticed online.

That's where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in – the make-or-break factor separating the stunted green thumbs from the blossoming garden gurus.

With an SEO for garden services strategy tailored to your local market, you can finally enjoy season after season of lead generation blooms.

The SEO seeds you'll want to plant break down into three core categories:

Service Pages

These are the core pages explaining what you offer (e.g. lawn mowing, weeding, hedge trimming). Perform keyword research per service and craft detailed, location-specific pages loaded with those focus terms.

Local Pages

As a gardener, you'll want to capture local leads. Create hyper-local content by building out city/neighborhood pages explaining your service areas.

Blog Content

A frequently updated blog is SEO 101. Post about gardening tips, DIY projects, tool reviews – any relevant info showing your expertise. Just be sure to strategically sprinkle in keywords!

But content alone won't cut it. You need to nurture those pages with building – the analytical gardener's equivalent of sunshine and water.

Some fertile link-building opportunities for green thumbs include:

● Local Citations: Claim your Google Business Profile and get listed on major online directories like Yelp, Angie's List, etc.

● Local Partners: Collaborate on content or offer discounts with complementary businesses (e.g. nurseries, landscape architects).

● Local Publishers: Pitch gardening tips articles to community blogs and newspapers.

● Industry Links: Reach out to gardening blogs/sites to become a contributor or interviewee.

Still, feeling stuck in the gardening SEO weeds? Let's dig into a real-world example to see this strategy's rootbound potential.

Case Study: Bloom City Landscaping

When they first hired me, Bloom City Landscaping was invisible online. They had a basic website, but it was dense, cluttered, and bereft of usable content or local messaging.

My first step was pruning – clearing out the dead-weight pages. From there, I replanted with 10 service pages targeting geo-keywords like "residential lawn care Washington DC" and "DC mulching and edging services."

We established a consistent blogging cadence with posts like "Best Drought-Tolerant Plants for Maryland" and "How to Start a Vegetable Garden in Your Arlington Backyard." Each was laced with localized terms and internal links back to the corresponding service pages.

Finally, I executed a multi-pronged link-building blitz featuring:

● 15 new local directory citations

● 8 guest posts on DC/Maryland blogs

● Interviews/bylines on 5 gardening sites

● Co-marketing deals with 3 local nurseries

Within 9 months, Bloom City went from total SEO infertility to holding visible front page ranks for nearly 50 prime gardening keywords in their metro area.

Their organic traffic more than tripled, fueling a steady flow of landscaper leads that transformed the business.

Whether you're a solo weed warrior or a blossoming regional power, the blooms of SEO success lie waiting to be plucked. Sow the proper seeds and tend to your online garden's growth as diligently as any backyard oasis.

The rankings will come, the leads will sprout...and you'll go from local landscaping's best-kept secret to the name on every homeowner's green-thumbed lips.