SEO for landscapers and lawn care companies

Pick the primary category for the work that makes you the most money, then add the rest as secondary categories. Type your main service into the category field and read the options Google offers, because the list changes. A design-and-install company and a mowing-first company usually end up with different primary categories, and a company that plows adds a snow removal category for winter.

Before choosing, I look at the categories the companies ranking in your towns use, because that tells you what Google is matching for those searches. Then I add every service you do under each category, with a short description, so mowing, aeration, mulch, patios and plowing each show on the profile by name. I keep the primary category steady through the year and let the services list and profile posts follow the seasons.

A season ahead. The spring cleanup and mowing pages should be live and in Google’s index over the winter, and the snow removal page by late summer or early fall, before the first cold snap sends people searching. Google needs to find a page and decide it’s worth ranking, and that doesn’t happen the day you publish it.

The pages stay up year round. Out of season, each one says when you start booking and has a form to get on the list. That turns early searches into a waiting list and keeps the page’s ranking intact for next year. The only thing that changes with the season is your homepage and your profile posts, which point to whatever is current.

Recurring customers rarely think to leave a review, because nothing ends. So pick a moment. The end of the first month of service, after a spring cleanup, or after a patio is finished are the natural ones. A text with your review link goes out from the office that day. I write it.

Ask them to mention the service and the town, like “weekly mowing in Macomb Township” or “paver patio in Shelby Township.” That helps the next person searching there more than “great job.” Reply to every review with a short thank-you, and answer the bad ones calmly. Never trade a free mow or a discount for a review. Google doesn’t allow it.

No. Build town pages only for the handful of towns with the most customers or the jobs you want most, and only when you have something true to put on them: photos from jobs there, the neighborhoods you service, the kind of yards and lots common in the area. The rest of your area belongs on your profile’s service area list and in a line on each service page. A dozen pages with the town name swapped won’t rank, and customers can tell.