What’s Wrong With Your Lawn Care Website?

You’re on the web. That’s a good start. Many of your competitor lawn care companies aren’t even that up on technology. But it’s not all you need to do to pull in customers. Your website needs to be optimized to pull in the amount and the type of customers you’re expecting. Tony Bass, successful lawn care entrepreneur and consultant, says there are the few rare exceptions, but most lawn care company websites don’t hit their expectations. In fact, in a study he did of 200 lawn care companies, he found that 80% of their websites lacked at least 4 of 5 crucial elements. From providing excellent Orlando lawn care services, we’ve learned a trick or two about building successful lawn care websites. So other than the basics, there are some certain things you can do technologically – might we recommend our free lawn care software to all lawn service professionals – to convert more customers online. So what can you do to succeed online?

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Why Your Website Isn’t Getting You The Customers You Expected

There’s no secret to creating an effective website. Really, you just need to implement a few tactics, and you’ll be reeling in customers online. Try these tips:

1. Make crucial information prominent

Your website is simply a step in the sales funnel. For it to be an effective one, you need to draw your leads to a call to action. Generally, this is a phone number they can reach you at. You can also have them fill out a form to receive and a quote (from there, you call them up as soon as possible while they’re still thinking about lawn care and haven’t passed you for the competition). At the very least, make some form of contact available, obvious, and front & center. Unless they can order lawn care service online, you’ll want to create an actionable step for your customers to follow.

2. Mobile optimization

Mobile is huge. Don’t miss out on it. In fact, most of Lawnstarter’s web traffic comes from mobile nowadays. Therefore, if you have a website that doesn’t convert to a mobile device, it’s not going to convert to a sale. Picture this: your potential customer is flipping through the websites of the top Google Local searches. They click on your website, but it’s entirely zoomed out and they can’t read anything. Bounce rates are high these days, because customers attention spans are shrinking. How long do you think they’re going to stick around through the inconvenience? Not long. Bonus tip: get your web designer to make your phone number large and clickable on mobile, so people can “click to call.” The path of least resistance happens to be the most fruitful path in marketing.

3. Keyword rich, not overload

The words you put on your website will help you rank on search engines for those terms. Things like “Austin Lawn Mowing” or “Round Rock Landscaping” will help you appear in Google Search for relevant terms. However, don’t go overboard, because Google will penalize you for being spammy. And whatever you do, promise me you won’t bold or capitalize all your keywords (more common than you’d think).

4. Content is King

Ever tried blogging? If not, it might be time to get started. Blogging is a fantastic way to reach long tail keywords. It’s also a great way to maintain engagement with your customers. In a competitive business like the lawn care and landscaping industry, it can be hard to different yourself from your competitors. One way to do this is by providing informative and valuable content through your website. Don’t ever feel like you’re giving away too much information, either. The DIYers won’t be converted anyway, but everyone else will be amazed at your knowledge and will trust your services more because of it. Selling, after all, is based on trust. If you don’t think you’ll have the time to blog, or you don’t want to whittle it away organizing, drafting, and editing, there are lawn care writers you can hire.

5. Design matters

Even though you’re not running a creative advertising agency or a photography studio, you’ll want your website to look good. We see way too many poorly designed websites. Especially with easy-to-use website builders like Wix, Wordpress, and Square Space, it’s amazing that some websites still look like they were designed in the 90s using clip art. This is just one more piece of polish on the overall product that you hope to sell. A compelling website is informative, actionable, AND well-designed.

6. Update your information

It’s looking like local is the future of search engine traffic. The previous tips will all help you with this, from sleek design, content, keywords, and user experience, but you can further optimize your site for local search with only a little bit more effort. When I say a little bit of effort, I mean you literally just need to make sure your business information is accurate across the web and on your site. Apparently, 50% of businesses have inaccurate listings. This is one easy way to make sure people are finding you online, as well as having the right information to contact you.

What do you do to keep an amazing and effective lawn care website? Comment below and let us in on the secrets!

Popular locations for lawn care services:

Hampton, VA Newport News, VA Williamsburg, VA
Fredericksburg, VA Springfield, VA

 

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Alex Birkett

Alex Birkett is marketer and writer. Aside from mowing lawns, he loves snowboarding, eating sushi, and lifting heavy weights. He moved to Austin, TX after graduating from the University of Wisconsin.