Let's talk about lawn care website design in 2021!
Many of the people shopping on iGoPro Lawn Supply are lawn and landscape business owners. We still cater to farms, municipalities, small engine repair shops, and homeowners!
Since the bulk of our customers are lawn care business owners, we thought we'd share some insight on what a lawn care website design should include in 2021.
Reference TwinPinesLawnandLandscape.com
The marketing team at iGoPro just completed another lawn and landscape website design service with SEO, Google Ads setup and management, and more.
Please reference twinpineslawnandlandscape.com to follow along and see how we implemented all of what we will discuss in this blog.
The 1st thing to understand is that a pretty website simply is not enough in 2021! In fact, having a pretty website with solid on-page SEO is not even enough in 2021.
That is why we never build a client "just a website." We always include free domain registration, web hosting, company emails, fully connecting and setting up all Google and Bing properties, key citations/directory listings, and optimizing their Facebook page for SEO.
How To Design A Lawn Care Website In 2021
Let's start with a fact - the majority of website visitors do not make it past the 1st page of the website!
We know that you know this so make sure anyone who lands on your homepage knows exactly what lawn services you offer and your service area. It should also go without saying that all of your contact options, including a contact form, are available on the homepage.
On-page and Technical SEO For Lawn Care Websites
Above the fold matters and Google has been indexing sites "mobile first" since 2018. "Above the fold" simply refers to what the website visitor sees before scrolling. Since we know Google is referencing the mobile version first (and only) you need to arrange the content to keep the most important stuff above the fold on mobile screen sizes!
Other optimizations that are very important for lawn care websites include optimizing page titles and meta descriptions, H tags, URL slugs, image file names, image alt tags, image file sizes (compress images - use appropriate file types like SVGs when possible), internal linking, and of course nailing the keywords you are focusing on with each page.
Each page of your website should focus on 1 keyword or keyword phrase. Do not cannibalize your SEO by creating pages about similar content.
Off-page SEO Optimizations For Lawn Care Websites
This is where most lawn and landscape companies fail with their online presence and website's SEO. There are several factors that will make a great difference as to how a website performs that do not occur on the website itself.
These off-page SEO items include creating key citations such as Angi.com (formerly Angie's List), Nextdoor.com, bbb.org, and Yelp.
And don't forget about the 2 big boys - Google My Business and Bing Places. This is how you get your business on Google Maps or Bing Maps, respectively.
Your business Facebook page matters whether you want it to or not, so optimize it. Most of these improvements are made in page settings but you should also post regularly, collect reviews, and create photo albums and videos for Facebook.
(We also market for Spokane's Finest Lawns!)
Online Reviews For Lawn Services Matter A Lot
Online reviews are a perfect example of real user signals. Other real user signals include click through rates, bounce rate, time on site, and page views.
We think a minimum number of reviews to get is 10 on Google. We've noticed a significant improvement in performance of our client's GMBs when they reach this threshold.
It's important to also get reviews on Facebook and Yelp as Bing will display these reviews in their search results. They could also possibly pull from HomeAdvisor or another major site like that.
BBB reviews are great if you are going after an older demographic. Nextdoor requires 3 "recommendations" before they will recommend your service organically on their platform when appropriate.
Collect Analytics Data Like A Pro
Google and Bing offer free tools for webmasters, AKA website owners!
These free analytic tools include:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
Installation and setup is a breeze if you are computer savvy. The data they provide will give you great insight as to how people are using your website, when the search engines are showing your website based on search queries, and how to improve your SEO if you know how to read and understand the data they provide.
Lawn Care Website Design Conclusion
In conclusion, lawn care website design in 2021 hasn't changed too much from the past couple of years.
In fact, we believe if you follow Google's webmaster best practices when building your website, it is going to perform well for years and years to come no matter what the next algorithm entails.
If you are looking for a lawn care website designer, contact our friends at Optimized SEO and Websites. They specialize in lawn and landscape websites since the owner built and sold his lawn care business before starting to offer online services to other lawn and landscape business owners.