Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows you to place an ad on a website or on Google’s search engine results. You only pay when a consumer clicks on your ad.

The best PPC ads for landscapers tend to be Local Services ads and Search ads. These ads allow you to show up natively on Google’s results page. Local Services ads showcase your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing information, including your location and reviews, while Search ads can showcase any page you choose from your website.

Benefits

• Immediate results: When you place an ad, you’re paying for your spot. That means as soon as you start paying, you’re likely going to see more clicks.

• Improved visibility: If you’re struggling to rank organically for key terms, a PPC ad can grab that top spot while you work to optimize your website to earn it for free.
• Stay competitive: Queries that are highly competitive may have 3–5 ads before showing organic results. Depending on the terms you want to rank for, it may be beneficial to run ads for those that have steep competition.

Depending on your goals as a landscaper, you’ll want to consider creating social media profiles on the following platforms:

• Facebook/Instagram (Meta): Both owned by the same parent company, Facebook and Instagram are great tools to showcase beautiful lawns and help your followers connect with the people behind the business. Facebook in particular also allows you to solicit reviews from past customers. Google’s algorithm is now indexing public Instagram accounts, so if you’re location-tagging your posts on your business account, it should help your local SEO.

• LinkedIn: If hiring is important for your business, consider creating a LinkedIn profile to expand your reach.

• YouTube/TikTok: Depending on your brand persona and proficiency with video software, a YouTube or TikTok account could help you showcase your success in a way that feels more personal to users.

Once you decide on the platforms you want to invest in, you’ll need to decide on your strategy. There are three different ways to use social media for your business:

• Owned social media: These are the profiles that you’ve created and run for the business. You may decide to make posts, engage with customers, or solicit reviews on your profile.

• Earned social media: This consists of the chatter that develops naturally around your brand. Maybe someone posts a picture of their lawn on Instagram and tags your business account. You don’t own that image or post, but you did earn it through your great work—and that type of earned engagement makes it easier to engage other users as well.

• Paid social media: Paid social is a form of advertising in which you purchase ad space on a social media platform. The ad may play before a video or appear natively in a user’s feed.

Social media is a great way to engage with the community and boost brand awareness. Be warned, though—social media algorithms vary, so what works on one platform may not work on another.

Benefits

• Increased brand engagement: Get more interactions from consumers and watch word-of-mouth marketing take off in a digital space

• Boost backlink opportunities: The more people link to your website, the more trustworthy Google considers your website to be. These links are called “backlinks,” and social profiles that link to your website are a great way to increase them.

Show off your personality: Showcase the people behind the incredible work you do, and watch as your community rallies around to support them.

Have a new deal you want to promote? Ready to introduce a new service? Email marketing can be used to educate, connect, or remind consumers who are already aware of your brand.

Email marketing is different from most other methods because the people seeing your email have already subscribed. They’re already interested in your business and what they have to say.

Benefits

• Target “warm” leads: Your subscribers have already decided they want to hear from you, so they’re likely “warmer” leads than someone scrolling past a social media ad in their feed.

• Deepen customer loyalty: Increase your client retention by staying in touch with the consumers who’ve used you in the past.
• Increase brand recognition: Stay top of mind for consumers who’ve already heard of you.

We live in a digital world, but that doesn’t mean that print or traditional marketing has become obsolete. For landscapers, it’s just another tool in the toolbox. Whether you’re considering direct mail, flyers, signage, billboards, brochures, or ads in newspapers or magazines, there are tried and true ways to help your local community learn about your business.

Benefits

• Higher viewing frequency: You can’t scroll past something you get in your physical mailbox. 

• Increase brand reputation: Communities notice (and reward) the companies that pay for ads in the local newspaper or buy a sponsorship for the local high school basketball team. 

• Targeted geographic outreach: You don’t have to worry about getting calls about a mowing job out of state if you’re focusing on sending mailers within a 15-mile radius of your office.