The Best Landscaping Websites
How do you build a great landscaping website? That's a question we've heard - and answered - dozens of different times.
The landscaping industry is an interesting one, with lots of different specialties, competitors, and marketing points to consider. As it turns out, there are some traits that all great landscapers websites tend to share. Let’s take a look at them, starting with the basics…
A Clean Focus and Marketing Message
Someone who visits your website should be able to tell immediately that your company provides landscaping services. And, they should get some sense of what makes you different than your competitors. That might mean highlighting areas you serve, the type of work you do, or the fact that you use quiet equipment and eco-friendly materials.
These are only examples, but they can lead you toward the kinds of issues you should be thinking about when discussing your landscaping website with a development team. Studies have shown again and again that a potential customer will usually only spend around three seconds on a new home page before deciding whether to read on or take their attention elsewhere. That means a prospect needs to have a clear and instant impression of your business, or the opportunity to be chosen could disappear.
Before you think about anything else that needs to go on your business website, give some thought to what you can do to make the focus of your landscaping company clear. Experiment with headlines, images, and other elements that draw viewers in without causing any confusion. Remember that the people who will hire you need solutions and information, so give them plenty of each.
Some Basics on Service (and Sometimes Pricing)
Once a prospect understands that you provide landscaping services, and work in their area, the next question they’ll have is whether you could be a good match for their needs. That will likely move them to examine a list of your services.
It might seem obvious to you what sorts of things your business should and shouldn’t do, but remember that there are a lot of companies and individuals offering landscaping services. Some might only mow lawns. Others will get involved in tree care and training. A few might fix driveways, clean gutters, or offer snow removal. Some will only work with residential customers, while others will provide quotes for large commercial and industrial spaces.
You get the idea. It’s important to have some basics on the services you do (and don’t) provide if you want your landscaping website to be effective.
Should you include pricing? This is always an ongoing debate, but as a rule of thumb you should only include price ranges if they represent a major selling point for your business. In other words, if you know you are charging less than the competition, you might include some rates in your website. Otherwise, it could be better to hint at things like bargains or premium service and invite prospects to request a quote.
Before-and-After Photos of Outdoor Spaces
It’s important to ensure that a visitor to your website can figure out exactly what your business is about and whether or not you can serve them. However, nothing sells landscaping services like a set of good before-and-after photos.
Obviously, you’ll want to choose pictures that show off your best work. You’ll need images that customers have approved, and preferably ones that show a dramatic improvement from the beginning of a project or season to the end. It’s even better if you can show off different kinds of spaces, unique features, and work done in different areas or seasons.
Don’t have high-res photos of your landscaping work ready to use? You could hire a photographer, take on a few discounted projects, or even get in the habit of snapping shots with your smartphone. Finding good web photos used to be incredibly difficult. Now, we all carry around the tools to get them in our pockets.
One thing you shouldn’t do is rely on stock photos for your landscaping website. Not only will this stop you from showing off your best work, but those can easily be traced back to image distribution sites. That means they could be copied by competitors or used as proof that you don’t stand behind your actual work.
Customer Stories and Feedback
Before-and-after photos grab attention from potential customers. Testimonials from real-life customers draw them in even further.
On the best landscaping web designs, text and photography work hand-in-hand to create impressions of quality work and strong customer care. Most people won’t notice customer feedback until they process the images on your website first. But, once they do, they can be persuaded to contact you by the kind words others have to offer.
The best customer stories go beyond simple compliments about your work. They talk about the way you approached the landscaping project, how quickly the job was done, and any follow-up service you might’ve provided. They should also reference things like the bargain you delivered for the price quoted, or how easy it was to deal with your employees.
Basically, you want to use customer feedback to show homeowners and business owners that they are making the right decision by hiring you and your team. No matter how impressed they are with the photos they see of your work, they’ll be more inclined to start paying you for landscaping if they have the impression that you are going to be easy to deal with.
A Way to Get Quotes for New Service
Probably the best outcome for a visit to your website would be that a potential customer decides to contact you for a visit and a quote for ongoing service. Given that you want to encourage this result, you should work with your web design team to ensure that it’s as simple as possible for visitors to request quotes directly through your website.
There are a number of different ways you can accomplish this, but probably the most frequent and effective is to simply have a button on each page that says something like “get a quote for landscaping service.” That’s clear and direct, making it hard for a potential customer to miss.
Most visitors to your website aren’t going to click this button right away, unless they happen to have been referred to you by someone they know. That’s actually a good thing – you don’t want homeowners or business owners who aren’t a good fit for your service filling up your inbox with questions that don’t actually apply to your company and/or services. If you follow the advice we’ve already given, that’s unlikely to happen anyway because they’ll be able to see what your company is about within a few seconds.
One more note on making it easy for customers to request quotes: Even if you prefer to receive inquiries via email, it’s a good idea to have a phone number displayed prominently on your website as well. Some people prefer that kind of one-on-one contact, or might have questions that aren’t easily explained in a written message.
Payment and Reservation Options
This is something that is often overlooked, but you can certainly include tools in your landscaping website that allow existing customers to make payments, change their billing details, or generate appointments for future services.
These kinds of additions are valuable for a couple of reasons. First, they make it easier and more convenient for customers to work with you. Some might want to schedule landscaping at a time when you aren’t in the office, or might be used to paying bills on evenings and weekends. Some will simply prefer paying bills online as a matter of course.
The other reason to include these features is that they can largely automate what would otherwise be time-consuming tasks. Why spend your days collecting credit card numbers over the phone when you could simply take payments on your website? With a few simple plugins you could free up all kinds of time for yourself and your staff, so why not make a couple of small upgrades to your landscaping web design?
Does Your Landscaping Company Website Need a Touch-Up?
Whether you just need to make a few adjustments or are starting from scratch, the experienced team at Weblinx can help. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and see how we have been able to help other landscapers just like you gain customers through smart, cost-effective online strategies.
It only takes a moment, and meeting with us could change everything in your business!
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