Short version: landscaping customers come in two kinds, people planning a project and people who want the mowing handled, and Google can send you both if your profile says what you do. Keep one verified profile under your real name, set a service area, list design, installs and lawn care as separate services, fill it with photos of your own yards, and ask every customer for a review. If you touch sprinklers, show your irrigator license. Google says nobody can pay for a better map spot.
How Google picks which landscapers to show
Google says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity," meaning how well a profile matches the search, how close the business is to the person searching, and how well-known it is, partly from reviews and links (source). It also says "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."
For a landscaper, relevance is where the work is. "Landscape design," "sod installation," and "lawn care" are different searches from different customers. A profile that names the work you do matches more of them.
Step 1: Verify, and keep it to one profile
Google allows one profile per business; a profile it considers a duplicate "won't show on Google Search or Maps" (source). Crews that do both installs and maintenance sometimes try a second profile for the mowing side. Don't. List both kinds of work as services on one profile (Step 3).
Use your real business name, as it's on the trailer and the invoices. Google's guidelines say unnecessary information in the name isn't permitted and could lead to suspension (source).
Step 2: Set a service area, hide the yard address
Most landscapers run the business from a home or an equipment yard that customers never visit. Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its address from customers (source) and set a service area: up to 20 cities, ZIP codes or other areas, within about 2 hours' drive of your base, and not as a radius (source).
List the places your crews actually go each week. A weekly mowing route is tighter than the area you'd drive for a big install, so be honest about both in your service list and on your website.
Step 3: Category, then services for both kinds of customer
Google says to pick a primary category that best describes your business (source) and to use as few categories as possible to describe your core business (source). Start typing "landscap" in the category box and choose the closest match Google offers. Add a second category only if it's a real part of the business, like lawn care.
Then add services. You can choose Google's suggestions or write your own with a short description; Google rejects custom service names that contain prices or phone numbers (source). Split them the way customers search:
- Landscape design and planting plans
- Sod installation and lawn renovation
- Flower beds, mulch and seasonal color
- Hardscape: patios, walkways, retaining walls, if you build them
- Weekly or biweekly mowing and lawn maintenance
- Irrigation repair and installation, only with a licensed irrigator (Step 5)
Step 4: Photos are your portfolio
Google recommends photos to show what you offer and wants them clear, well lit and not heavily filtered (source). Landscaping sells on pictures more than almost any trade. Shoot the finished front bed from the street, the new lawn a few weeks after install when it's filled in, a patio at the end of the day, and the crew at work. Shoot the same spot before and after whenever you can.
Step 5: Irrigation work needs a TCEQ license, and your ads have to show it
In Texas, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality licenses irrigators, and says you can't sell, design, install, maintain, alter, repair, or service an irrigation system without a license (TCEQ). The state rule on advertising, 30 TAC §344.70, says ads for irrigation services must show the license number in the form "LI" followed by the number (30 TAC §344.70).
If a licensed irrigator is on your team, put the LI number in the profile description and on every page of your website that mentions sprinklers. If nobody is licensed, leave irrigation off your services list and refer that work out.
Step 6: Work with your town's watering rules
Water utilities set their own drought stages, and the rules change with conditions. New Braunfels Utilities, for example, moved to Stage 2, with sprinklers on a once-a-week schedule set by address (NBU; current stage). Link to your water provider's current rules on your website instead of copying the schedule, and say plainly how you plant and set controllers to fit them. A homeowner pricing new sod in a dry year wants to know it will survive.
Step 7: Reviews from every finished yard
Google says replying to reviews shows customers you value them (source), and gives every business a shareable review link and QR code (source). Ask when the install is done and the customer is walking the yard with you, or after the third or fourth mowing visit for maintenance clients. Text the link the same day.
Google's policy bans offering a discount, a free mow, or anything else for a review, and bans asking only the happy customers (source). More: how to get more Google reviews as a contractor.
Step 8: A website with two front doors
A website isn't required, but Google says it fills in profile information partly from crawled web content, including a business's official website (source). For a landscaper, give the project customer and the maintenance customer their own pages: a design-and-install page with a gallery and an estimate form that takes yard photos, and a lawn care page with how often you come and how billing works. Keep the name and phone identical to the profile, and check that it loads quickly on a phone (source).
Step 9: Watch the searches that found you
Performance shows profile views, the searches people used to find you, and call taps (source). If "lawn care" searches find you but you only want installs, that tells you the profile description and services need to lead with design work. Compare call taps with your own call log; taps aren't answered calls.
Mistakes we see on landscaping profiles
- Two profiles, one for "landscaping" and one for "lawn care" (source).
- Irrigation listed with no licensed irrigator on the team (source).
- Stock photos of yards the crew never touched (source).
- A free mow traded for a five-star review (source).
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