As a lawn care and landscaping professional, you know how to make any lawn look beautiful. However, do you know how to bring that same level of style and care to your website?
Even though lawn care is an outdoor service, most potential customers start their search for a landscaping company indoors, sitting in front of the computer. Roughly 75% of consumers consider website design when judging a company’s credibility.
Additionally, customers aren’t going to give your lawn care website design the benefit of the doubt. They’ll look at your site for just a few seconds. If it’s old, outdated, confusing, or plagued with other problems, potential customers will leave your page in search of a competitor.
Even if you’re hiring someone else to create your website, it’s still helpful to understand the basics. Here’s a closer look at ten key elements of the best lawn care websites from a design perspective, plus examples for each:
1. Showcase Your Lawn Care Services Clearly
You provide landscaping services. But what exactly does that mean? Some companies offer simple mowing and leaf blowing, while others offer a wider range of services such as tree removing, pest control, and more.
Your website is the ideal place to list all the services you provide. Salisbury Landscaping has created an excellent example of a detailed and informative Landscaping Services page. Each entry has a few sentences describing what the service is, but it’s not bogged down in excessive detail that takes a long time to read.
A service page can also help increase your ranking in the search results. When you describe a variety of landscaping services, Google considers you more of an authority and will rank your page higher than less descriptive sites.
2. Add Customer Testimonials (Slider Recommended)
People trust other people. Testimonials from satisfied have been a staple for business sites for many years. However, many web developers are embracing a new way to add them.
Instead of sticking testimonials on a separate page, the newest trend is adding them to slider bars that appear on every page. No matter where customers go on the site, they’ll see short testimonials from real customers.
All Outdoors uses slider testimonials well. Click around on the site. Soon enough, you’ll see testimonials. They’re informative and eye-catching but not overwhelming.
3. Establish Trust Indicators
Let’s be honest: anyone can build a basic website. Unfortunately, not everything online is trustworthy. While building trust often takes time, you can start the process from the moment a potential customer lands on your website.
Emphasis “trust indicators.” They’re a variety of messages that help reassure customers you’re who you say you are. Examples of trust indicators include:
- A physical address
- A phone number
- The owner’s full name
- Links to awards
- Testimonials and positive reviews
Check out High Tech Landscapes Inc. As you scroll down their home page, you’ll find a variety of trust indicators. First, they list a variety of testimonials. Next, they list over ten licenses related to their New Jersey business.
Does the average customer need to see those license numbers? Probably not, but they help increase trust significantly.
4. Create a Detailed About Us Page
It’s unlikely you’re the only lawn care company in your area. What’s the biggest factor that makes you stand out from the competition? While your prices and qualifications matter, people mainly want to do business with a company they feel personally connected to.
Use your About Us page to tell share information about who you are and why you love the services you provide. Don’t be afraid to get personal. Are you a third-generation landscaper? Have you been mowing lawns since you were a teenager? Tell your customers a story about why you’re different than other companies in the area.
EZ Lawn and Landscape has a personal, engaging About Us page where the owners talk about their family and their love for their community.
5. Maintain an Active Lawn Care Blog
Although not strictly a design element, your website should have an active blog section. Publish short, engaging articles about all aspects of lawn care. Topics to cover include:
- What lawn care services do customers need?
- How does the geography of the area affect landscaping?
- How do you find a reliable landscaping service?
The benefits of a blog are two-fold. First, they help position you as experts in your field. Also, they increase your perceived authority in the industry.
Check out the blog page for C&A Landscape. They post short articles designed for a general audience. Additionally, they add new articles frequently.
6. Showcase Landscaping Photos (Gallery Recommended)
Customers can’t see the services you’ll provide for their lawn until you complete the work, but viewing photographs of other completed projects helps inspire trust among potential customers. The best landscaping websites feature plenty of pictures.
You have a variety of options for displaying photos. Generally, before and after photos are often popular. You can also display photos of your team working, so the potential customer has an idea of what the process involves.
Landscapes by Design has an excellent photo gallery. The photos are clear and showcase plenty of detail. Plus, notice how easy the gallery is to browse. No matter what specific project you’re interested in, you can find plenty of examples.
7. Show Your Online Reviews
You don’t have total control over your reviews, which is why many businesses don’t put them directly on their homepage. However, highlighting reviews displays confidence that the majority of customers like the service you provide.
Check out Bonilla’s Landscapes, Inc. The first information you see when you land on their front page is that they have five-star ratings on Google, Yelp, and Facebook.
If you’re starting your lawn care business, you might not have a lot of reviews yet. A better option, in that case, is to ask for testimonials from customers. A testimonial is still effective at convincing potential customers that you run a trustworthy business.
8. Stay On Brand
Your company’s brand is the entire visual style and overall sensibility. It includes the name of your business, the colors, the fonts, the language used, and more.
TruGreen excels at staying on brand. Every page is white, green, and orange with a large, simple font. Is the most creative design on the internet? Far from it. However, it’s consistent, simple, and immediately identifiable.
9. Promote Snow Removal
Many people don’t associate snow removal with a lawn care company. However, snow removal is often a significant aspect of off-season business for many landscaping companies that operate in areas with cold weather.
Don’t bury (no pun intended) your snow removal services within your Services page. People don’t know to look for it there. Instead, create an obvious link on your main page, directing customers to a separate snow-removal page.
Notice how Hickman Lawn and Landscape LLC has a Snow Removal link at the top of every page on their site. If you’re looking for snow throwing, you can find information quickly. However, the link is also unobtrusive, so it won’t bother customers looking for other services.
10. Add Video Elements
Videos might not seem like an obvious choice for a lawn care website. After all, nobody wants to watch grass grow. However, you absolutely should include a few short videos.
Landing pages with embedded videos have an 80% increased conversion rate compared to pages without videos. Many internet experts confidently believe video is the future of the internet. Your competition probably isn’t as committed to video as they should be, so using video helps you stand out from the crowd.
You have a few options. Landscape Services of Nashville displays a long video detailing their services and company history. It’s an excellent example of how video can replace long passages of text.
You can also create more personal videos. As the owner of the company, you can talk directly to your potential customers. It’s like an About Us page, but people can see and hear you talk, which helps create a personal connection.
The Benefits of Using Field Service Management Software
You’re a lawn care professional, not a website designer. Even if you hire experts who specialize in websites for landscaping companies, your input is still required. Is there a way you can have a great online presence without having to spend a lot of time?
Field service management software is a powerful tool you can use to automate and manage a variety of business processes. You can find software created specifically for lawn care businesses such as Lawn Care Business Software from WorkWave. It tracks customer preferences, creates invoices, manages employees in the field, and much more.
Plus, it has a variety of marketing features. You can use it to help develop your brand, create blog posts that appeal to your target audience, and otherwise increase your connection to your customers. The features work well with lawn care websites. Using the design techniques above, along with field service management software, you can create a robust, engaging online presence quickly and easily. Contact WorkWave to schedule a free demonstration of their software so you can learn more.
