How to Get All the Leads You Need from Google Without Losing Your Shirt: A Guide for Landscapers

If you’re a landscaping business owner wondering how to finally grow your company, this is for you.

I spent 20 years remodeling homes, but there was a period during the 2008 housing crisis when my family and I did a lot of landscaping work. When I eventually started helping other contractors with their marketing, landscaping quickly became my favorite industry. Why? Because it was so easy to get lots of leads. Made it easy to keep my clients happy, if you know what I mean.

One of my original clients from the early days was a guy named Aaron. He had a pretty successful lawn mowing business and was looking to expand into other areas—landscape design, hardscaping, retaining walls, snow removal, that kind of thing. We applied our standard marketing process to his business, and literally overnight, everything changed.

He went from $400,000 to over $2.4 million in just a couple of years.

In this guide, I’m going to show you exactly what we did for his marketing and why it worked so you can do the same for your business. This strategy works well for multiple types of landscapers—whether you’re a full-service general landscapig company or you only handle a specific niche, this will work for you.

The Pyramid: How This Strategy Works

The strategy can be best described using a triangle or pyramid. If you’ve seen my other content, you know I love this pyramid thing.

The bottom of the pyramid is what we call the foundation, because everything else is built on top of it. Just like when you’re installing pavers—if you don’t have a strong foundation and the base is weak, the rest of it will eventually crumble, become uneven, and not be usable.

The foundation is made up of three components, and the goal is to get your company showing up on Google Maps:

1. Your Google Business Profile
2. Reviews on the profile
3. A website with the right search engine optimization

Once that foundation is solid, you move up to the second level: Local Service Ads. And when that’s maxed out, you hit the third level: Google Ads.

Let’s break down each piece.

Google Business Profile: 3 Tips to Set It Up Right

1. Choose the Correct Target Area

It’s very common for contractors to set a huge target service area when setting up their Google Business Profile. The thinking is, “I want leads in this entire area, so I’ll set my radius as far as I’m willing to drive.”

That’s not how Google actually works.

If you look at measuring tools like Local Falcon, you’ll see that Google shows you in a radius around your location regardless of what you set it to. If you’re in a highly populated area with tons of competition, you might only show up in a 3-mile radius. If you’re out in the middle of nowhere with little competition, you might cover 100 miles. It just depends.

The point is to understand how big of a radius you actually cover so you can help Google help you. Setting your target area to match reality—rather than wishful thinking—makes a difference.

2. Choose the Correct Categories

In Aaron’s case, before we worked together, he had only chosen lawn mowing as his category. But there were a bunch of other categories available—landscape design, hardscaping, and more.

It’s important to choose categories for the jobs you actually want—specifically, the jobs that make you money. Don’t just select every category because you can. Prioritize based on what’s going to be most profitable, then work your way down.

If you’re in a competitive area, some categories will be more competitive than others. Sometimes it makes sense to niche down and focus on the less competitive categories where you can actually win.

3. Fill Out All the Correct Information

This seems like a no-brainer, but spend real time on it. You need to completely fill out your entire profile and make sure every field is filled in correctly to the best of your ability.

Don’t wing it. Don’t just breeze through. This profile will continue working for you long after you set it up, so put in the effort upfront.

Reviews: The Trust Factor Nobody Can Fake

How Many Reviews Do You Actually Need?

Think about your own behavior. When you search for something on Amazon or Google, what’s the first thing you look at? The reviews. And if you see a product or company with zero reviews sitting next to one with a thousand, your brain doesn’t even register the first one. It’s invisible.

So the first answer to “how many reviews do I need?” is simple: enough to not be ignored. You need a competitive amount just to get considered.

The second goal is to have more than everyone else. Search for “landscaper near me” in your area. If the top companies have 50 reviews, your target is 60. That’s the number to beat.

Now, some of you will do this search and see competitors with 1,000 or 2,000 reviews. Your heart will sink. You’ll think there’s no way you can compete with that, so why even try? And just like that, they’ve already beaten you—not because they’re better, but because they were so far ahead you gave up before starting.

Think long term. I have a client who just passed 150 reviews. He’s been in business about a year. He works by himself. If one guy can do that solo, imagine what you can do with a team and some volume behind you.

The Stupidly Simple Secret to Getting More Reviews

You have to ask. That’s it. Ask for a review every single time, from every single person you can.

Did you do a job for a household with three people in it? See if all three will leave a review. Did you give an estimate to someone who decided not to move forward because you talked them out of an unnecessary project? Ask them too. Say something like, “It sounds like I helped you avoid spending a ton of money on this. Do you feel like I earned a review? It really helps me out.”

Wake up every morning thinkinng, “Who’s going to leave me a review today?” Do that consistently, and you’ll become one of those companies with so many reviews that your competitors don’t even bother trying to catch up.

Your Website: Where Trust Gets Built or Broken

Your website with proper search engine optimization is the third foundational component. This topic goes deep, but here are the three essentials.

1. It Has to Look Professional

If you slap together a GoDaddy template with a stock photo and two lines of text, your website is going to look terrible and nobody will trust you. Every company has a website these days. The bar is high. People expect you to look legit.

That means no glaring errors, no wall-to-wall stock photos, and show your face. You’re asking people to let you onto their property. They want to know who they’re hiring.

2. It Has to Clearly State What You Do and Where

This sounds overly simplistic, but you’d be amazed how many landscaping websites fail at this. Your website needs to explicitly state that you provide landscaping services (or hardscaping, or lawn care, or whatever you do) in the specific locations where you work.

“Hardscaping services in [Your Town].” You have to say it. The structure of your pages and all your content needs to support this message clearly.

3. It Has to Contain the Right Trust Signals for Google

Google’s search algorithm is complex, but one of the most critical components is your NAP info—name, address, and phone number.

Is your company name on your website? Your phone number? Your address? Good. Now here’s where it gets important: every other place your business appears online—your HomeAdvisor listing, Yelp, Facebook page, contractor’s license database, whatever—needs to show the exact same name, address, and phone number.

If your Facebook page has a different phone number than your website, Google notices. And when Google isn’t sure which information is correct, it plays it safe by not showing either one.

Make it easy on Google. Keep your information accurate and consistent across the entire internet. That consistency is a huge factor in getting Google to trust your website, which directly affects whether you show up on Google Maps.

The Foundation in Action

When you lock down your Google Business Profile, pile on those reviews, and build a professional website optimized for Google, those three things combined get you leads on Google Maps. Google starts showing you all over the place to people actively searching for your services.

This is exactly what we did for Aaron in the early days. The result? He booked 69 estimates in 22 days after launching his website. And these weren’t just lawn care quotes—most were for higher-ticket services like complete landscapes, retaining walls, and commercial contracts.

His business exploded. And in the years since, he’s grown over 6x by riding that wave. As the company grew, he moved into the next levels of the pyramid.

Local Service Ads: Pay-Per-Call Advertising Done Right

Local Service Ads (LSA) is Google’s newest advertising option, and it works on a pay-per-call basis.

When someone searches “landscaper near me,” the first two results that show up are typically Local Service Ads. Homeowners can see your reviews and contact you via phone call or message. The moment they contact you, you pay Google for that call.

This is a fantastic way to get into advertising because the risk is incredibly low. You’re paying for actual calls, not just visibility. If you don’t get calls, you don’t pay money. Compare that to other advertising options where you can dump a bunch of money in and get nothing back.

The 4 Steps to Using LSA Properly

Step 1: Get Approved

Go to Google, search for “local service ads,” and fill out the application. You’ll need to provide your contractor’s license, proof of insurance, and complete a background check. Once you clear those hurdles, Google lets you create your profile and start buying calls.

Step 2: Set Up Your Profile and Dial In Your Settings

The main settings to focus on are your target service area and your category.

For your service area, this is the opposite of Google Maps strategy. With LSA, you want to target the biggest area possible—basically anywhere you’re willing to buy calls. Select all those areas.

For categories, similar to your Google Business Profile, you’ll choose what services you want calls for. Consider starting with just one category—your most valuable one—and see if you can spend your entire budget on calls for that service before expanding.

You can also adjust your budget and cost-per-call settings. Increasing your cost-per-call gets you more calls; decreasing it gets you fewer. Just remember you’re competing with other landscapers in your area. If they’re willing to pay $100 per call and you’re only willing to pay $50, Google is going to sell them most of the calls.

Step 3: Answer the Phone and Use the Dashboard

I have clients who don’t answer the phone, and Google stopped sending them calls. Even though they were willing to pay, Google doesn’t want to give their customers a bad experience by sending them to companies that don’t pick up.

Answer professionally. And be careful what you say—Google records all these calls, and AI reviews them.

If someone calls for a service you don’t provide, be very clear: “I’m sorry, we don’t provide that service. You’ll need to call someone else.” End the conversation there. If you spend 10 minutes helping them even though they can’t hire you, Google will still charge you for that lead.

As much as it might feel wrong to not help every caller, that’s how Local Service Ads works.

Step 4: Track and Label Every Call

Log every call that comes in. Note which ones turn into estimates, which turn into jobs, and how much money you made from those jobs.

At the end of the month, quarter, or year, you can crunch your numbers and know exactly what you put in versus what you got out. That’s how you budget intelligently going forward.

LSA can be an insane tool. I talked to a client a few weeks ago who got over 200 calls from Local Service Ads in a single month. That’s 6-7 calls per day, every day. I had to point out that his job had essentially become answering phones and selling all day—he probably needed to hire someone to handle that. Sometimes we all need help seeing the obvious.

Google Ads: Paying for Chances

Once Local Service Ads is maxed out, the next level is Google Ads—also called PPC, which stands for pay-per-click. I call it pay-per-chance.

For that same “landscaper near me” search, you can pop your website link up at the top, right below the Local Service Ads. If someone clicks that link, you pay money and they go to your website.

But here’s the catch—just because they visit your website doesn’t mean they’ll contact you. In fact, most people who visit your website won’t contact you. That’s why it’s called pay-per-click. You pay for clicks whether or not someone becomes a lead.

That’s why I prefer Local Service Ads for beginners—you’re paying per lead, not per chance. But when LSA is maxed out, you need to start paying for chances.

The law of averages makes this work. On average, for every certain number of clicks you buy, you’ll get a lead. How many clicks it takes depends on factors like your website quality. But if you buy enough clicks, you’re guaranteed to get leads eventually. It’s a solid advertising option and very profitable for clients who use it properly.

3 Tips for Google Ads Success

Tip 1: Choose Keywords That Lead to Closed Deals

If someone searches “landscaper near me,” they’re probably looking to hire a landscaper. Good keyword.

But if someone searches “how much does it cost to remove a tree,” that’s a research keyword. They’re just wondering about prices—they’re not close to buying. They probably won’t contact you, but you still pay for that click.

Whether you’re setting up your account yourself or working with an agency, make sure you’re only buying clicks for keywords that actually lead to jobs and money.

Tip 2: Use Phone Extensions

A phone extension puts your phone number right on the ad itself. The person can either click through to your website or just click to call directly.

You’ll get phone calls this way, similar to Local Service Ads where you’re essentially just buying calls. Unless you really don’t want phone calls, there’s no reason not to use call extensions. You’d be amazed how many companies skip this. It’s such an easy way to fast-track things and get people to call you immediately.

Tip 3: Set Up Conversion Tracking Properly

Google has what I call the trillion-dollar algorithm. Its job is to show ads to the right people so those ads are profitable for you.

But this algorithm only works if it has the right information. When someone clicks your add, visits your website, reads everything, and fills out your contact form, you need to get that information back to Google.

If your tracking isn’t set up properly, Google has no idea which clicks actually became leads. It just keeps showing your ads to random people searching those keywords, and the results suffer.

The simple version: accurately get the information from your website back to Google so they know what’s working.

The Bottom Line

This entire system—Google Business Profile, reviews, professional website, Local Service Ads, and Google Ads—is what separates landscaping companies that struggle to get leads from ones that can’t keep up with demand.

Aaron went from $400,000 to $2.4 million. He booked 69 estimates in 22 days. He grew over 6x in the years that followed. That client getting 200+ LSA calls per month had to hire someone just to answer the phone.

These results aren’t magic. They’re what happens when you stack the right pieces in the right order and commit to the process.

Start with the foundation. Build up from there. And don’t let competitors with more reviews scare you off before you even begin.