You need to be intentional when writing SEO copy for your landscaping business. This post will show you what to cover and why.
Steps to Writing Strong SEO Copy for Landscaping Companies
Research Landscaping Keywords Your Customers Are Searching For
It’s important to take a structured approach to keyword research. Too often, landscape companies just write what’s on their minds. This natural approach is great for coming up with content ideas, but doesn’t work super well from an SEO perspective.
Instead, collect those ideas in a spreadsheet like this.
Collecting your keywords will help clarify your thoughts and ensure you’re not overlapping content topics. It’s nice to create a web of information to give your readers (and Google) context around your site, but you don’t want multiple pieces that are addressing the same question.
Spend 30 minutes brainstorming ideas to populate this sheet.
Then, copy one of those keywords into a tool like KWFinder.
Enter your landscaping SEO content keyword above for additional suggestions
For your location, this tool will spit out
- additional keywords that are similar
- search volumes
- estimated cost per clicks if you were to use Google Ads
- difficulty to rank
- search engine results
You can add filters to avoid certain words or only target keywords within search thresholds (e.g. more than 10 but below 200 searches per month).
You can star keywords to add them to a list for reference later. Collect them in order to add to your master list in Google Sheets.
It’s a powerful tool that’s worth the nominal cost if you’re doing your own landscaping SEO keyword research.
Bucket Your Keywords into Topics
Though keywords are super important when writing landscaping SEO copy, Google is transitioning away from relying on them.
Instead, they are trying to focus on understanding search intent and bucketing it into topics (if you’d like to nerd out, see their latest algorithm update, BERT).
You can and should get ahead of these changes by grouping similar keywords into topic groups, organized by searcher intent.
This sounds intimidating, but it’s relatively straightforward.
- Ask yourself what the searcher is trying to accomplish (i.e. searcher intent)
- Group keywords with similar searcher intents together
Bucketing the topics above could look like this
You can see that some good-sounding keywords aren’t worth creating landscaping SEO content for.
We also have a good idea of which keywords may turn into sales.
If you’re unsure of the searcher intent, a good trick is to Google it yourself. See what kind of results are ranking and you can infer what Google thinks that topic is about.
Choose a Topic to Write About
You now have plenty of keyword buckets to choose from, so you have a little more freedom in this step.
I like to tell landscapers to choose a topic they feel like writing about. It’s valuable to get into the habit of consistently creating content – make it easy for yourself to do so.
Is there a group on your list that sticks out at you? That you feel like you could rattle off 500 words without having to do much research?
Start there.
This is almost the opposite advice from the previous step, but you’ve done the hard work already so you’ve earned it.
Once you get into the habit of writing landscaping SEO copy, you’ll find it easier to tackle the more difficult subjects.
Outline Important Points to Cover
Once you’ve selected the topic for your landscaping SEO copy, it’s time to flesh out the details.
The best way to do this is to go back to your keyword list and look for similar ideas and potential subtopics.
For example, if you chose “landscape maintenance” as your focus keyword, then subtopics might include
- what qualifies
- when should I complete it
- how much does it cost
- etc…
The best landscaping SEO copy comprehensively answers the searcher’s question. Spend some time brainstorming the key aspects that come up.
Hack for Generating Landscaping SEO Copy Ideas
A trick for getting more landscaping SEO copy ideas is using the “Searches related to…” function and predictions within Google.
Google has a ton of data and insight into what landscaping leads are looking for. Use it to ensure your landscaping SEO content covers everything it needs to.
Draft a Comprehensive Answer to the Searcher’s Question
Now, it’s finally time to write.
At this stage, don’t worry about optimizing for landscaping SEO content. Again, make it easy on yourself by writing everything you think landscaping leads would want to know about your topic.
Don’t worry about dropping in the right landscaping keywords, or title tags, or image alt tags – at least not yet.
Get everything down and answer the question in a way that a human would want to read it, and they’d have their search intent satisfied.
Revise Your Answer to Optimize for Landscaping SEO Copy
Finally, we’re ready to focus on optimizing our landscaping SEO copy.
The easiest way to do this is to use a tool like Yoast or Textmetrics. These tools allow you to track the most important factors and tell you what you need to change in order to rank well.
Here’s what Textmetrics looks like for this article:
There are other on-page audit tools you can use, but this should get you 90% of the way there.
Hit publish and celebrate your hard work!
After sobering up, measure your results using Google Analytics and Google Search Console. We’ll write a post on how to do so another time. In the meantime, email us at info@wildoakmedia.com if you have any questions!
Need Help with Your Landscaping SEO Copy?
Wild Oak Media offers landscaping SEO services to help you outrank the competition while saving you time and stress.
Schedule a call with us at this link, or call/text 610-762-6187 for a free consultation today.