How I Get Landscaping Clients Online (What Actually Works for a Small Crew)

(Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Denis, founder of Montreal Paysagement Pro)

I run a small residential landscaping company in Montreal. No sales team. No marketing department. Just me, a crew, and a phone that needs to keep ringing. When I started, I figured word of mouth would carry the business. It did, for about two months. Then the phone got quiet, and I realized I needed to figure out digital marketing or start looking for a job.

What follows isn’t theory. It’s what I’ve tested and stuck with because it brings in paying clients. Some of it cost me nothing. Some of it cost me time I’ll never get back on tactics that flopped. If you run a local service business or advise one, here’s what the last year and a half taught me.

Google Business Profile Is the Whole Game for Local Services

I’ll say it plain: my Google Business Profile brings in more leads than every other channel combined. That’s not an exaggeration. When someone in my area searches for “landscaping near me” or “paver installation Montreal,” my GBP listing is what they see first. Not my website, not my social media. The map pack.

According to BrightLocal’s 2025 data, 87% of consumers use Google to find local businesses. And here’s the part that matters: 86% of GBP views come from discovery searches, meaning people searching for a service category, not your business name. That tells you something important. Most of your future clients don’t know you exist yet. They’re finding you through what you do, not who you are.

Best Local SEO Tips For Landscaping Businesses To Optimize Their Google Business Profile

Here’s what I actually did to optimize my profile:

• Picked the right primary category. Google gives you one primary category and several secondary ones. I tested “Landscaper” vs “Landscape Designer” as my primary. “Landscaper” drove more calls in my market. Your mileage will vary, but test it.

• Filled out every single field. Services with descriptions and prices. Hours for every day, including holidays. A proper business description loaded with the services I offer and the areas I serve. I see competitors with half-empty profiles, and they wonder why they don’t rank.

• Posted weekly updates. Google Business Profile has a “posts” feature that most local businesses ignore completely. I post project photos, seasonal tips, service announcements, whatever is relevant that week. It signals to Google that the listing is active, and clients mention seeing the posts before they call.

• Added photos constantly. Not stock images. Real job site photos. Before the work starts, during the build, after completion. Equipment shots. The crew working. Google’s own data suggests listings with more than 100 photos get 520% more calls than average. I can’t verify that exact number, but I can tell you that since I started uploading 5-10 photos per week, calls went up noticeably.

Before-and-After Photos on Social Media Do Heavy Lifting

I tried a lot of social media tactics early on. Motivational quotes about hard work. Tips about lawn care. Generic memes. Even short Reels showing us working on a project. None of it moved the needle.

You know what works? Before-and-after photos of real projects.

That’s it. A split image showing a beat-up backyard turned into a clean patio with interlocking pavers. Or a muddy front yard transformed into proper landscaping with retaining walls and fresh sod. People scroll past advice posts. They stop for visual transformations.

I post these on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook works better for my market because my typical client is a homeowner aged 35-55 in the suburbs. Instagram is good for reaching younger homeowners and showing the work to other contractors who might refer jobs to me.

The key is consistency. I post two to four times per week. Every project gets documented with my phone camera before any work starts. It takes 30 seconds at the job site and saves me from scrambling for content later. I batch the editing on Sunday nights, write simple captions describing what we did, and schedule them out.

One thing I stopped doing: boosting posts randomly. I used to throw $20 at any post that did well organically. Now I only boost posts that show a specific service I want to sell more of, targeted to homeowners within 25km of where I operate. Much better return.

Google Reviews Are Your Best Salesperson

According to a 2025 BrightLocal survey, 88% of consumers read Google reviews before choosing a local business. And 73% only trust reviews from the last 30 days. That second stat changed how I think about reviews entirely.

Getting a batch of 15 reviews in your first month and then stopping isn’t enough. You need a steady flow. Recent reviews signal to both Google and potential clients that your business is active and doing good work right now.

My system is dead simple. After every completed job, I send the client a text message with a direct link to leave a Google review. Not an email, a text. People read texts. The message is short and personal: “Hey [name], thanks for letting us work on your yard. If you’re happy with how it turned out, a Google review would really help us out.” Then the link.

About 40% of clients leave a review when I ask this way. When I tried email, it was closer to 10%.

I respond to every single review, positive or negative. This matters. 97% of consumers read business responses to reviews (per BrightLocal). When a potential client sees that I personally reply to feedback, it builds trust before they even pick up the phone.

One thing that surprised me: review content affects search rankings. When a client mentions “interlocking pavers” or “retaining wall” in their review, it helps my listing show up for those terms. I never ask people to include keywords (that feels gross and probably violates Google’s guidelines), but I’ve noticed that when clients describe the specific work we did, those reviews seem to correlate with better visibility for related searches.

Seasonal Content Strategy Keeps the Pipeline Full Year-Round

Landscaping is seasonal in Montreal. The ground freezes in November and doesn’t thaw until April. If I only market during peak season, I’m competing with every other landscaper who just woke up and remembered they have a website.

My approach: publish content that matches what homeowners are thinking about right now, even in the off-season.

In January and February, I publish blog posts about planning spring landscaping projects and choosing materials. Budget breakdowns do well too. People aren’t ready to buy yet, but they’re researching. If they find my content while Googling “how much does a paver patio cost in Montreal,” I’m the first landscaper they think of when the snow melts.

In spring, the content shifts to specific service pages and project showcases. This is when people are ready to call, so the content needs to be direct and conversion-focused.

Summer is when I document everything. Photos, short videos, client testimonials, time-lapses of builds. This becomes the content bank I pull from for the rest of the year.

Fall is about preparation content: winterizing tips, protecting hardscaping from frost, and what to think about if you’re planning a project for the following spring. And it’s when I start booking early-bird estimates for spring, which keeps revenue predictable through the slow months.

I publish all of this on my website at https://www.montrealpaysagementpro.com/ and repurpose it across social channels. One blog post becomes a carousel on Instagram, a Facebook post with a key takeaway, a GBP update, and sometimes a short video clip. That single piece of content works across multiple platforms with maybe 20 minutes of extra effort.

How a Small Landscaper Competes Against the Big Companies Online

The large landscaping companies in my market have marketing budgets I can’t touch. They run Google Ads year-round. They hire professional photographers for their project shoots. Some of them even have in-house SEO people and dedicated social media managers.

Here’s the thing though: they’re slow. Big companies have approval chains and brand guidelines. Their marketing calendars are planned quarters in advance. I can see a trending local topic, create content about it, and publish it the same afternoon.

They also can’t do what I do on a personal level. Someone calls my business, they talk to me. I respond to every review myself. My social media posts come from the person who actually built the patio in the photo. Homeowners notice that kind of thing, and they trust it more than a corporate account posting templated responses.

Local SEO rewards relevance and proximity over budget. Google doesn’t care that a competitor spends $10,000 a month on ads when someone searches for “landscaper near me” and my GBP listing is closer to the searcher, has more reviews, and has a fully filled-out profile. The map pack is one of the few places in digital marketing where a one-person operation can outperform a company with 50 employees.

I also target long-tail keywords they ignore. The big guys go after “landscaping Montreal.” I write content for “cost of interlocking pavers Rive-Sud” or “best retaining wall materials for Quebec winters.” Less search volume, but the people searching those terms are closer to hiring someone. And there’s almost no competition for those phrases.

The Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To

I wasted money on a “professional” website redesign that looked great but loaded in 6 seconds on mobile. Page speed matters for SEO, and it matters even more for impatient homeowners browsing on their phones. I rebuilt it with speed as the top priority. Now it loads in under two seconds.

I tried buying leads from aggregator sites. The quality was terrible. Half the leads were price shoppers who had submitted their info to five companies simultaneously. My close rate on those leads was under 5%. Compare that to 35-40% close rate on leads that come through my GBP listing or website directly.

I ignored my website’s local pages for too long. When I finally built individual pages for each neighborhood and suburb I serve, organic traffic increased within weeks. Each page targets specific location-based keywords and includes photos from jobs in that area. It’s not glamorous work, but it compounds over time.

What I’d Tell Another Small Service Business Owner

You don’t need to do everything. Pick a few channels, do them consistently, and measure what actually brings in clients.

For me, the priority stack looks like this: Google Business Profile first. Reviews second. Website content third. Social media fourth. Everything else is a distant fifth.

A marketing agency isn’t required to get started. But you do need to treat your online presence like a part of the job, not something you get around to when things are slow. The landscapers in my market who are struggling for work are the same ones with a half-filled GBP listing and four reviews from 2023. Their website hasn’t been touched in a year, if they have one at all.

The ones getting calls have figured out that showing up online is just as important as showing up to the job site. It took me a while to learn that, but the phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I did.