Episode 25

Ezra McCarthy
Hello and welcome back to the Lawn Care Success Blueprint podcast, the show that empowers lawn and landscape business owners to get noticed, get more jobs, and help you grow with confidence. Today’s episode is made possible by Green Frog Web Design. And if you’re looking to get your website redone, feel free to check out our website, greenfrogwebdesign.com, and we’d love to help your business grow. Today, we’re zooming in on one of the most simple and yet often overlooked powerful tools that you have at your fingertips.

What is it? We’re gonna be talking about the Google Business Profile. Done right, this can help you push to the top of the Google search results and help drive a lot of traffic for your website, get customers, phone calls, and leads. To help me impact this today, one of my team members, Wena, is gonna be stepping in and helping to ask some key questions to help you master your Google Business Profile and help it to become your number one salesperson.

Wena
Hi Ezra, great to join you again. Today we’re breaking down how lawn care and landscaping business owners can get their Google Business Profile verified, tuned up, and loaded with trust-building reviews so that homeowners can tap that call button before they even ever get to scroll to another competitor. Now feel free to grab a coffee or fire up the mower because by the end of this chat you’ll know exactly how to make Google Maps your busiest employee.

So Ezra, are you ready to dive in? What exactly is a Google Business Profile and how is it different from a regular website or Facebook page?

Ezra McCarthy
Let’s hop into it, Wena.

So a Google Business Profile is an important part, and it is separate from both of those things that you just mentioned. Let me just quickly describe what it is. If you’ve ever been on Google Maps at all and you’ve typed in “plumber near me,” “painter near me,” “lawn care near me,” all of those profiles that are pulled up are a Google Business Profile. Now you may say to yourself, my customer isn’t searching on Google Maps. Some of them are, but I won’t argue that point. Also, this Google Business Profile shows up on Google Search.

And at this time, Google Search, I think a Google product—either Google or YouTube—accounts for 90% of search traffic. Now is that going to change over the next five to ten years? Yes. But currently that’s where people are searching, especially with high intent. And what I mean by that is they’re typing in “lawn care near me.” So they want someone to help them now. They’re not just trying to waste time looking for this or that. They have intent. So we want to get in front of people who want what we have.

Your Google Business Profile—and even now, they keep putting it in a more prominent place. Because right now, if you typed in “painter near me,” what you’re going to see is there might be that Gemini blurb at the top, but oftentimes that’s not even there yet. You’re going to have two or three ads, and then right below that, before any organic—which means unpaid—website, you’re going to have a Google Business Profile. There’s going to be on the right side a map, and on the left side, you’re going to see maybe one ad and then three organic businesses.

We’re going to mention this a little later, but this is actually called the map pack. We want to help you—or you want to be—in that map pack. You’re literally going to be on the first page of Google, on top of every single website. We hear all the time people say, I want to get on the first page of Google. We want you to be there too. And so this is a great tool that so many people often overlook because this is totally separate from website SEO. And it helps, because people that are going to buy with high intent, this is how they search.

Wena
That makes a lot of sense why exactly Google is a very crucial tool, because there’s a phrase like, if you don’t know anything or if you want to find something, people will say, “just Google it.” It became a phrase. And we want to have people to have that intent. From right off the bat, you know that that person is really intentional in looking for what services to bring or what company. So intent is really important. Why is a dialed-in Google Business Profile even more crucial for service area businesses like lawn and landscape companies?

Ezra McCarthy
The difference between a service-based business like a lawn and landscape business, which just about everyone on here probably owns, is a lot of us may not have a storefront where people are driving by, seeing our signs all the time. You may have a shop with a sign out front, and that is helpful. But for us, we need to digitally get in front of them—consistently be getting in front of them—so that when people search, they’re found, because searchers are ready to buy.

And when people search for services, they’re normally ready to buy now. Now, a lot of times for products, we may research. Like I’ve been in the market for a vehicle. I’ve been looking the past couple months, looking around, looking at options, looking at prices. But I’ll just tell you, over the weekend, my radiator was leaking and I needed a mechanic. And this wasn’t something that I hee-hawed around.

I didn’t necessarily look for prices. I just said, hey, I need this done. I had a mechanic that I trusted, that I like. So I just said, this is the problem, I need it in. I got it fixed by a truck. And for services, people, for the most part, just need it done. And we need to get in front of them as a trusted, quality person. And this is a great way to do it—getting your Google Business Profile.

That’s why getting your service area set up correctly is one of the first things to focus on. And you may say, okay, what is that? You may think, Ezra, this is so elementary, everyone knows this. But I was helping a customer in Michigan—he’s a smart guy, but this isn’t his forte—and we were helping him get it set up. I went into the service area and when I tried to search him, I put in his business name and his town, and I could not find it.

So I’m like, okay, something is really weird here. We had access to the backend, so I went into his Google Business Profile, and I went to the service area—and it was blank. There was nothing there. So what that did is, literally, it was almost impossible to find him. Even if you knew his name, his business name, and the town he lived in, and you were trying to find him.

Now, most of the people that we’re trying to target—they don’t know us yet. They’re not going to be typing in Maple Leaf Lawn in Greenville, Texas, which was my lawn and landscape company that I had. They don’t know you yet to search for you. And so getting that service area, dialing it in, making sure it’s optimized just from the very get-go, is a really vital part for any lawn and landscape business.

Wena
So what are the key details do lawn care owners often miss when they first claim or set up their profiles? Since you’ve mentioned that there is a business—the business in Michigan—that missed one very important detail, which is the location, could you give us those things that they need to really consider?

Ezra McCarthy
Sure, so a couple different things that are really important. One, as I’ve mentioned, is setting up your service area correctly. Making sure that your service area, your business hours, and your business description isn’t just one sentence and sounds terrible. That you have a website that you’re linking to. Because what I’ve found is it’s really about 50-50.

Half the people would rather call because they want to get someone on the phone, talk to you, get a feel for who you are, what your business is, what your team members are going to be like when they come out. And then half the people—they’ve already been to three other businesses and they don’t want to call someone else. No one’s answered. So they’d rather go to your website, fill out a form, and you need to have something.

Even if that’s just a one-page website. That’s not the best, but it’s something. You need to at least have a one-page website out there with a contact form telling who you are—done well.

And then of course, making sure your business description includes keywords, your location, and making sure your services are listed. If you’re a fertilization and weed control company, do you have that service listed? Do you do snowplows? Is that included in your categories?

And that kind of goes into our next question of—are your categories filled out correctly? Would that be your primary category or your secondary category? If you have lawn care services, if you do landscaping, you need to be sure that those categories are chosen on your Google Business Profile. Because even these small things actually help your Google Business Profile get in front of the right clients.

Wena
And which primary and secondary category should lawn and landscape businesses pick, and how much will that affect ranking?

Ezra McCarthy
There’s really only a couple that apply to our business. There’s lawn care service, there’s landscaping, landscape designer. They do have snow removal as well. And then fertilization and weed control is in this kind of funny niche in Google because they categorize it under lawn care, but it also—it can go the other direction as well.

That would actually go under lawn care. That’s why when you’re designing your website or even targeting your Google Business Profile, I remember helping one customer. I was on his website for 10 minutes and I thought they cut lawns. Then I realized—wait a sec—I was talking to him on the phone. I said, hey, and he said, yeah, we only do fertilization and weed control. And I was like, wow, your website does not clearly articulate, does not clearly show that.

So making sure your categories are filled out correctly is another thing that does add up and help over time.

Wena
Google has photos, and those photos actually lead a person—sort of draw interest, right? So what types of photos actually build trust and make the businesses look legit and drive clicks?

Ezra McCarthy
There’s several things that I really recommend lawn and landscape businesses do. One would definitely include before and afters. There are simple tools like Canva, which is a photo editing software—there’s even free versions—where you can make just a simple before and after. What this does is it shows, this is what it was before, this is after.

Then include your crew and your team with branded shirts, with your equipment, your trailer, your trucks—maybe drone photos of some work you’ve done. What you’re trying to do is build trust. Because what people don’t want, especially, is to have you there for two weeks and then realize you’re a dud. They don’t want to give you the half-down for a landscape project and have you run off—like all these other bad contracting stories they’ve heard.

So what we’re trying to do with these photos is build trust. If you’re putting photos on there with a janky lawn, half cut, doesn’t look good—unless you’re obviously mowing it or it’s a before and after—then you’re not building trust.

The kind of photos we want to put on there are ones that, when customers see them, it helps them think, okay, this is the business for me. They do the kind of work that I want. These things help build trust and drive customer engagement.

But also note—this also affects how you rank. If you’re consistently adding high-quality photos from your local area, even the meta description—or I guess I should say the geo tag—it’s geo tagged in the back. So it has the location data on the backend of the photo. The customer doesn’t see that, but Google is going to read that.

And all these small signals add up. And so it’s going to help your Google Business Profile, over time, rank better.

Wena
Photos is definitely a no-no, and I think Google won’t approve that.

Ezra McCarthy
Right.
Agreed. Yeah, they do not like stock photos.

Wena
Moving on, Google updates are an important aspect of optimization. What topics work best?

Ezra McCarthy
So it really depends on the season and the time of year. I would suggest before and after projects—these are really important things or good things to include on there. Seasonal promotions—so if you’re trying to promote spring cleanups, maybe in the fall, fall aerations, winter snow removal if you’re offering winter services.

Or maybe a five-star review, a customer spotlight. And then make sure to include it on there—because there’s an update function, that’s what we’re talking about here. You include a picture, then a text update.

Then in the text portion, be sure to include some of your keywords, etc.

Wena
We first use the products and services tabs to showcase specific services that would attract us.

Ezra McCarthy
This is where you can go, and Google has a place where you can put in products. Obviously, the people listening to this—we’re not going to have a product tab. But what we can do is put our services in there. You can have a section for lawn care, a section for fertilization and weed control, landscaping—all of these things can be really helpful.

Wena
Can you break down the Google Map Pack and why it matters so much?

Ezra McCarthy
Yes, I mentioned it earlier, but the Google Map Pack is that three—that three businesses that rank first on the Google search. And it is so important to rank there because, as I mentioned, this is over top of every single organic website. And what I mean when I say organic is unpaid.

Google has something called—of course we know—Google Ads, then there’s LSA, local search ads. But that Map Pack is over top of all of that. You’re getting in front of—it could be up to hundreds of customers per month—for free.

And getting in the Map Pack will drastically boost your calls and your leads. This is actually what got me into marketing myself. I realized the more work I put into it, the more leads I got, and the less I had to sell them.

When I talk to people over and over again, there are two things they always tell me: I want to get more customers, and I want to get found online and have a quality brand. These two things help build trust and help people find you.

Getting in the Map Pack is vital if you want to succeed in 2025 and really going forward for the next foreseeable future.

Wena
What is NAP consistency and how do you fix mismatch?

Ezra McCarthy
NAP stands for name, address, phone number. And what this is—across the web, there are hundreds of what you would call directories—places where people can go and list your name, address, phone number, and website.

What that does is, Google sees, hey, all of these directories have their NAP—name, address, phone number, etc.—listed correctly. If you have, say, 100 citations and your competitor has zero, Google says, okay, this business is presumably going to treat the customers better. So they’re going to rank you over the competitor.

Getting that name, address, phone number—those citations—increased, and having more than your competitor, is a helpful tool to help your business grow.

Wena
You mentioned two really important things earlier—being in the top three businesses shown on maps and the consistency in the name, address, and phone. If we could sum up, which Google Business Profile insights actually matter in terms of real business growth?

Ezra McCarthy
I think a really clear one is phone calls. Because what we need is more customers—and better customers. Phone calls are a clear indication of, hey, is it working?

Now part of the problem is—and we’re going to mention this here in a minute, and I’ll just maybe combine the two—our business, lawn and landscape, is very seasonal. You’ve got the lawn and landscape side, and then depending on what side of the U.S. or Canada you’re in, you’ve got snow removal or winter services. But it’s very seasonal, so you really have to measure this season over season.

Because you’re going to have fluctuations. But you want to be measuring your phone calls and then website clicks. Are people not only seeing it, but are they then taking action? Those are the things that I would be consistently tracking month over month, and then year over year.

Wena
Based on that tracking and changes and updates, could you give a quick proof and share with us the success story of a lawn company boosting leads through Google Business Profile tweaks?

Ezra McCarthy
Yes. I guess this is really how our business started with Maple Leaf Mowing. And we got in under six months to the top of the Map Pack. Now, it depends on your market—it may take you longer than that. If you’re in the middle of New York, Dallas, a large metro like that, then it’s going to take a lot more work.

But I became obsessed with getting my Google Business Profile up. And what I found is, the more time I spent and the more work I put into it, like I mentioned, the more leads I got, the less I had to sell them, the less price sensitive they were.

Instead of chasing customers—when you first start in your business, you’re trying to take whatever you can—but once I got to the place where my price could be higher and I could pick and choose what kind of work I needed, that’s when things changed.

And then a couple different customers of mine—one of them, Jose (if you’re listening, hello)—friend of mine, Jose, we were helping him. And when I first met him, I think he had his Google Business Profile verified and he had a couple of reviews, but he didn’t have a website, didn’t have anything.

And I think in 2022, they did like $30,000. The next year, they did $200,000. And then I think last year, they did almost $400,000 gross in a year. And one of the things he credits that to is growing his online presence.

He’s number one or number two—it depends if you’re searching for lawn care or landscaping—in his local area. And his website is on the first page of Google. These two things combined caused him to get more leads, get better leads, and help him sell less.

So for your business, if you’re trying to grow, this is one of the best and easiest ways to do it that I would highly recommend.

Wena
That’s a very great example. So if a lawn care owner spends just one hour a day next week, what tasks should they prioritize?

Ezra McCarthy
One, reach out to all of your customers for reviews. If you haven’t yet, text it out. You can go onto your Google Business Profile, copy that link—and I recommend texting it because I think I saw a stat a while ago that something like 90% get opened within 10 seconds. Now, an email—the open rate is not near as good.

Text your customers. Send that link. Make it as easy as possible. One, ask for reviews. Two, post photos. And those two things combined—even if you just took an hour a week to do that—you’re going to see a huge increase over time, and your business is going to have a large impact.

Wena
What about for lawn care business owners who don’t have much time? If there’s one 10-minute tweak that they can do today to boost calls, could you give us some examples?

Ezra McCarthy
Sure. The main thing is—ask for reviews, ask for reviews, and ask for reviews. Over time, that’s gonna be your best bet, and it’s gonna help you get more business.

Definitely ask for reviews and then post high-quality photos so people can see what you do and that you do a great job.

Thanks for taking time to tune in today. Your Google Business Profile is not just a box to check—it can be a living sales tool for you. When done right, it can help your business grow every day. These small moves can add up.

So if you’re taking time this week, be sure to put some time in to optimize your Google Business Profile. Also, if you got value from today’s episode, be sure to share it with someone. This will help other lawn and landscape pros hear about the podcast and help grow their business.

So until next time, we’ll talk on the next one.