Why Solely Blogging Isn’t an Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy for Landscape Contractors
—
The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
Originally published on October 15, 2015. Updated on December 7, 2022.
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While all successful landscape construction companies tend to have a blog, not all landscape construction companies with a blog are successful. On its own, a blog isn’t an effective content marketing strategy; it’s simply an integral component of inbound marketing. A blog alone won’t generate website traffic and attract qualified leads. However, when it’s combined with other strategic inbound marketing efforts, blogging becomes a highly-effective and integral component of a company’s marketing system.
There are 7.5 million blogs posted across the internet daily, creating a large amount of content that goes mostly unnoticed. Yet 91% of B2B and 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing, a clear indication of its effectiveness despite the vast amount of content on the web.
What separates the content that produces results from the content that goes unnoticed? The biggest differentiator between inbound marketing and blogging is intent. You need an inbound marketing strategy for blogging to be an effective component of your marketing plan.
What Is Inbound Marketing for Landscape Contractors?
Inbound marketing involves a combination of tactics that, when applied together, bring in website traffic, qualified leads, and customers who are ready to pay for your landscape construction services. It involves being intentional in creating a detailed content marketing blueprint of your strategy that will move you toward your ultimate goal of business growth by helping you meet smaller goals along the way, such as achieving a higher conversion rate or attracting better quality leads.
To reach your target audience, you first need to know who your target customer is. Top landscape firms thoroughly research their customer demographics. These firms know where customers live, the terms that they search Google for, what prompts them to start thinking about landscape services, and what their lives are like. These details inform marketing decisions to make content creation efforts more effective in reaching the right audience, resulting in higher conversion rates.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Blogging for Landscape Contractors
The customer journey begins with a Google search, and creating content that meets the customer at each stage of the journey requires SEO. At HALSTEAD, we find that the keywords landscape contractors think their target customers are searching for aren’t the same as the keywords Google shows they’re searching for. Being discovered requires using the correct keywords in your content but not overdoing it.
While keyword stuffing may have worked in the past, it will only harm your efforts today. Content must be useful and answer a question or provide inspiration. Professionally written content helps attract prospects by providing detailed information that’s easy to read and informative. For a blog to be effective, the content must be related to the keywords that prospects are searching for, and these keywords change throughout the customer journey.
Each journey begins with a broad search, such as “how to get rid of weeds,” and progressively gets more specific. At first, the prospect has recognized a need and has the intent to learn. They organically search for potential solutions and then begin to compare their options. For this example, they may find articles about weed killers they can use or companies they can hire to take care of the job for them.
When they decide they want to leave the task to professionals, they may search “lawn care companies near me,” which results in a list of local lawn care companies. With an effective content marketing strategy and a Google Business Profile, your company will be at the top of that list. Being at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) is the goal because, for every position you slip on the results page, the click-through rate (CTR) drops by nearly 50%.
Data-based keyword information is used to direct your content. You may have a blog post that answers the question, “what do lawn care companies near me recommend for weed killer?” which would provide useful information that answers the question and also feature a call to action (CTA) to contact your company for weed control and fertilization services. Keywords can vary by region, which is why keyword research is an important component of any blogging and inbound marketing strategy.
How Landscape Contractors Create an Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy
Clearly defined goals are essential in any marketing plan. Being able to measure your progress with concrete data via reports and analytics will direct your efforts to ensure success. What results are you hoping to get from your efforts?
Your inbound marketing strategy should define your revenue goals using timelines and identify regional obstacles, benefits, and industry trends. It’s important to have a clear picture of your buyer persona so that you can target them effectively and create content that appeals to them.
A content plan is an integral part of any inbound marketing strategy. Successful landscape firms deliver content through various channels using diverse methods, including website blog posts, publishing guidebooks or ebooks, producing videos and professional photos, and harnessing the power of social media, whether on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
This is where content and SEO, along with ad spending, go hand-in-hand. You cannot organically reach your target customer and effectively convert website visitors into leads without an intentional implementation of all three components.
The Role of Visual Content Creation in a Landscape Company’s Inbound Marketing Strategy
While blogging is one of the primary forms of content creation for inbound marketing, written content is not the only method. Landscape contractors who do inbound marketing excellently invest in professional photography and videography.
While people are going to remember only 10% of the information they come across three days later, their recall will increase to 65% if a photo is added. Articles with images garner 94% more views than articles without images, while social media posts with an image receive 352% more engagement than simply posting a link.
Visual imagery is powerful in the green industry because it allows prospects to imagine themselves enjoying spending time in a luxurious inground pool in their backyard or sharing an alfresco meal with their family in their outdoor kitchen. Landscaping services and landscape construction are highly visual trades by nature, so there’s no better way to showcase your work than through photos and videos, especially when used in combination with professionally written content.
When you invest in professional photography and videography, you’ll have high-quality content to share across many channels. The vivid imagery of a colorful landscape full of vibrant blooms and a lush green lawn or a custom inground infinity pool with a waterfall and luxurious pergolas and fire features creates a lasting impression.
Photos and videos can be shared on social media and used in your website design. They can be repurposed and reused to create digital project portfolios and printed marketing materials and brochures. Photos and videos can also be included in your blog posts to help demonstrate a point and educate the reader.
How to Convert Website Visitors to Qualified Leads and Buying Customers
Turning your website into a lead-generating machine also requires intentional CTAs that lead to conversions. For example, you may offer a free guide to identifying common weeds or diseases that may be affecting your lawn. In order for the website visitor to receive this guide, they must fill out an easy form that includes their information and email address.
At this point, the website visitor becomes a lead. When they opt into your email list, you can strategically use content to guide them along the customer journey. Emails are an excellent distribution channel for blog posts. Short snippets can pique the reader’s interest, so they click on the link to read the entire blog post and begin to explore other pages of your website to learn about the services that you provide and explore your digital portfolio.
Additional CTAs successful landscape contractors use are “contact us for a free estimate” or “schedule a call,” where a customer can automatically schedule a phone consultation with you according to the availability on your synced calendar. Strategic inbound marketing efforts do much of the pre-qualifying work for you so that once you make contact with a lead, they’re already qualified and ready to pay the price for your high-end designs and services.
Your website functions as your front-line sales team, so it’s recommended to invest in an effective and easy-to-use website design. Most website traffic comes from a mobile device, which demonstrates why having a responsive website design is critical. A slow loading time is the top reason visitors leave a website, resulting in lost sales and opportunities. Having an SEO-optimized and professionally designed website with expertly written blog posts and high-quality photos and videos for your landscape business will make a lasting impression on prospects and can yield a substantial ROI.