Best way to advertise a gardening business

[daisydee43]

Hi there,
Just need your opinions really. I have started a gardening business and have a website and eventually I will sell planted tubs through the site but for now I'm concentrating on getting some money in by doing maintenance and landscaping.

If you were looking for a gardener where would you go? If online what would you type in the search engine?

I have got work on atm, did use a comparison website but after the free trial, the price to stay on the site is crazy

Any tips welcomed

Hi Daisy

In order of importance -

1. Get listed on Google Business

1. You've got a website. Now make it better.

Think of your key search terms (gardener, landscaping, the area you're working in, cheap, experienced, qualified - whatever is appropriate) and make sure you repeat these several times across the whole website.

Include photos of your work.

And photos of you - people buy people!

Link through to 'authority' websites. ie RHS, BBC Gardening etc. put these on your homepage. And if at all possible get other websites in your field to link through to you.

1. Give your clients lots of cards to give out!

1. Advertise in local parish magazines (cheap and effective)

1. Try and team up with the local glossy mag to do some kind of garden makeover editorial plus a special offer for readers (10% all jobs booked before end of oct, that kind of thing) Magazines love free content and added value for readers. DO NOT pay for glossy advertising - it is expensive and rarely works.

Hope that helps and apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!!

I agree with getting yourself in to the press - can you do some work with local nursery, primary school, care home etc? Ensure you're all wearing company t-shirts and put a press release (with notes for editors) on your website.

For me, personally, this isn't something I'd go looking for, so a leaflet through the door would be best. Or word of mouth. Also, personally I'd be more interested in services than products - advice, garden design, shopping list etc.

Daisy try a local women's networking meeting. I saw a gardener give a very passionate 60 sec pitch (as we all had to do) at a meeting and she had half the women there booking her for work including me.

If you have a website, you should be blogging on it. Talk about your work, and your projects, and be sure to mention local place names. As you build up more and more content you will get traffic to the site.

Make sure you have a google + page, and local listing, and that you verify it. Make sure the page is linked from your website and visa-versa.

In terms of offline; have a sign printed, that you can prop up outside properties where you are working.