Key Takeaways

Innovative strategies enhance visibility:

Website Creation: Establishing a basic online presence via a user-friendly website.
Google Places and Yelp: Utilizing free platforms for increased discoverability.
Encouraging Reviews: Actively seeking customer feedback to improve online reputation.

The benefits of social media have become more and more evident since our business jumped on the bandwagon last year. Because of this, our marketing focus has changed from trying to blast people with unwanted messages and forcing discounts, to discussing and connecting with others about lawn care tips, tools, and tricks through social media. While it has taken a lot of time and effort to improve our overall search engine optimization (SEO), there are a few quick things we did to get our name on the front page of Google in a moderately untouched market. If you are not quite ready to commit or spend money on social media marketing, here is what I did with limited knowledge to get my brand name recognized on the web. 1.) Get a Website:

Before I had enough money to hire a webmaster to create my website, I did some searching and ended up creating an intuit website. This was not great, but it at least created a home base for people to find me. Depending on your situation I would probably suggest creating a wordpress blog instead. The great thing about both of these is they are user friendly, practically free, and create a hub spot for people to find you.

2.) Get your business on Google places and Yelp:

Another FREE tool, Google Places, is where you maybe noticed first if your competition has not flooded it yet. When we signed up for this, Reno area Lawn Services had swamped this tool, but since this was all they had done Google had no reason to put them higher up on the search engine list. In a key word search now you will find Cory's Lawn Service somewhere between letter A-D on almost any search for "lawn service" or "snow removal." Is it because we're a huge business? NO! It just because we utilized some of the tools the internet had to offer.

3.) Get 5 start reviews:

I can't give away all our secrets to how we landed 13 five star reviews on Google places, but I can say this is easier than it looks. Don't wait for your customers to review you on their own because you may not like what you see when they actually do (many post because of a bad experience, rather than a good one). Ask your loyal customers to help out, maybe offer 10% off, or a buy one get one free if they go review you on Google. It is much more likely for a random person to try out your business if they see 5 star reviews, as opposed to the company that gets 3 stars.

I am no type of social media expert, and I am honestly just learning how to use social media marketing as well, but these were the first 3 things I did to get Cory's Lawn Service some type of visibility on the web that actually had people calling to get more information about our services. Try them out!