What I Found Auditing 20 Landscaping Company Websites

Most landscaping websites look good but do nothing.

I spent two weeks pulling apart 20 Australian landscaping company websites. I went beyond the homepage on each one, checking page speed, mobile layouts, form placement, heading structure, schema markup, and whether the site actually makes it easy for someone to request a quote.

This article covers the specific patterns I found across those 20 sites. What the top performers do differently, what the bottom half get wrong, and the three things that separate a landscaping website that wins jobs from one that just exists.

How I Ran the Landscaping Website Audit

I picked 20 landscaping businesses across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. Mix of solo operators, small crews, and multi-location franchises. All had a live website indexed by Google.

For each site I checked 12 things:

• Page speed score on mobile (Google PageSpeed Insights)
• Whether the phone number was click-to-call
• CTA visibility above the fold
• Portfolio with real project photos (not stock)
• Service pages for individual offerings (not one catch-all page)
• Google reviews embedded or linked
• Schema markup (LocalBusiness or Organization)
• Mobile layout and tap target sizing
• Contact form presence and field count
• Heading structure (H1, H2 hierarchy)
• SSL certificate and HTTPS
• Local suburb mentions for SEO

I scored each site out of 12. The average score was 5.2 out of 12. Only three sites scored above 9.

What the Best Landscaping Websites Had in Common

The top three sites (NBG Landscapes in Sydney, Inspired Exteriors, and Think Outside Gardens) all shared five things that the bottom half did not have. None of these are revolutionary. They are just consistently absent from most landscaper sites.

1. A single, specific CTA above the fold. Not “Contact Us” buried in the nav. A button that says “Book a Consultation” or “Get a Free Quote” visible without scrolling.
2. Real project galleries with location tags. Before-and-after photos organised by suburb or project type. Not a generic slideshow with no context.
3. Individual service pages. Separate pages for retaining walls, decking, garden design, paving, and maintenance. Each with its own heading, content, and CTA.
4. Published Google reviews. Either embedded on the homepage or linked prominently with a star rating visible.
5. Mobile speed above 70. These three sites all loaded in under 3 seconds on a 4G connection.

That last point matters more than most landscapers realise. Research from ServiceScale found that 73% of local trade searches in Australia happen on a mobile device. If your site takes 6 seconds to load on a phone, you have already lost the job.

The Biggest Landscaping Website Mistake: No Clear Next Step

14 out of 20 sites had no visible call-to-action above the fold. The visitor lands on the page, sees a nice photo of a garden, and then has to scroll, hunt through the navigation, or squint at a phone number in the footer to figure out how to get in touch.

This is the single biggest conversion killer I see on trade websites. A landscaping website is not a portfolio for other designers to admire. It exists to turn a visitor into a phone call or quote request.

The sites that got this right used one of two patterns:

Pattern	Example	Why It Works
Sticky header with phone + CTA button	NBG Landscapes, Zones Landscaping	Visible on every page, no scrolling needed
Hero section with form embed	Two Melbourne-based sites	Captures the lead immediately, reduces friction
Floating click-to-call on mobile	Three sites across Sydney and Perth	One tap to call, appears on scroll

The conversion difference is stark. Industry data shows landscaping websites with a visible quote form convert at roughly 8%, compared to 3% for sites where the contact page is the only way in.

Portfolio Quality Varied Wildly

Every single site had some form of gallery or portfolio. But the quality gap was enormous.

The worst examples were a grid of 40 photos with no labels, no project descriptions, and no indication of where the work was done or what services were involved. One site had a portfolio page with 67 thumbnails, no categories, and no way to filter.

The best examples (Think Outside Gardens and Stone Lotus in particular) treated each project as its own page. A suburb name in the heading, 4 to 6 photos, a paragraph describing the brief, and a link to the relevant service page.

• The worst approach: an uncategorised photo dump with no context
• Middle ground: a gallery with project names but no location or service tags
• Best approach: individual project pages with suburb, brief, photos, and service links

The project-page approach does two things. It gives visitors proof you work in their area. And it builds local SEO signals that help you rank for “landscaping [suburb]” searches.

Mobile Experience Was Worse Than Expected

I tested all 20 sites on an iPhone and a mid-range Android. 11 out of 20 had at least one of these problems:

• Tap targets too small (buttons under 44px that are hard to press)
• Horizontal scroll on service pages (content wider than the screen)
• Phone number displayed as plain text, not a clickable link
• Navigation menu covering the entire screen with no close button visible
• Hero images so large they pushed actual content below the fold

Given that 73% of local landscaping searches happen on mobile, a site that does not work properly on a phone is turning away three quarters of potential clients. One Sydney site had a beautiful desktop layout but the entire right column disappeared on mobile, taking the contact form with it.

Local SEO Signals Were Missing on 15 of 20 Sites

Only 5 of the 20 sites had proper LocalBusiness schema markup. Only 7 mentioned specific suburbs they service anywhere on the site. Only 4 had their Google Business Profile linked or reviews embedded.

According to BrightLocal’s consumer survey, 82% of consumers read reviews for local businesses before making contact. If your reviews are not visible on your site, you are missing a trust signal that most customers expect.

This matters because Google Business Profile signals account for roughly 32% of local pack rankings. A landscaping website without schema, without suburb mentions, and without review signals is invisible in map results, regardless of how pretty the design is.

The five sites that had strong local SEO all shared a pattern: dedicated service-area pages listing the suburbs they cover, with the business name, phone number, and address consistent across every page.

• LocalBusiness schema with geo coordinates
• Consistent NAP (name, address, phone) across all pages
• Service-area pages mentioning specific suburbs
• Google review widget or link on homepage
• Embedded Google Map on the contact page

Page Speed Scores Were Consistently Bad

I ran every site through Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile. The results were not great.

Score Range	Number of Sites	Common Cause
90+	1	Static HTML, optimised images, no page builder bloat
70-89	4	WordPress with lightweight theme, image compression
50-69	8	Heavy page builders, uncompressed hero images
Below 50	7	Sliders, unoptimised video, no caching, render-blocking JS

The biggest speed killers were auto-playing video backgrounds (three sites used them), uncompressed hero images over 3MB, and heavy page builders with dozens of unused CSS files. One franchise site loaded 4.2MB of JavaScript before displaying any content.

A professionally built landscaping website should score above 70 on mobile without any tricks. If yours is below 50, it is actively costing you leads through slow load times and poor Google rankings.

What This Means If You Run a Landscaping Business

The bar is low. Most landscaping websites in Australia are either built on budget templates with no conversion thinking, or over-designed with heavy visuals that tank mobile performance. At KC Web Design, we build sites for landscapers and other trade businesses regularly, and these same patterns come up every time we audit a new client’s existing site.

If you take three things from this audit:

1. Put a quote button or phone number above the fold. Not in the footer. Not behind two clicks. Right there, visible on load.
2. Treat your portfolio as individual project pages, not a photo dump. Tag them with suburbs. Write a sentence about each one. Link to the relevant service.
3. Fix mobile speed. Compress images, drop the video background, and test your site on an actual phone. If it takes more than 3 seconds to load, something needs to change.

These are not expensive fixes. But they are the difference between a landscaping website that generates 2 enquiries a month and one that generates 15.

Frequently Asked Questions

What pages should a landscaping website have?

At minimum: homepage, individual service pages (not one catch-all), a portfolio or projects page, about page, and contact page. The best sites also have service-area pages listing suburbs they cover and a blog for ongoing SEO value.

How much does a landscaping website cost in Australia?

A professionally built site with SEO foundations, conversion-focused copy, and mobile optimisation typically costs between $2,500 and $6,000 AUD. Template-based DIY options run $35 to $80 per month but rarely include proper local SEO or conversion design. Prices are approximate market guides only and vary by scope, features, and provider.

Do landscapers need SEO on their website?

Yes. SEO leads close at 14.6% compared to 1.7% for outbound methods like letterbox drops. For a local landscaper, ranking in Google Maps and organic results for “landscaper [suburb]” is the highest-return marketing channel available.

A basic local SEO setup covers Google Business Profile optimisation, on-page keyword targeting, and review generation. Most landscapers see results within 3 to 6 months.

Should a landscaping website have a quote form or just a phone number?

Both. Industry data shows 80% of landscaping leads come through phone calls, but the other 20% prefer forms, especially after hours. The sites that converted best in this audit had a click-to-call number plus a short form (name, phone, project type) visible on every page.

How often should a landscaper update their website portfolio?

After every completed project, or at minimum once a month. Fresh project pages signal activity to Google and give potential clients confidence that you are currently operating, not a business that closed two years ago with a site still live.

What photos work best on a landscaping website?

Before-and-after pairs of the same angle. Finished project shots taken in good natural light. Wide shots showing the full scope, plus close-ups of feature work (stonework, planting, water features).

Phone photos are fine if well-lit. Stock photos of gardens do not build trust.