The Playbook

Site of the Month #002: The Landscaper Nobody Could Call

This month's teardown is a landscaping company — a composite of three real north-suburbs landscaper sites I audited in the last few weeks, blended together so nobody's on blast. Same patterns on all three, which is exactly why it earns the slot: if you run any outdoor-services business, this is probably your website too.

What it does right

Credit first: the photos are genuinely great — real crews, real patios, drone shots of finished yards. Proof isn't the problem. The problem is everything standing between the proof and the phone ringing.

Leak #1: the invisible phone number

The number lives in tiny text in the footer, unlinked. On a phone — where a homeowner standing in their yard is browsing — you'd have to scroll four screens and then memorize it. Fix: tap-to-call number pinned at the top of every page. This is the single highest-ROI change on the entire site.

Leak #2: no towns, anywhere

The site says "serving the North Shore." Google doesn't rank vibes. Nobody searches "landscaper north shore vibes" — they search "paver patio Glenview." Zero city names means zero presence in the local searches that decide this industry. Fix: a page per core town, a city list in the footer, towns in the page titles.

Leak #3: one page for seven services

Patios, retaining walls, weekly mowing, snow removal — one "Services" paragraph each. One page can't rank for seven different searches, and a $40,000 patio buyer and a $40 mowing customer need very different pitches. Fix: a real page per money service.

Leak #4: the quote form of mystery

Eleven fields, no promise of what happens next, and — on one of the three sites — a form that errored on submit and nobody knew. Fix: four fields, a "we reply same day" line, and a monthly self-test of your own form.

The scoreboard

Ranked by revenue impact: tap-to-call first, town pages second, service pages third, form fourth — the photos were never the problem. Want your site torn down next month — publicly or privately? Text the URL to (847) 387-0244. Owners who volunteer get the full fix list free.


← All plays · Free tools: cost calculator, busywork calculator & site audit

Your move

Ready when you are. Take the shot.