A landscaping company usually sells two things that share a truck and not much else: a route and a build. The homeowner pricing a weekly cut and the one pricing a paver patio both tap the same map pin, usually weeks before anything green happens. This scores yours out of 100 on twelve things you control, then ranks the fixes by the points you gave up.
Run the free tool ↓Open your listing on another screen and answer from what is on it today. Twelve questions, a couple of minutes, no signup and no email wall. Your score and ranked fix list appear right here when the last answer goes in.
Prefer a full page? Open the Google Business Profile Audit tool here.
Four of the twelve decide most of the number for a company selling both a weekly cut and a patio.
Nothing here was measured. The page added up your own answers, so treat the result as a punch list, not a verdict. Not sure on verification is an honest answer, and it gives up most of the single heaviest question on the board, as it should: until you know whose account holds the listing, everything under it is guesswork.
A strong result in this trade looks dull. Verified, a category that names what you sell, every field filled, photos from more than one month of the year, a review from the last few weeks even though the mowers have not moved since November. A weak one is rarely broken, just untouched since the season it was set up, at zero on every question with a cadence in it.
It cannot see competitors, review text, or how far your pin sits from whoever is searching, and the full weighting is laid out on the main Google Business Profile Audit. It also never asks how wide you drew the service area, which for a route business decides margin more than most of what it does score.
Neither company exists. They show the shape of a result, not a forecast.
Say a three-crew maintenance company that builds a few patios a year sits down in January. Verified, a couple of secondary categories, but the primary is the generic one whoever set it up picked. Hours, phone and website in, description empty. Around forty reviews, the newest from last October, replies about half the time. Thirty photos, all shot between April and August. Messaging on and watched. No posts, thin services list, empty Q and A. That lands right about fifty, which the tool calls needs work. It stings for a company with a full route, but it grades the listing, not the business. The list opens with posts, then the generic category, then the empty Q and A: one habit to start and two jobs that fit in one afternoon.
Imagine a two-person design build outfit run out of a home shop and a yard. They answer not sure on verification, because a vendor set the listing up years ago and nobody has the login. That goes straight to the top of the fix list and belongs there: no point shooting photos for a profile somebody else controls.
For a route business the distance input on a map result matters less than it sounds. Coverage was never the goal: the stop twenty minutes past the last one can cost more than it bills. The job is to be the obvious answer inside the clusters your trucks already drive, which is what local SEO is for here.
So a good profile settles three things a stranger should not have to guess before calling: which lane you are in, what you will and will not take, and what you are booking now. Contracts or one-time cleanups. Commercial and HOA properties or houses only. Whether a design carries a fee, and what happens to that fee if they build with you. Those answers live in the description, the services list and the Q and A, three separate questions on the board.
Booking status is the one to keep current, because at peak the constraint is crews, not leads. Whether the site behind the pin holds up its half is the website report card, whether an assistant names you is the AI visibility checker, and what we do for landscaping companies has its own page.
Most of the twelve cost an afternoon and a few decisions: verification, both category questions, the services menu, the description, seeding the Q and A, and whether messaging gets answered by anybody. That afternoon exists in January. It does not exist on the first warm Saturday.
The rest never finishes, so it cannot sit with whoever is on a mower. A shared album the crews dump into, plus one person who uploads on a rain day, covers photos and posts. Reviews need the ask spread across the calendar instead of pushed harder in May: a patio the day it is finished, a new property after its first cleanup, a contract that just renewed. Ask all of them, sort nobody first, and put nothing of value behind the request. In the field it only happens if it takes one tap: we built a one-tap review-request tool for a New Jersey glass and mirror shop. Wording the replies belongs to the review response writer.
Ongoing local SEO with profile work in it runs $1,500 to $3,500/month for most companies, and $3,500 to $7,500/month in competitive metros or multi-location operations, month to month, with the listing and the accounts in your name. The reasoning sits in how much SEO costs, and what should you pay is the budget question in tool form.
Whichever matches the money. You get one primary and it is the strongest relevance signal on the listing, so aim it at the lane you want more of: recurring maintenance, or design and installation. The other lane, plus irrigation, hardscape or snow work, goes into secondary categories. Only add categories for work you actually do, and hold the license where your state requires one.
On one question, yes. Recency asks how new your newest review is, and a book of summer reviews reads as dormant by the time a homeowner is picking a company for next season. The fix is a wider asking window, not a bigger number: fall cleanups, and the end of a contract year.
The quiet months are where next season gets decided, so post into them. What you are booking for spring, when the cleanup, aeration or pre-emergent window opens in your market, what a cleanup includes, photos of work you shot in July. The question carries ten points, half credit for occasionally and nothing for never, so the habit is worth more than the writing.
Only if somebody answers it. The question asks whether messaging is on and monitored, and at three points it is the smallest item on the board. It is worth more than that weight on the maintenance side, where plenty of buyers would rather enroll at ten at night than have a conversation. An inbox nobody reads is worse than none.
No, and the tool does not claim it. The twelve cover the parts of the profile you control. Distance from the searcher is a real input no checklist moves, which for a route business is useful rather than annoying: you are trying to own the neighborhoods you already drive, not a county.
Google Business Profile Audit: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for landscaping companies · AI Visibility Checker for Landscapers · Website Report Card for Landscapers · What Should You Pay? for Landscapers · Review Response Writer for Landscapers · All free tools
Clear the top three off your fix list this winter, while there is still an afternoon to do it in, and get the recurring ones running before the first warm Saturday. If you want a second opinion on the profile and the site behind it, we will build a free concept mockup of your homepage, yours to keep either way.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.