Who we help / Landscapers
SEO for landscapers
This is the largest trade market we have measured — 17,120 searches a month across Melbourne landscaping. It also contains the most expensive click anywhere on this site: “pool fencing melbourne” at A$27, sitting at an organic difficulty of 1. Advertisers are fighting over it and nobody is doing the other kind of work.
Same day, written by a person, no obligation. We only use your details to send the audit. Or email louie@superseo.com.au.
First, the basics
Three ways to show up. They are not the same thing.
Worth two minutes, because the rest of this page keeps them apart.
The ads
Paid slots at the very top. You bid, you pay per click, you are there this afternoon. Decided by your credit card.
The map
Three businesses. That is the whole map pack. Fourth place is a link nobody taps. Decided by your Google profile: how close you are to the person searching, your categories, your hours, your reviews. Your website barely comes into it.
The list
The ordinary results underneath. Decided by your website: your pages, your words, the sites linking to you. When we say “organic” further down, this is what we mean.
Structure
We predicted this experiment would settle a rule. It did the opposite.
Twice before we have tested the trade word against a job name in the suburb layer. Builders wanted the trade word, fourteen suburbs to nothing. Carpenters wanted the job name, decisively. We said that if landscaping agreed with carpentry we would have a rule worth selling.
| Place | “landscaper” searches | difficulty | “retaining walls” searches | difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geelong | 480 | 8 | 140 | 1 |
| Frankston | 140 | 3 | 50 | 3 |
| Mornington | 140 | 3 | 10 | 3 |
| Bendigo | 90 | 4 | 40 | 4 |
| Brunswick | 50 | 8 | 0 | — |
| Five places | 900 | 5.2 avg | 240 | 2.8 avg |
Twelve places measured on “landscaper”, eleven with demand, 1,600 searches a month between them. Five measured on “retaining walls”, four with demand.
Where the money is
The two most valuable clusters are the two least likely to be on your website.
Seventy-six terms measured, sixty-six with demand, sixty-three distinct once duplicates are counted once.
| Cluster | Searches | Ad value a month | Per search | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trees & arboriculture | 2,790 | A$38,670 | A$13.86 | 3–12 |
| Hardscape | 3,270 | A$19,250 | A$5.89 | 3–13 |
| Lawn & turf | 2,610 | A$15,240 | A$5.84 | 4–17 |
| Maintenance | 2,920 | A$12,340 | A$4.23 | 2–17 |
| Pools | 550 | A$10,170 | A$18.49 | 1–10 |
| The trade word itself | 1,720 | A$10,500 | A$6.10 | 1–11 |
| Design | 1,290 | A$6,930 | A$5.37 | 3–31 |
| Irrigation & drainage | 40 | A$0 | — | 3–5 |
Pulled 26 September 2026. Cost per click comes out of the keyword tool in US dollars, converted at 1 USD = 1.395 AUD and rounded to the dollar, with every sum done on the rounded figure so the arithmetic reconciles. The suburb terms are counted in the totals further down.
Rent or own
What it costs to buy this traffic, and what it costs to earn it.
Start with the head term, the way we do on every trade page.
| Share of searches captured by #1 | Monthly clicks | Equivalent ad cost | Campaign cost | Value vs ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-third | 433 | A$2,598 | A$1,500 | 1.7× |
| One-quarter | 325 | A$1,950 | A$1,500 | 1.3× |
| One-sixth | 217 | A$1,302 | A$1,500 | 0.9× |
| One-tenth | 130 | A$780 | A$1,500 | 0.5× |
| 19.2% | 250 | A$1,500 | A$1,500 | 1.0× |
The opportunity
Half of what you build needs a permit and most quotes never mention it.
Four thresholds decide whether a landscaping job is paperwork or not, and customers know none of them.
One metre of retaining wall
“Any retaining wall less than 1m in height is exempt from a building permit” — unless it is associated with other building work or is protecting a property. Go over a metre, or build it as part of something else, and it is a permit job. Given “retaining walls melbourne” is the second-biggest term in this trade, that is a lot of quotes that should say so and do not.
Any deck attached to the house, at any size
This one surprises people. A permit is required for decks and verandahs attached to a building “irrespective of size”. There is no small-deck exemption. A pergola, by contrast, is exempt while it stays under 3.6m high and 20m² of floor area — so the same back yard can contain one structure that needs a permit and one that does not.
Thirty centimetres of water
Registration with the council is mandatory for any pool or spa “capable of holding more than 30cm of water”. That catches inflatables and portable spas, not just in-ground pools. A relocatable pool must be lodged within 4 days of being erected; a permanent one within 30 days of the occupancy permit or final inspection.
Four years, then again
A barrier compliance certificate is not once and done. “A new compliance certificate must be lodged every four years.” Every pool you have ever fenced is a customer with a recurring obligation and no reminder, which is a reason to be in touch that has nothing to do with selling.
Proof you can hand over
Four numbers a customer can check before they sign.
A landscaper who volunteers these in the quote has answered the questions the next three quotes will not.
1 metre
Below it, a retaining wall is exempt from a building permit. At or above it, or tied to other work, it is not.
Any size
A deck or verandah attached to the house needs a permit irrespective of size. A pergola escapes it under 3.6m and 20m².
30 cm
Anything holding more than 30cm of water must be registered with the council — inflatables and portable spas included.
4 years
How often a pool barrier compliance certificate has to be lodged again. Most owners think it was a one-off.
Common mistakes
Five things we fix on nearly every landscaping site.
One page trying to be both businesses
Gardening is 2,400 searches at A$4 and is won on the map. Landscape construction is 1,300 at A$6 and is won on the website. They are different customers, different decisions and different money. A single “our services” page addressed to both converts neither.
No pool fencing page
A$27 a click, difficulty 1, and a legal obligation that repeats every four years. It is the most valuable and least contested thing in this trade, and it is usually a bullet point in a list of twelve.
Naming the page after yourself instead of the work
“Retaining walls melbourne” is 1,600 searches a month at a difficulty of 5. “Retaining wall builder melbourne” is a flat zero. Same job, same page, one of the two headings is worth 1,600 searches.
An irrigation page nobody will ever read
Irrigation installation, garden irrigation, sprinkler systems, garden drainage, backyard drainage: forty searches a month between the five, and not one dollar of advertiser interest across the whole cluster. It is real work and it is not a search market. Mention it; do not build for it.
Silence about trees
A$38,670 a month of searching, and every landscaping site is ambiguous about whether they do it. If you take tree work, say so plainly and name the arborist qualification. If you do not, say who you use. Ambiguity loses the enquiry either way.
Areas
Landscaping SEO by suburb.
Eleven of twelve have demand, and on this trade the pages are named after the trade — the experiment above says so.
Geelong
Brighton
Craigieburn
Frankston
Mornington
Pakenham
Ballarat
Bendigo
Doncaster
Brunswick
Werribee
Glen Waverley
Twelve places measured, 1,600 searches a month between the eleven that have any. Geelong alone is more than the next three combined.
Free audit for Melbourne landscapers. Back the same day.
Send us the address and we’ll tell you exactly where you sit — on the map and in the list — against the landscapers currently above you.