Tree Service Website Survey Reveals Wide Performance Range

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– Bad News – Most Tree Service Websites Provide Less Than 10 Leads A Month
– Good News – A Well-Sorted Tree Care Website Can Deliver More than 100 New Sales Leads Monthly!
– What Business Income Does a Strong Tree Service Website Add?
– NET $ Benefit of a Tree Service Website with 100 leads a month
– Can These Strong Websites Be Made Even Stronger?
– Appendix – Results Tables

In early November 2021, we asked our friends in 6 separate tree service-related Facebook Groups how many sales leads they were getting. Groups are listed in the Appendix section.

62 tree service business owners responded to the poll. The results are very revealing, albeit indicative only with this modest number of responses.

Bad News – Most Tree Service Websites Provide Less Than 10 Leads A Month

Nearly two thirds (62%) of all tree service business owners claim their websites generate less than 10 sales leads from prospective customers every month. Some of these owners may be a little disappointed with their sites. However, to continue operating, they are likely to have a good alternative supply of calls and inquiries e.g. word of mouth, social media, paid search, truck signage.

Yet at the other end of the scale, 18% of owner responses say their sites deliver more than 100 leads each month.

The stark contrast between the well-performing sites and the majority of others reflects the ‘winner takes all’ dynamic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A web page ranked #1 in the search engines will attract approximately 30% of visitors looking for a related search term. At the bottom of 1^st page of search engine results, that percentage will usually drop away to 2% of all searches or less.

Good News – A Well-Sorted Tree Care Website Can Deliver More than 100 New Sales Leads Every Month!

With Google Ads, Google Guaranteed listings and Google Map results taking up much of the 1^st search page real estate, building and nurturing a tree service website seems hardly worthwhile. But our simple survey clearly indicates otherwise.

It appears that nearly one in six of all tree websites (18%) deliver impressive levels of new business introductions.

What Business Income Does a Strong Tree Service Website Add?

First, some assumptions:

1. Website targets a service area with a population of 300,000 or more (i.e. counties and/or medium-size cities)
2. Conversion Rate of leads to estimates delivered c. 90%
3. Conversion rate of estimates to agreed tree work c. 45% (our clients convert between one third and 85% of all estimates, averaging in the high 40s)
4. Average of $650 per tree job (mostly tree removal or trimming/pruning work)
5. You get paid for all your work!
6. Your retained income is 33% of gross

Calculation:

• 100 leads a month
• 90 estimates a month
• 40 paid jobs a month (45% conversion ratio)
• total additional gross income $26,000 per month from 100 leads a month
  
  

NET $ Benefit of a Tree Service Website with 100 leads a month

$8,500 additional net profit i.e. after expenses, fuel, equipment depreciation, wages and insurances (33% of gross income)

Want One?

Can These Strong Websites Be Made Even Stronger?

Yes, Sir!!

The Best Tree Service Sites Haven’t Reached Their Full Potential

We took a peak at some of the websites of owners telling us they were getting 100 leads or more from them. Most sites are ranking #1 for key phrases such as “tree service theircity” and “tree removal theircity”. This is great as far as it goes. But not one of these “100 leads a month sites” is at or near its full potential. This is because even the strongest sites perform poorly in key neighborhoods within the main city in their respective service areas. You know, the leafy suburban neighborhoods where the living is easy, at least for some of your competitors! This is especially the case in large cities and is also noticeable in smaller cities.

Why Is This and What Is The Solution?

It’s not your fault. It’s because of Google’s ‘Pigeon’ search algorithm update way back in 2014. Google now sees local businesses as restaurants, shoe shops and barbers in relatively small, defined geographic city neighborhoods. This is fine when improving local relevance for these type of businesses.

However, this doesn’t help home service businesses like yours which have extensive service areas extending 20/30 miles out in all directions. We’ll reveal this observation in more detail here soon.

A Great New Tree Leads Service Soon

We’ll also share an advanced tree leads solution which explodes your monthly lead count no matter what stage your tree service website has reached. As we write this, we’re building example tree service websites under a brand new and exciting architecture. These examples will prove and illustrate our new approach.

In the meantime, check out our other tree service marketing idea articles summarized here.

Note:  For the market research geeks, the survey comprises a self-selecting, non-adjusted sample.

Appendix

Tabulated results as shown in above chart

Raw Responses from each Facebook Group (as at Nov 17^th 2021)

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John Hackwood