The winter review drought, and why your profile looks closed by February
Most landscapers stop asking for reviews when mowing ends, so their Google profile goes quiet for months. Here is why that hurts in spring and the simple fix.
Look at the review dates on most landscaping profiles and you will see the same shape. A run of reviews from May through September, then nothing until the following May. To a homeowner searching in March, the newest review is six months old and the company looks like it might not be around anymore.
That gap is one of the most common mistakes we see on landscaping profiles, and it is almost entirely self-inflicted. The work slows down, so the asking stops, and the asking was the only thing producing reviews.
Why the gap costs you
Two reasons, one about people and one about Google.
People read dates. A homeowner comparing three lawn care companies in early spring will notice that one has a review from last week and another has nothing since September. The quiet one looks less active, even if it is the better company. Recency is part of what makes a review believable.
Google reads dates too. Google says plainly that review count and score are part of how prominence is judged in local results, and its guidance for businesses encourages asking for reviews as an ongoing habit, not a seasonal push. A profile that adds reviews steadily is sending a signal that a profile with a five-month silence is not. You can read Google's own explanation in its help page on how local results are ranked.
The field is not crowded at the top. Across 91,717 landscaping and lawn care listings in our data, the median company has 7 reviews and 55.6% have fewer than ten. Only 5.4% have passed 100. A company that adds even two or three reviews a month through the winter can pull ahead of most of its market by spring.
Where the winter reviews come from
You are not mowing in January, but you are still doing work, and every job is a chance to ask.
Leaf cleanups, right now. This is the last big volume of the year. The customer can see the before and after from the kitchen window. Ask the same day while the lawn is still clear.
Final mows and winterizing. Aerating, overseeding, sprinkler blowouts, the last fertilizer round. Each visit ends a season of service, which is a natural moment to say thank you and ask.
Snow removal, if you plow. A cleared driveway at 6 a.m. is the most grateful customer you will ever have. Text the review link before you pull away from the curb.
Holiday lights and hardscape. Light installs and winter patio or wall projects bring the customer outside to look at the result. That is your doorway moment.
Past customers who never left one. Your best source in December. Go through this year's invoices, find everyone happy who did not review, and send one short text. Keep it personal: "Hi Dana, it's Marcus from Green Line. Thanks for trusting us with the yard this year. If you have a minute, a Google review helps us more than anything. Here's the link." No follow-up nagging. One ask per customer.
Pace it, do not dump it
The fix is not to send 200 texts on December 1. A sudden flood of reviews after months of silence looks odd and does not solve the problem, because by March you are back to a two-month-old newest review.
Spread it out. Send ten past-customer texts a week from now through February. Ask every winter job on the spot. The goal is a review every week or two, so the newest date on your profile never looks stale.
The Google reviews guide has the full set of scripts for route work, installs and cleanups, including the ask that works when nobody is home.
Keep the rest of the profile awake
Reviews are the biggest part of the winter gap, but not the only part. While you are fixing it:
- Post once every two weeks. A photo of a finished leaf cleanup, a snow route at dawn, a hardscape project. Posts show activity and they take five minutes.
- Change your hours, do not blank them. If you go to limited winter hours, enter them. 52.5% of companies in our data list no hours at all, which reads as "might be closed."
- Update services for the season. Add snow removal, holiday lights or winter pruning if you offer them, so the profile matches what people are searching for in December.
- Reply to every review. A short thank-you on each one, including the old ones you missed.
The Google Business Profile guide walks through each of these fields, and the benchmark report shows how your review count compares to the rest of the field.
The spring payoff
The companies that win March and April are usually not the ones with the biggest ad budget. They are the ones whose profile looks alive when homeowners start searching. A steady winter of small asks is the cheapest spring marketing you can do.
If you want the review texts sent and the profile kept current through the winter for you, any service is available as a free 14-day trial, no card. Text or call (801) 701-3271.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, landscaping and lawn care companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor