29 September 2026 · 6 min read · Oscar Markham
Where a landscaper's Google Ads budget disappears
Landscaping has an unusually wide keyword surface and most of it is not a customer. Garden centres, plant searches, DIY projects, council parks, jobs and courses all carry the same words a landscaper bids on, and on a default campaign you pay for every one of them at the same price.
Retail and plant searches are the biggest leak
'Garden centre near me', 'plants for sale', 'turf delivery', 'topsoil bags'. Somebody is buying materials or plants, not hiring anyone.
This is usually the largest category of waste in a landscaping account and the easiest to remove.
- garden centre, nursery, plants for sale, seeds, bulbs, compost
- topsoil, turf delivery, bark, gravel bags, sleepers, b&q, woodie's
DIY and inspiration
'Garden ideas', 'how to lay a patio', 'small garden design ideas'. Enormous volume, very high click rate, almost no intent to hire.
'Ideas' is the single most useful negative keyword in this trade. People browsing ideas are months away at best and frequently doing it themselves.
- ideas, inspiration, diy, how to, tutorial, pinterest, images, photos
- cheap, budget, free, yourself
Jobs, courses and qualifications
'Landscaping jobs', 'gardener wanted', 'horticulture course', 'landscape architecture degree'. Steady volume, no value.
The architecture and horticulture study terms are the ones most often missed because they look professionally relevant.
- jobs, vacancy, hiring, wanted, apprentice, wage, salary
- course, degree, horticulture, landscape architecture, college, qualification
Council, commercial and the wrong scale
'Park maintenance tender', 'council grass cutting', 'golf course greenkeeper'. Unless you genuinely do that work, block it.
Equally, if you do only domestic work, block the commercial terms — and if you want commercial work, give it a separate campaign rather than letting it drift into the domestic one.
What is actually worth paying for
Terms with a job and a place in them. 'Garden design [town]', 'patio laid [town]', 'landscaping company near me', 'garden makeover [county]', 'hedge cutting [town]'.
Set locations to presence rather than presence-or-interest, and keep the radius to where you will genuinely tow a trailer. Then read the search terms report weekly for the first month — in this trade it is always more revealing than people expect.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.