No. 01 · Garden design
Heartsease
Viola tricolor
“garden designer bristol”
- Volume
- 880/mo
- Sown
- #38
- Bloomed
- M10 · #2
Case study · Mallow & Reed
Garden design & landscaping · Bristol
How a two-person garden studio became Bristol's most-found landscaper
17Top 3 in map pack for 17 Bristol postcodesafter 11 months, from zero
- Season
- 11 months
- Plan
- Local
- City
- Bristol
01 · The challenge
Beautiful gardens, planted where nobody searched.
Their beautiful work was buried in Instagram while national directories owned every 'garden designer Bristol' search.
Mallow & Reed is two designers and a van. Their portfolio lived in a 640-post Instagram grid that Google could not read, and a homeowner in Redland typing “garden designer Bristol” saw Houzz, Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Bark before a single studio. Leads that did arrive came through those directories, priced against three other quotes. The work was the best in the city; the soil it was planted in was barren.
02 · Soil test
What the audit dug up
- Profilesample 01
Primary GBP category was Gardener, so the profile competed for lawn-mowing searches.
Landscape designer primary, Landscaper and Garden designer secondary.
- Profilesample 02
Zero project photos on the profile against 640 on Instagram.
Weekly geotagged uploads, captioned by project and postcode.
- Sitesample 03
Single-page site; the portfolio was an Instagram embed with no indexable text.
Crawlable project pages with a brief, plan and plant list.
- Sitesample 04
Uncompressed 5 MB photos: mobile LCP 6.8s, failing Core Web Vitals.
AVIF with responsive sizes; LCP 1.9s.
- Contentsample 05
No page mentioned a Bristol area, so directories took every postcode search.
Postcode pages built from real jobs in each area.
- Contentsample 06
NAP mismatched on 23 of 41 citations after a 2021 move.
Citations corrected and duplicates merged.
- Reviewssample 07
14 reviews, the newest nine months old.
A handover card and a two-day follow-up message.
03 · The seed tin
Six keyword clusters, sown as six beds.
Each cluster got a packet: its lead search, its monthly volume, and where it was planted against where it flowered. A plant blooms when the lead keyword reaches the top 3.
No. 02 · Landscaper by postcode
Foxglove
Digitalis purpurea
“landscaper near me”
- Volume
- 2,400/mo
- Sown
- #61
- Bloomed
- M8 · #1
No. 03 · Small gardens
Lavender
Lavandula angustifolia
“small garden design bristol”
- Volume
- 390/mo
- Sown
- #72
- Bloomed
- M10 · #3
No. 04 · Planting & borders
Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
“planting design bristol”
- Volume
- 210/mo
- Sown
- 100+
- Bloomed
- M10 · #2
No. 05 · Patios & paving
Sweet pea
Lathyrus odoratus
“patio landscaping bristol”
- Volume
- 590/mo
- Sown
- #55
- Bloomed
- bud · #4
No. 06 · Garden rooms
Allium
Allium giganteum
“courtyard garden design”
- Volume
- 320/mo
- Sown
- 100+
- Bloomed
- bud · #5
04 · The planting scheme
Four tasks, done every week.
Built on our Local plan (Local SEO): the profile, the proof, the places and the praise, tended in rotation rather than launched once.
01 — Prepare the ground
Google Business Profile
Primary category corrected to Landscape designer, a 20-postcode service area, services listed with price bands, and twelve geotagged project photos a week so the profile shows the work Instagram was hiding.
02 — Sow in rows
Project portfolio pages
Every finished garden became a crawlable page: the brief, the drawn plan, a plant list, a budget band and the street it sits on. Eighteen pages, each one a new way to be found for a real search.
03 — Plant by soil
Postcode landing pages
Fourteen area pages written from local conditions and nearby jobs, not a template with the name swapped. Thin ones were merged in month 9; every project links to its postcode.
04 — Water weekly
Review strategy
A plantable seed-paper handover card with a QR code, a two-day follow-up, and owner replies that name the plants. 14 reviews became 126 at 4.9, freshest within the week.
05 · The growing season
11 months, from bare soil to bloom.
Scroll the diary and the plot grows with it, one frame per month. Or scrub the slider with the arrow keys.
Baseline0 postcodes top 3 · 9 enquiries
Before
Bare soil
Their beautiful work was buried in Instagram while national directories owned every 'garden designer Bristol' search. No bed ranked in the top 20; no Bristol postcode showed the studio in the map pack.
0/17 postcodes · 9 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 1
Clearing the plot
Audit of site, profile and 41 directory listings. Primary GBP category moved from Gardener to Landscape designer; service area drawn to 20 postcodes; old Easton address scrubbed from 23 citations.
0/17 postcodes · 9 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 2
Double-digging the site
Portfolio rebuilt from an Instagram embed into crawlable HTML. 2,400 images compressed to AVIF, mobile LCP from 6.8s to 1.9s. LocalBusiness and Service schema added.
1/17 postcodes · 10 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 3
Sowing the first beds
First six project pages live — each with brief, plan, plant list, budget band and the postcode it sits in. First postcode pages for BS6, BS7 and BS8.
3/17 postcodes · 11 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 4
Pricking out
Review request card left at every handover with a QR to the profile. 22 new reviews in the month; owner replies within 48 hours, naming the plants and the street.
5/17 postcodes · 12 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 5
Mulching
Fourteen postcode pages, each with the local soil (Clifton's thin limestone, Bedminster's heavy clay), nearby projects and a map. Internal links from every project to its postcode.
7/17 postcodes · 14 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 6
First flowers
GBP photo cadence set at 12 a week, geotagged and captioned by project. Weekly Posts for seasonal work. 'Landscaper near me' reaches the map pack across north Bristol.
9/17 postcodes · 15 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 7
Staking the tall ones
Houzz, Checkatrade and RHS-listed profiles aligned. Local press piece on a Bishopston front-garden rain bed earned links from two Bristol outlets.
11/17 postcodes · 17 enquiries · 0 beds in bloom
Month 8
Feeding
Eighteen project pages, each answering cost and timeline questions. Small-garden cluster overtakes two national directories.
13/17 postcodes · 19 enquiries · 1 beds in bloom
Month 9
Deadheading
Thin postcode pages merged; under-performing BS13 and BS14 pages rewritten around real local jobs. Review count passes 120 at 4.9.
15/17 postcodes · 20 enquiries · 1 beds in bloom
Month 10
High summer
Q&A seeded on the profile from real enquiry questions. 16 postcodes in the top 3; garden-design head term reaches position 3.
16/17 postcodes · 22 enquiries · 4 beds in bloom
Month 11
The harvest
Seventeen postcodes held in the top 3. Organic enquiries at 23 a month, now the studio's largest lead source by project value.
17/17 postcodes · 23 enquiries · 4 beds in bloom
06 · The harvest
What came up after 11 months.
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
+156%
£14.2k
Organic search enquiries£14.2k
Directory leads (modelled)£6.1k
Searchers who find the portfolio first arrive wanting the whole garden, not a quote for a fence.
+310%
17 of 20 target postcodes in the map-pack top 3
- BS6Redland✿ M2
- BS7Bishopston✿ M3
- BS8Clifton✿ M3
- BS9Westbury✿ M4
- BS3Bedminster✿ M4
- BS1Centre✿ M5
- BS2St Pauls✿ M5
- BS5Easton✿ M6
- BS4Knowle✿ M6
- BS16Fishponds✿ M7
- BS10Henleaze✿ M7
- BS41Long Ashton✿ M8
- BS15Kingswood✿ M8
- BS31Keynsham✿ M9
- BS48Nailsea✿ M9
- BS30Bitton✿ M10
- BS13Bishopsworth✿ M11
- BS14Stockwood· sown
- BS11Avonmouth· sown
- BS40Chew Valley· sown
The harvest ledger
| Keyword | Searches / mo | Baseline | Month 11 | Map pack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| landscaper near me | 2,400 | #61 | #1 | Top 3 |
| garden designer bristol | 880 | #38 | #2 | Top 3 |
| landscaping bristol | 720 | #44 | #2 | Top 3 |
| patio landscaping bristol | 590 | #55 | #4 | Top 3 |
| small garden design bristol | 390 | #72 | #3 | — |
| courtyard garden design | 320 | — | #5 | — |
| garden designer clifton | 260 | — | #1 | Top 3 |
| planting design bristol | 210 | — | #2 | — |
| landscaper bishopston | 140 | — | #1 | Top 3 |
| front garden ideas bristol | 110 | #89 | #3 | — |
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