Lawn Care and NDIS Green Services SEO Case Study
Built from scratch to ranking in the top two positions in Google AI Overview for lawn care and NDIS services
Lawn care is one of the most competitive local service categories in Melbourne. Everyone needs their lawn mowed, and there’s no shortage of businesses doing it. Building organic search presence from scratch in that market takes a clear strategy and patience.
This business had an additional layer of complexity: NDIS services. They provide lawn and garden maintenance for NDIS participants, which means ranking for an entirely separate set of search terms with different intent. NDIS participants and their plan managers search differently from residential customers looking for a regular mow.
The domain had been lost during COVID. We repurchased it, rebuilt the website from scratch, and launched in September 2024 with zero search history to work from.
Building Two Search Presences at Once
We built the website from the ground up with both audiences in mind. Separate content streams for residential lawn care and NDIS green services, each targeting the specific search terms those customers use. The NDIS content required careful structuring to rank for compliance-related searches while still converting visitors into enquiries.
Starting from zero meant building topical authority across both service categories simultaneously. We structured pages around how people search, not how lawn care companies describe themselves.
Where They Are Now
The numbers tell the story. In the first 90 days, the site had 341 ranking keywords, 97 on the first page, and generated 100 clicks from 5,340 impressions. Seventeen months later: 1,200+ ranking keywords, 168 on the first page, and 326 clicks from 46,700+ impressions per 90-day period. That’s keywords up 280%, first page keywords up 73%, clicks up 226%, and impressions up 775%. Over the full 17 months, the site has generated 1,200+ clicks and 198,400+ impressions from Australian searches. Year-over-year, clicks are up 149% and impressions are up 677%.
| Metric | First 90 Days | Current (17 Months) | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranking keywords | 341 | 1,200+ | +280% |
| First page keywords | 97 | 168 | +73% |
| 90-day clicks | 100 | 326 | +226% |
| 90-day impressions | 5,340 | 46,700+ | +775% |
| Average position (across 1,200+ keywords) | 28.9 | 38.3 | |
| Year-over-year click growth (same 90-day period) | 131 clicks → 326 clicks | +149% | |
| Year-over-year impression growth (same 90-day period) | 6,017 → 46,700+ | +677% | |
| 17-month total clicks | — | 1,200+ | |
| 17-month total impressions | — | 198,400+ | |
| Google AI Overview | Not listed | Position 1-2 across all service types | |
First 90 Days = September to November 2024, the first three months after site launch.
Current = the most recent 90-day period as of January 2026.
Clicks = the number of times someone clicked through to the website from Google search results.
Impressions = the number of times the website appeared in someone’s Google search results. An impression counts every time the listing shows up, whether or not someone clicks on it.
Average position = the average Google ranking across ALL tracked keywords, not a hand-picked selection. If the site ranks for 1,200+ keywords, this is the average across every single one of them. Average position increased numerically because the site now ranks for nearly four times as many keywords, including longer-tail searches at lower positions that pull the average up.
Ranking keywords = the number of different search terms Google shows the website for in search results.
First page keywords = keywords ranking in positions 1-10, meaning they appear on the first page of Google search results where most clicks happen.
Google AI Overview = Google’s AI-generated answer that appears above traditional search results. Being cited here means Google’s AI recommends the business as a relevant result.
Year-over-year growth = comparison of the same 90-day period (Oct-Jan) this year versus last year, showing how performance has improved over 12 months.
All data filtered to Australian searches via Google Search Console. Data current as of January 2026.
The result that matters most: they rank between first and second position in Google’s AI Overview for NDIS lawn mowing, residential lawn mowing, and commercial lawn mowing services. That placement means Google’s AI recommends this business above competitors who have been operating for years.
What That Means in Practice
When an NDIS plan manager searches for compliant lawn care services in Melbourne, this business appears in Google’s AI-generated answer before competitors who have been operating for years. That visibility is worth more than any amount of paid advertising because it comes with Google’s implicit endorsement.
The keyword expansion from 341 to 1,200+ search terms means the business now appears for searches they never would have captured before: suburb-specific queries, NDIS-specific compliance terms, and long-tail variations that residential customers use when searching for lawn care.
Need to build search visibility in a competitive local market? Get in touch and we’ll show you what’s possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
How We Report These Results
Australian data only. Every number on this page comes from Google Search Console filtered to Australia. Unless specifically stated otherwise, we report on Australian search performance because that’s where our clients’ customers are. Worldwide numbers would inflate the results, and inflated numbers help nobody make good decisions.
Average position means ALL keywords. When we say average position improved from 42 to 27, that’s the average across every single keyword that site ranks for. Hundreds of them. Sometimes thousands. We don’t cherry-pick the best performers and ignore the rest. You’re only as good as your lowest-ranking keyword, and everything moves together. If we’re doing our job properly, Google expands the keywords, the synonyms, and the search terms you appear for as it recognises your site deserves to be there.
This is a process of proving to Google that your website should be the one people see when they search for what you offer. That proof builds over months, not days. It’s why consistency matters more than any single tactic.
Why SEO and Google Ads Work Better Together
We don’t recommend running Google Ads without SEO. The two have a symbiotic relationship that most businesses miss.
Google Ads fills the gaps where your SEO hasn’t reached yet. You’re paying to appear for the searches you haven’t earned organically. But those paid visits do more than generate leads directly. When someone clicks your ad and completes their search on your site, that signals to Google that your site satisfied the searcher. We call this a completed search session, and it’s one of the strongest signals you can send. That signal helps your organic rankings.
So Google Ads doesn’t just fill gaps… it actively helps your SEO by proving to Google that your site deserves to rank for those terms.
As your SEO builds and you start ranking organically for more terms, you can pull back your ad spend on those keywords and redirect it to the terms where you still need coverage. The result: your total cost per lead drops over time while your visibility keeps growing. Running only one is leaving results on the table. Both together compound each other’s effectiveness.
Want to understand how SEO and Google Ads would work together for your business? Talk to us and we’ll map it out for you.