Spring to winter: a landscaper's publishing calendar, month by month

Why each season's page changes before the season does

Your booking records say when each season's calls begin, and for a spring cleanup or a snow contract that is before the work starts, not when it does. A page that changes the week the crews go out has changed after the early bookers asked. With web search on, an answer built from your spring page can only repeat what that page said when it was fetched, so a spring page still carrying last year's dates in February is the page that gets read in February.

So each seasonal page is updated a few weeks before its calls begin, counted from your own records: [four to six weeks] is a placeholder, and the week last year's first calls came for each service is the real number. The calendar below is written for a northern market with snow. Where there is none, the winter line is whatever your winter work is, and every month shifts to your own climate. The dates are the part of a content strategy a seasonal trade cannot skip.

Google puts keeping Business Profile information up to date among its practices on its page on AI features and your website, and its guide to generative AI search says Business Profile helps local details appear. The site is the other half of the same job, and the calendar covers both halves.

The dated line each seasonal page carries

Each seasonal page opens with one line that says where the season stands and when the line was written. A reader can tell from it whether the page is current, and so can anyone checking an answer against it.

Spring cleanups: booking from [date] in [towns]. First visits from [date], weather permitting. Updated [date].

Weekly mowing, [year]: routes in [towns] are full; [towns] taking new lawns until [date]. Updated [date].

Snow removal, winter [year]: taking residential contracts in [towns] until [date] or until routes fill. Updated [date].

Fall cleanups: closed for [year]. Spring cleanup booking opens [date]. Updated [date].

Each part does a job. The service is named the way your service page names it. The status is one word a homeowner can act on: booking, full or closed. The towns say where the status holds, because a route can fill in one town and not the next. The dates say when, and the last date says when the line itself was checked. A line without that last date reads the same this March as it will next March, which is how a stale page hides. The freshness a reader can check is a date on the page.

The season's prices sit on the prices page with their own date, and the seasonal page links to them rather than repeating them, so a price changes in one place.

Month by month: what to publish, change and take down

The list assumes a spring start in [March] and snow from [December]. Move each item to the month your own records give it.

1. January: open the spring cleanup booking line with its dates and towns. Publish the new year's mowing contract prices on the prices page, dated. Check that the snow page's line is current for the winter you are in.
2. February: put up the build calendar for patios and walls ("designs for [year] builds booked through [month]"). Check the Business Profile's service menu against the site's service pages, and set special hours for any day the office changes before spring.
3. March: add the irrigation start-up line ("spring start-ups from [date] in [towns]") and the repair booking line. Update the mowing route status, town by town.
4. April: change the spring cleanup line to its last dates, or to full. When the last snow visit is done, change the snow page to closed for the season, with the date contract booking opens for next winter.
5. May: close the spring cleanup line and name the date fall cleanup booking opens. Keep the mowing status by town current, and switch the irrigation line from start-ups to repairs.
6. June: check the drought and watering-restriction answer on the scheduling page against the rules your water provider has published for this year, and the hardscape line against your real start dates.
7. July: open fall bookings: the fall cleanup line, and aeration or overseeding if you offer them, each with dates. Open the irrigation winterization line for [month].
8. August: publish next winter's snow contract terms and prices, with the date contract booking opens and the towns it covers.
9. September: add the last mowing week to the mowing line, and the fall cleanup route dates by town.
10. October: keep the snow contract status by town current ("taking contracts in [towns] until [date] or until routes fill"), and post the last winterization dates.
11. November: close the fall cleanup line with the date spring booking opens, and set the Business Profile's hours for the winter as the section below describes.
12. December: move the year's finished jobs into project records while the photos and details are fresh, put next year's prices on the prices page with their date, and write the date each page changed this year into one list.

When a season ends: change the lines, keep the address

A seasonal page stays up all year, at the same address. At the season's end its dated line changes to "closed for [year]" with the date booking reopens. The season's booking dates, any promotion and any line about how many slots are left come down. The service description, the towns and the answers that hold in every month stay, because they are the page's evergreen content. The page is then already in place, links and all, when the next season's questions start.

A promotion carries its end date on the page and comes down on that date. A price change gets a new date on the prices page. A town added to or dropped from the route changes on the service-area list the day it happens, not at the season's end, for the reasons the route-map check sets out.

Keeping the Business Profile in step with the site

The profile and the site should say the same thing about hours, services and area at every point in the year, so they change on the same day. Google's Business Profile guidelines ask for the regular hours customers can reach you, special hours for holidays, and a service menu that lists the complete set of services you offer.

For hours that follow the seasons, the same guidelines say to set regular hours during the season you are open, and allow your current seasonal hours to stand as the regular hours. The business description can say that the business is open only for a seasonal period. In an off-season when the office closes, the business can be marked temporarily closed, with regular hours set again when it reopens. A company that works only by appointment is a different case: the guidelines say such businesses should not list hours at all.

Services and the area change on the profile when they change on the site: the day the snow page opens contracts, the day a town joins the route. Write each profile change into the same dated list as the site's changes, so the two cannot drift apart without anyone noticing.

How you will know whether the calendar did anything

A calendar puts the right facts on your pages at the right time. Whether an answer repeats them is something only a reading can show, because the calendar changes what the pages say and nothing about what an assistant does with them. The reading to use is the monthly panel, read by season: this April's spring lines against last April's, with this year's change dates beside them.

The dated list is what makes that comparison worth doing. If the spring page changed on [date] this year and on [date] last year, and the spring lines read differently, those two dates are the first thing to set against the difference. What the site should state before any of this is on the landscaping and lawn care page.