I mow lawns. I also build websites. Here's how that happened.
Stuart Clifford, Hamilton. Owner of Gecko Lawns since 2007 and builder of 70 websites and counting for small service businesses.
The six-month meta tag
For years I paid a big web company to build and host the Gecko Lawns website. It was expensive, it didn't bring in much work, and getting anything changed was a mission.
Then I noticed what Google was showing for my site. The line under my business name said we were gardeners. We didn't do gardening. We mowed lawns. I asked them to fix it. It took six months. It was a five minute job.
I figured I couldn't do a worse job than that. Turns out I could do a much better one. I rebuilt my own site, got it ranking in Hamilton, and started getting calls from people who found me on Google instead of just word of mouth.
Then other lawn guys started asking
I never set out to be a web builder. Other lawn care companies saw my site and asked if I'd do one for them. So I did. Then their mates asked. I've now built 70 websites and counting and about the same number of Google Business Profiles for small operators in New Zealand, Australia and the States.
Along the way I started a Facebook group called Start and Grow a Lawn Care Business. It's now one of the biggest lawn care communities anywhere, with nearly 200,000 members. Every day I'm talking to small business owners about what's getting them work and what isn't. That's where most of what's in these sites comes from.
Why SiteMate
Lawn mowing was the trade I knew, so that's where I started. But a plumber, a builder, a painter or a house washer has exactly the same problem I had. Great at the work, invisible on Google, and quoted thousands by web companies for something they don't understand and can't get changed.
SiteMate is the same thing I've been doing for lawn care companies, opened up to every NZ business whose customers find them by searching locally. Tradies, physios, clinics, shops, salons.
The rules I work by
- Build first. You see the finished site before you pay. A pitch is just talk.
- Fast changes. Six months for a five minute fix cost me real money. You ask, it's done within 48 hours.
- It's yours. Your domain is registered in your name. If you leave, it goes with you, and so does your Google Business Profile. That one's my way of saying thanks.
- No jargon. I'll tell you what the site does for you, not how it works under the hood. Unless you want to know.
- Small and real beats big and perfect. A live site that brings in one job this week beats a perfect one that's still in a draft.
Still mowing
I still run Gecko Lawns. It keeps me honest about what a small operator actually needs, and it's where I test everything first. The Google Ads setup in the Growth plan is the one I run for my own round. The weekly posts are what took my own site from about position 15 to about position 7 on Google. Review Robot runs on my own customer list.
If it doesn't work for Gecko Lawns, it doesn't go in your plan. Here's the last three months of my own site in Google Search Console, so you can see what I mean.
My own Gecko Lawns site in Google Search Console, last 3 months to 9 November 2026. The line is average Google position, so up is good. The climb is the weekly local posts doing their job.
What people say about working with me
Reviews of Lawnmowing101, my lawn care website business. Read all 31 on Trustpilot, rated 4.5 Excellent, or see the Google reviews, rated 5.0.