One way to lower your risk of ticks is to manage the parts of your yard you use most. Mowing paths into your yard instead of mowing the entire yard can help and allow the other parts of your yard to grow, planting patches of yard with native plants and allowing plants to grow instead of turf.

If you can find a way to attract Opossum they are net tick destroyers. Keeping out deer will only help so well, as small mammals(chipmunks, mice, etc) are primarily the sustainers of tick populations.

There are a lot of things that eat ticks. eg: Chickens will turn ticks into eggs.

Do you get them even in the suburbs? If your yard is big enough, keep an area mowed short and a 3-5 meter buffer between that and tall growth. But that takes quite a lot of space.

Guinea Hens are great at eating ticks.

Keep the deer out?

Encourage possums.