For those small local businesses who have been quick to adapt to this new form of search, Google has been providing their business with countless enquiries and sales. Regardless of whether your a brick and mortar business looking to increase the footfall in your store, or a service provider such as an electrician or plumber, having an online presence has never been more essential.

Faber SEO are SEO Coventry specialists. We have helped small businesses understand the importance of SEO and how it can generate more sales and enquiries. We work with website owners to gain an insight into their business and find out the search phrases that are most important to them.

As an example, 320 people per month search for the phrase “electrician Coventry”. Similar to other service related phrases such as “plumbers” or “locksmiths” this search phrase is very likely to carry high intent. People typing such a search will be in need of an immediate service. Having your website rank at the top of Google for such as phrase would generate a high number of business enquiries and help your company outperform your competitors. By ranking at the top of Google you can ensure that your business does not miss out on potential customers.

Ranking at the top of Google and having a well designed website with strong call to actions will significantly help your business. As a plumber, electrical, locksmith or any other local service provider there are steps that you can take to ensure that once someone does visit your website, they are more likely to enquire about your services. 

By having your contact details clearly displayed at the top of your website, you remove any hassle from the visitors point of view and make it as easy as possible for them to contact you. Ensure  that your service is clearly displayed on your website along with opening hours and location. Perhaps most importantly, ensure that your website is mobile friendly.

If you have any questions regarding optimising your website please feel free to give us a call.

The post Is Search Engine Optimisation for Local Businesses? appeared first on Faber SEO.

The Facebook advertising platform provides businesses with a great opportunity to get their brand in front of people that matter. By tailoring audiences based on interests, location, age, gender and more, businesses can promote their brand, products or services. This highly targeted form of digital marketing (done correctly) can save businesses considerable money that would otherwise be spent on traditional marketing that targets the masses.

However without the correct ad and audience it can also be easy to throw money at Facebook advertising without seeing a return.

So what are the main things to include when creating a Facebook Advert?

There are numerous things to consider when creating your first ad. What works for one business may not work so well for another. Much of your adverts success will depend on the audience that you are targeting and how receptive they are. Those creating Facebook ads for B2B purposes no matter how tailored their ad are likely to see less engagement than those businesses who are advertising to their customers.

Firstly you should decide the goal of your advert. Are you wanting to drive people to your website? Do you want to get more like? Or are you looking to promote a new local shop you have opened?

Facebook provides tailored advertising for all of these and more.

Once you have decided the purpose of your advert, you can begin to create an ad that best promotes your business. Facebook allows you to ‘design your promotion’ providing you with the opportunity to create the text that will accompany your advert. Here you can also decide the headline of the ad, along with a destination URL, the image that will be shown and the main call to action. 

Deciding your destination URL will depending on what you wish to promote, if you want to promote your business and its brand, we recommend entering your homepage URL. However if you are looking to adverts or promote a specific product or service then you should promote the specific URL on your website.

Text. This is your main opportunity to tell your audience what you are about. Ensure that your content is well worded and gets across the main purpose of your ad e.g if you are promoting a service, include a little bit about the service, a starting price (optional) and the area that your service covers.

Headline. This has to be kept at 25 letters or below. This really depends on your preference and ideally should include your business name, product or service.

Image. This is the main part of your advert. You should choose an image that represents your brand, service, product or promotion. The image should be of good quality and clearly portray the message you are trying to get across. With so many images and ads on Facebook, your advertising image should be eye catching and professional. Facebook recommends that you include little or no text overlaid on your image.

Below is a summary of the recommended specs when designing your Facebook ads:

Facebook Images

• Image size: 1,200 x 628 pixels
• Image ratio: 1.91:1

Facebook Copy

• Text: 90 characters
• Headline: 25 characters
• Link description: 30 characters

Creating an Audience

Ensuring that your ads are targeting the correct audience is one of the most important parts of your campaign. Create an audience that is too narrow and your ad will be limited to very few eyes. Create an audience that is too broad, and you will likely loss money showing your advert to an uninterested market. Luckily Facebook offers what is considered by many as one of the best advertising platforms available. When creating your audience you can tailor it by an almost limitless possibilities. Choose from variables such as gender, age, interests, location, job and much more.

Once you are happy with your audience and advert design, its time to set your budget and publish your advert. It is important to remember that there is no set recipe for success. It is worth starting out with a fairly low daily budget and working your way up. Adjust and test your ads to see what type of content and imagery gets the most engagement from your audience.

If you would like any help regarding setting up Facebook advertising for your business, Faber specialise in social media management and are more than happy to offer advise or create a campaign for your business.

The post A Beginners Guide to Creating a Facebook Ad appeared first on Faber SEO.

Search Volume

The number of people searching for the potential keywords you wish to target will be one of the main factors that decides your campaign. Easily accessible tools such as Google’s Key Word Planner and SEMrush will provide accurate details on the number of people who search for specific phrases per month. This can also be geographically tailored to give the search volumes of keywords in different countries, (essential if you are a global business).

Intent

More generic phrases will have far higher search volumes compared with specific or niche terms. However it is also very important to consider user intent when choosing your keywords. The keyword ‘doors’ has 33,100 searches per month. However the people conducting these searches are not likely to know exactly what they are looking for, and more than likely looking for inspiration or just browsing whilst in front of their television. Compare this to ‘bi fold doors’ with a search volume of 14,800. These searches are more specific and have greater intent. Even more specific ‘wooden bi fold doors’ has only 90 searches per month. However the people carrying out these searches are very likely to be ready to make a purchase. Targeting a wide variety of specific search terms with greater intent can often be more profitable and cost effective. A strong SEO campaign will target a variety of keywords with varying intent.

Competition

If you are new to a market, it is very important to carry out competitor analysis. Research the terms that your competitors are targeting and see how much optimisation they have carried out in order to rank. Competitor research may highlight profitable keywords that your competition have neglected.

Your Website

In an ideal world an SEO campaign will be devised whilst the website is being built, this way the site structure can be tailored to suit the keywords that you wish to target. However this is not always the case on more often than not a campaign has to be integrated within an existing website. In these cases it is important not to target too many keywords on one page. Where necessary new pages should be created to provide sufficient levels of high quality informative content.

Location

Depending on the area you wish to target, you will have to adapt your keywords accordingly. Generally speaking e-commerce websites will target national phrases as they deliver throughout the UK. International businesses will have to research keywords across all of the countries they target. Remember to ensure that you correctly translate your keywords from one language to the next. It is also important to consider the varying intent behind keywords in different countries.

Smaller service related businesses such as electricians or estate agents will be most effect when targeting their keywords to specific cities and regions e.g electricians London.

Profit

Consider the profit margins of the products or services behind the keywords you are targeting. You may rank for a keyword that has a high search volume and drives high levels of traffic to your website. However if the products profit margin is low, it may not be as lucrative as ranking for products that have high profit margins.

Keywords are the most important part of optimisation. They will determine the success of your campaign. Faber SEO will work with your business to ensure that your campaign targets the keywords that will be most beneficial to your business.

The post How to Decide the Search Terms You Wish to Target appeared first on Faber SEO.

What to include in a page title?

As a standard, your page title should include the focus keyword that you intend to optimise on the given page, along with your business name. This demonstrates to Google what the page is about. It will also indicate to searchers and potential visitors that the page include information on the query they have typed in. Page titles should generally be kept to around 60 characters. If your website is built in WordPress, Yoast SEO is a plugin we would recommend. It highlights to the webmaster when a page title is too short or too long.

Remember to keep your page titles to the point, and ensure that they are informative.

What to include in a meta description?

The meta description is essentially a brief overview of what your website page is about. It provides an opportunity to entice searchers to click through to your website rather than your competitors. As a general rule meta descriptions should be kept to as close as 160 characters possible.

Whether meta descriptions are still important to Google from a SEO perspective is questionable. However it still remains essential to include your focus keyword within your meta description in order to indicate to searchers that your web page is relevant to a searchers query.

Hints and Tips

Page titles and meta descriptions should be tailored around the goals of your website. For example if you are an online retailer, ensure that you include this in your meta description. A good way to increase your click through rate is to include your keyword (which if you are an online store will often be a product) along with the price it starts from. If you provide next day/fast delivery, include that as well. Small selling points in your meta description may be the difference between a searcher clicking on your website over a competitors.

The same rules apply if you are a local service provider. Include the essential information that you would wish to see if you were looking for a service. We would recommend that you include the service you provide, the area where you provide it, your working/opening times. If you are a plumber and can get to a job within the same day, be sure to include it in your meta description.

The post A Guide to Page Titles and Meta Descriptions appeared first on Faber SEO.

Since Google first launched in 1998, its main goal has been to deliver searchers with the most relevant and best websites based on their search query. This goal has not changed over the near 19 years Google has been returning search results. The latest update confirmed by Google employees John Mueller and Gary Illyes is concentrated at websites that offer little to no content on their site.

How to avoid be penalised by the ‘Fred’ update

Following these simple steps should not only remove the possibility of being on the receiving end of the Fred update, it should also help improve your website.

• Remove any thin or scraped content on your website. Ensure that all your content is unique and of interest to your visitors. If your website page is about a service or product, be sure to include content about the finer details of your product/service. Look at your competitors and ensure that your content offers more valuable information than theirs. A good way to generate valuable and unique content is to include frequently asked questions on your page, this will generate tones of quality content whilst also saving you the time of having to answers numerous emails and calls from potential customers wanting to know more about your products and services.
  Having high quality informative content will not only help your website perform better in Google, it will more than likely increase the likelihood of visitors converting into sales.

• Reduce the number of advertisements on your website. This is more focused towards affiliate sites looking to promote other websites. However if your site includes adverts, ensure that they are not too dominant and do not negatively affect the user experience.

• Try to include over 300 words of content on your landing pages. Content only included on your website for SEO purposes with the goal of stuffing as many keywords in as possible will more than likely get you penalised.

• Think of your visitors and what they want. Not everyone visiting your website will have the same knowledge of your products and services as yourself. Think of your website as an opportunity to educate your visitors and tell them why they should be buying your products and services.

Review your websites engagement states. Are your visitors only staying on your website for a short amount of time? Identify the pages on your site that are not working for you and look at how you can improve them. If you have pages that convert well or have high visit durations, look to take inspiration from them. Can you improve the image quality of your products or include additional photos from different angles? Is there an interesting fact or function of a product that you have not mentioned? Be sure to include a comprehensive overview of all your products/services.

The post Google Release New Fred Update appeared first on Faber SEO.