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Want to make sure your village or town hall is found on Google? Keep reading!
We know that it can be hard to keep your village or town hall full of bookings. Many town and parish councils are finding that there’s less demand than normal for their halls (thanks covid!), but we are here to help.
In this blog we'll explain Google Search Marketing and how you can utilise it to increase bookings for your village or town hall.
Think about it... it's so easy to find the best venue for any event: simply use Google! But in order for your village or town hall to appear on search results, there’s a few simple things you should do.
3 things to make sure your village or town hall is found on Google
- Set up a Google My Business account
- Google Organic Search / SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
- PPC (Pay Per Click) ads
1. Setting up a Google My Business Account for your village or town hall
Make your venue more visible with Google My Business. Here’s how to set it up:
- Visit google.com/intl/en_uk/business/
- Sign into your Google account or create a new one (make sure to use the account related to your village or town hall)
- Enter the details relating to your village or town hall including the physical address (if it’s been around for a while, it might already have a listing and you just need to claim it)
- Add the phone number your want to connect to your village or town hall
- Add a website url - this can be your council website or if you have a dedicated website for your village or town hall
- To be able to fully manage your business profile you will need to confirm it is yours - Google will send you a code in the post
Now you need to optimise your Google listing. Here’s a few tips:
- Try and complete all the sections of Google My Business and ensure all the information is kept up to date and matches your website.
- Add good quality images (and videos if you have any!). For your cover photo use something that best represents your village or town hall - but don’t fuss over this as Google will display different photos depending on the search query.
- Ask your past customers for Google reviews. Google will increase your search ranking if you have more reviews! You can also respond to reviews which may incentivise others to leave one.
2. Google Organic Search / SEO for getting village and town hall bookings
Keywords
In order to show up organically (free) on the Google search results, you must ensure your website includes keywords that people are searching for.
Keywords are what the customer searches for on Google such as ‘wedding venue in Norfolk’ ‘town hall for hire in Norwich’.
Google will read your webpages. It gets the meaning from the text on the webpage so it is important to have written content. If the keywords aren't there, Google won’t find your website!
Get your main target words in the <Title> and the others written into the <Body> text.
Links
Google loves links! Links on the internet are like votes of trust, credibility, and authority. The more links a website gets, the better the ranking will be on Google. But it’s not just about the number of links, it’s about the quality and relevance of these links that’s important.
So, if the BBC links to your town or parish council website, this will be a very powerful link and Google will boost your ranking.
Top tip: If you have any local partners, get them to link to your website. This will improve the authority of your website and put you up the rankings naturally without any additional effort from you!
3. PPC (Pay Per Click) ads
A Pay Per Click (PPC) ad is a form of advertising on the web. Google will show your town or village hall website on the top of the search results depending on the specific search query. You pay each time someone clicks your ad and visits the site.
We recommend you start with the free options first before diving into PPC ads!
Key Takeaways
Promise: increase your town or village hall bookings through google search marketing
Helpful Principles:
- Setting up & optimising your Google My Business account
- Understanding how to appear in organic Google search results with keywords and links
- Consider Pay Per Click advertising
Watch the video below:
