Belchamp Walter Case Study
While I think that many still make Internet searches using Google and other search engines such as Bing, these are different users than those that are Social Media and Facebook aficionados.
These users, are those that are more likely to live in a small community such as Belchamp Walter, and they are more likely to look for information within their current social circle.
Those looking for more general information that don't live in the vicinity but have seen something on the TV or a Movie that has whetted their appetite, may make these searches. It is for that reason I embarked on this case study. The 2022 Advent Craft Fair was used for thr experiment.
What I hoped I could do, and Google are currently advertising that they are helping local businesses recover from the Covid crisis, was to create some webpages that will be found by those looking for information on the Village.
The problem with this most people in the village and those outside do not make searches for information about Belchamp Walter using a search engine, Google, Bing or otherwise.
The conclusion made from this study was that it was too much work for little return so it was decided not to continue with the promotion of Village Events in such a way that they can be found making an Internet search. Villagers are far happier in finding information from platforms such as Facebook.
Mulitple pages
My first thought was that I needed to have many pages that describe particular aspects of the community. Pages on attractions in the area, what to see, how to get here and some background on the Village.
Having had some success with applying SEO to some of my pages I have managed to get them listed at the top or very near the top of a Google SERP. To do this it seems that I have to compete with websites that are looking to cast the widest possible net to gain business from the area even though they are not local. An example of this was the search "Belchamp Walter PC" was returning listings for Personal Computer repair services in the area, which there are none, instead of the Parish Council website.
2022 Craft Fair
To follow up with this case study I suggested that I design some pages to promote this event.
Menu/Template
For the Craft Fair I used a different, much simpler, template than you see on this page.
Conversion
Using Google Analytics and Google Search Console I could see that there were some "Impressions" for the pages reported but very few "Clicks".
I am not saying that there were no searches for the Craft Fair or even information on the village in general, I am pretty certain that if a search was made there would be an Impression recorded in Google Search Console. When I create pages I check them using Google Search Console and then request that they are indexed. Using Google Search Console again I can see if the page has been indexed. The list of queries shown by Google Search Console reveals that specific search terms were used creating an Impression for the pages I created for the Craft Fair.
While it is well known that people making searches are more likely to click on results that are either the top of search result list or near the top or on the first page of the result, the reports of Impressions detected by Google will list ALL page in the results list, even if they occur for pages that are on page 30! or later.
Stepping-up my game
I have also noticed the searches for the Belchamp Walter Village Hall also return Impressions for my pages. Seeing that there is likely to be more searches for the Hall now that the development and adminstration has been transferred to a new webmaster, it is also likely that there are going to be more "Clicks" on my pages.
In a similar manner to my use of Search Console, I monitor this website in realtime using Google Analytics so I can see what pages are being viewed and from approximately where in the world. I can also see what other pages are of interest to the visitor. I can confirm these visits by looking in my server logs.
Plant Sale
Although it was decided that that the Annual Plant sale was not going to promoted in the same way I made a page that did promote it for my own amusement. Searching for "Belchamp Walter Plant Sale" returns the page at the top of the Google search result list. This is above the Facebook page that promoted the same thing.
This highlights the problem in promoting events on Facebook. Sure the poster that was posted will be found in a search but if the poster did not contain a year the Facebook user will not know if the event is an upcoming one or one from the past. It is then a guessing game to see when the post was made. Additionally the Facebook post would have been at the top of the list when it was originally posted but as posts get added to the page it moves down. Making the guessing (I think) more difficult. The experienced Facebook user would have no problems however!