Petting farms are popular with kids up and down the country–and with parents looking to entertain them! So, if you’re running a petting farm and looking for new ways to get people through the gates, we’ve got you covered.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is an often-used tool by marketing teams looking to boost visitors, sales, and growth for animal businesses everywhere. But how does SEO relate to your petting farm and how can you implement it successfully?
Find out the answers to these questions and more below.
What is SEO and Does My Petting Farm Even Need It?
Search engine optimisation is a series of techniques and tools used to ensure that your business’s website ranks highly on Google. Successful SEO will ensure that when a user Googles a keyword relating to your business, your business’s website will rank on the first page of the Google search results.
A petting farm can use SEO for many benefits. It can enhance your web traffic, it can help you see more visitors daily, and it can improve business growth overall. By becoming more visible, you ensure that more people know who you are and pay a visit to your farm.
Keywords: What Are They and How Do I Find Them?
Keywords in SEO are as they sound; keywords denoting your business and its practices. For a petting farm, keywords might include ‘petting farm’ and ‘petting zoo.’ On top of these very broad keywords, you will find more niche keywords, like ‘petting farm with pigs,’ or ‘petting farm in [specific location].’ The former are short tail keywords, and the latter, are longtail keywords. Both should be used.
Keywords can be used in a variety of ways for your petting farm. The most obvious is to include them on the web copy on your site. We’d always recommend including longtail keywords that are more specific to your location or services. This is because the short tail keywords tend to have a higher search volume which means you’re competing with many more businesses.
Along with using keywords in web copy, you can use them in meta titles and descriptions, in blog posts, in PR campaigns, in your email marketing, on your social media, and in any other written word that relates to your business.
The easiest way to work out the best keywords for your business (bar using a specific keyword tool, of course!) is to put yourself in the shoes of a potential visitor. What would you put into a search bar if you were looking for a petting farm? From here, you can curate a list of keywords that relate to your business and implement them on your website and across your marketing content.
On-Page SEO: Top Tips for Petting Farms
On-page SEO denotes the techniques you employ on the visible parts of your website. These include:
- Website content, like your headings, subtitles, and body
- Meta tags and descriptions, which appear on the Google search page. They ensure people know your business does what they need before they even click through
- URL structure
- Alt-text for images and image loading speeds (think the quicker the better for SEO)
On-page SEO, for the most part, includes optimising written content and ensuring that your website doesn’t take too long to load and can be easily navigated. If you’ve got a slow website and a confusing layout, people are much more likely to log straight back off.
If you’re worried about the loading speeds of your website or the layout, why not check out our web development services now for professional support?
Using Local SEO to Boost Visitors at Petting Farms
Local SEO denotes SEO which is specific to your location. And by specific, we mean very specific. For a petting farm in Yorkshire, a keyword might be ‘petting farm Yorkshire’. But as Yorkshire is a relatively big place, you should definitely get even more specific than this. So instead of ‘petting farm Yorkshire,’ you would get really specific and instead use the keyword ‘petting farm Malton’. (provided your petting farm is actually in Malton, of course)
Local SEO should make it easy for visitors and locals to find businesses in their immediate area. Usually, the competition is much lower for these keywords too.
On top of hyper-specific keywords, we’d also recommend claiming and optimising your GMB listing. It’s important to ensure it’s up to date with the most accurate business information. We’d also recommend ensuring you’re petting farm is listed across local directories and review sites. But again, it’s important to remember that your NAP (name, address, phone number) information is consistent.
Lastly, another great method of improving local SEO is to encourage customer reviews. Respond to these reviews where possible to show that you care about your visitors and deal with any issues promptly.
Behind the Scenes: Technical SEO Tips
Last but not least, there is an element of SEO that goes on behind the scenes. This more technical side to SEO can sometimes be best done by professionals (like us!). It includes:
- Cross-device optimisation: This means ensuring that no matter the device your customers are loading your website on, it will be responsive and look good.
- Secure site: Implementing SSL certificates for a safe browsing experience (so your site doesn’t get blocked for users).
- XML sitemap: Creating and submitting a sitemap for search engines.
- Links: Fixing any broken links and checking them all regularly.
There is more to backend SEO that an SEO professional can help with. Rokir offers SEO services which can be mixed and matched with our other digital offerings.
Final Thoughts
While this is by no means an extensive list of all elements of SEO that you can implement on your petting farm website. There is a lot of information to get you started! SEO can sometimes be difficult to get your head around. So if you find that this blog has just served to confuse you more, have no fear, Rokir is here to help!
Our SEO services can be used on their own or with others, like our content marketing or social media services. We can create a package specific to your needs to help boost visitors to your petting farm and grow your business.
Contact us now for more information on how we can help you.
Hi I’m Alex, Blog and PR Copywriter
