First things first, let’s get a feel for who’s ranking well on Google when it comes to a simple search for “fencing company” in Wichita, KS.
It looks like Kansas Fence Co is crushing it with online visibility and average position, but with you being in good position to overtake. Perhaps the worst part is your average position, as this puts you on page 2 in Google searches, and rarely do people click past the first page of results.
This is just a quick and dirty snapshot. The searcher’s location, connections they have, and social signals specific to that person are all factors that could influence individual results.
But the truth is, a LOT of people who need your services are not searching simply for “fencing company.” In fact, I’ve tracked down common search words and phrases that people are searching for thousands of times each month just in Wichita!
And this is a good thing for you because this is where the biggest opportunity is.
I will explain more about how Baker Fence can take advantage of profiting off of these types of keyword searches (aka “long tail of search”) a little bit further down.
#1 – Your Profile on Google
Of course, when it comes to having a clear, strong presence on the web, the first place to start is how your profile looks on Google. Is it complete? Claimed? Verified? Good photos added? Recent posts? Is there video? Are store hours listed? These all make it easy for Google to “see” who you are, what you do, and why you deserve to be #1.
When somebody finds Baker Fence Company on Google, the red box below is often the “face” of your business.
While the photos that are on your Google profile now aren’t “bad,” with your long history in Wichita, I am sure we could do better at capturing WHY people should visit you when they need fence work!
Photos currently on your Google profile:
Here is an excellent example of a Google profile from Patton Termite, a company right here in Wichita that we have worked with:
Their 105 photos really help to show off their history and their big team of people with a great deal of experience at killing pests!
#2 – Website feedback
Your website is good, clean, and easy to navigate. However, the content is VERY thin and that’s making it hard for you to rank high on Google.
There is one factor that would make an ENORMOUS impact for any fencing company in Wichita. It’s something called the “long tail of search.”
Think about where most searches begin.
Just within the last week, the following happened to me:
- My pool cover wouldn’t open, so I Googled “pool cover won’t open” in hopes of finding some shortcut or trick that would save me from having the pool guy come out for $100. I’m not going to START with the pool guy.
- My wife said that water was collecting in the bottom of the dishwasher. I Googled “water collecting in the dishwasher.” I didn’t START with a plumber!
Both of those are perfect examples of “long tail of search”
Here is a graph to show you what I’m talking about, and why people underestimate this vital component to getting found by real customers on Google.
This applies to ALL industries and businesses.
For your purposes, “fencing” gets a TON of searches but without any intent. It is being searched by potential customers, yes, but many are by people looking for a job in the fencing industry, marketers looking for companies to reach out to, temp agencies, distributors, and competitors. While being #1 for “fencing” may SEEM great, the real value is in the “long tail.”
That’s where SEVENTY percent of ALL searches are!
The exciting part is that the further you go down the slide of searches, the “long tail of search”, the more INTENT we find AND the easier it is to rank well!
It is mind blowing to realize how much opportunity is getting missed by every service business in America who fails to embrace this concept. Not only is it easier to rank with these kinds of searches, there is less competition (often there is NONE).
This is where your experience and knowledge come in. You know your customers, what’s important to them, what questions they ask, what they really care about (and don’t).
I challenge you. Right now, open a browser. Go to Google and search for a really common question, a frequent problem for your ideal customer. I bet you will find:
- NO paid ads (there aren’t enough smart companies trying to compete where they should be.
- No LOCAL companies – you nor your competitors. I have seen this dozens of times and almost without fail, that’s the case.
This is low hanging fruit, and the place where you can crush your competition because this is a fight that NOBODY ELSE IS FIGHTING. THIS is where the easy money is!
For example, if I search for “how long will a privacy fence last?” this is what I find:
Not a SINGLE local company showed up in the results!
- Fencesupplyinc.com
- City-data.com
- Buzzfence.com
- Hgtv.com
- Hearsay.com
- http://www.bakkerconstruction.com/four-steps-to-a-strong-and-long-lasting-wood-fence – This is a construction company in CALIFORNIA with a post on their site from 2006 for goodness sake!
- Doityourself.com
- Fencesupplyonline.com
Let’s take a look back at your site. With content this thin, traffic is just skipping by you for any search related to fencing.
https://www.bakerfence.com/ornamental-iron.html
#3–Site speed
Why is it important?
This one is a no brainer. We have all visited a website and had it load sooooo slowly. I am sure you can attest to how quickly you move on when you run into a website like this.
This is definitely one of the EASIEST wins for our clients. It’s amazing how much can be gained just by improving the speed a website loads, from the amount of website traffic, how long visitors stay on a site, to how many pages they look at.
Does Google provide a free tool that you can use to check the speed of your website?
They sure do! You can visit – https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Currently your site speed is a SERIOUS issue that could be having a significant impact on the amount of website traffic you are currently receiving.
#4 – Reviews
Reviews are invaluable to a service-oriented business today, so it’s hard to overstate just how important this section is!
Customers are becoming increasingly reliant on reviews before making a buying decision!
Facebook and Google are constantly encouraging its users to review businesses they visit and to even become “local guides.”
Reviews are a ranking factor to Google, which means they can impact the amount of traffic a website receives and, ultimately, how many phone calls you receive.
Currently you have 2 reviews on Google
We have had tremendous success helping clients collect reviews and would love to share some success stories in this area!
#5 – About Page
Your “About” page is INCREDIBLY important, not to just to Google but also to your potential customers. In fact, your About page is arguably the most important page of your site. This is where you get to show off “the good stuff.” It’s the place to show what goes on behind the scenes and what makes your team or company great. Your personality. Your commitment to excellence, or your community involvement. The “heart” of what makes your business great.
Almost without fail, the ABOUT page is the HIGHEST viewed page on almost all our client’s sites.
We have gotten fantastic results by personalizing our clients About page with a “real” person in the actual business so potential customers can see and feel the connection necessary to do business with you.
#6–N.A.P.
N.A.P. stands for “name, address, phone number.”
The more consistent the NAP is for your business, the better you will rank, the more traffic you will get, and the more your phone will ring.
It is an extremely important (fundamental) key to ranking well on Google. Remember, it’s a game of TRUST. Google needs to trust that Baker Fence Company is VERY good at fence and automatic gates.
This STARTS with making sure your name, address and phone number are on EVERY page of your website – especially the contact page.
Currently your address is not on your homepage.
#7 – Content
If you were to search Google for the phrase, “content is king,” this is what you would find:
There are OVER 2 BILLION pages dedicated to that subject.
Good content is the answer to people finding you among all the different ways they are searching for the service you provide. If your mission is to be #1 on Google, then it’s vital that the content on your website (text, images, video) references who you serve, what you do, and why you are great.
In your case, I would imagine content related to “how long will a privacy fence last?” would be important because I know that’s a commonly searched for keyword.
#8 – Backlinks
BACKLINKS are a VERY important factor helping to determine which fence company shows up at the top of the first page of Google. A backlink is anything you click on another website that takes you to YOUR website. In other words, that site is “linking” to you.
I will explain it this way:
Let’s say Baker Fence Company sponsored an event for Riverfest this coming year. You also donated some money to Thunder Hockey in exchange for a banner and your name being announced between innings, and you also said something great about Matthew (the guy who created this case study).
In exchange for you doing those three actions, this is what happened:
The folks at Riverfest added you to the bottom of their website as a sponsor.
Thunder Hockey did the same thing.
I love adding new testimonials to my site and always link back to the person that said something nice. This provides “proof” the testimonial is real and helps whoever gave it to me.
To Google, links are basically votes of confidence. The more relevant, authoritative and local links you have, the “stronger” your website is considered. Links are all about QUALITY – NOT QUANTITY.
Using a powerful tool called Ahrefs, we can see how “strong” your domain is, how many links you have, and a number of other important stats about your online presence.
- DR is your “domain rating,” or how strong and authoritative the bakerfence.com domain is. Your score of 2.1 lets us know that something’s preventing your website from having almost any trust. This could be toxic links from other websites pointing to your site, or technical issues preventing Google from crawling your site.
- Backlinks refers to how many times other websites point the bakerfence.com domain.
- Referring domain refers to how many individual domains or websites are linking to you. For example, you could have dozens of links from an industry association pointing to your website, all from the same domain.
- Organic keywords refer to how many keywords you are currently ranking for. Keywords are simply what word or words people are typing into Google that lead them to your website.
You can see from this chart comparing you to your competitors, American Fence dominating in this area.
#9 – Citations
A citation is simply any mention of your business name, address and phone number anywhere across the web (with or without a link back to your site). The most common sources of citations are the thousands of directories that all claim to have thousands of leads just dying to do business with you (complete BS).
Citations are important to your rankings, traffic, and ultimately phone calls because Google is looking for CONSISTENCY among the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of references to your business.
If business A tells Google that they are located at 123 N. Main in Wichita, KS., and there are 80 references of them being on Washington, and 30 on Crestway, and 40 more on Main but with a different phone number – this doesn’t inspire much confidence that this is a reputable business doing what they say.
Currently, Baker Fence Company has a citation score of 22/100. This is how many citations through the top directories are complete and accurate.
Only 7 of the top citations are correct and 2 have errors (both of these numbers are very low, but the errors being so low is actually positive).
#10 – Call to Action
My final point is about something that is missing from so many websites today: a clear, friendly invitation to REACH OUT! We need a strong “What’s next?”
A powerful Call to Action is important because it allows us to measure what percentage of your visitors are going to the contact page, how many are going past the first page, and how many are looking at your photos or recent jobs.
We can’t determine success if we don’t have a way to measure it!
Examples from fencing companies:
WE CAN FIX THIS FOR YOU
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So, who am I and how do I know we can help you?
Back in 2010, I owned a local service business right here in Wichita. I hired several companies to help us come up high on Google, but I might as well have thrown my money out the window. I got fed up and spent months figuring out how to do it myself. I applied what I learned to my business website and managed to increase our sales by almost 40% a year for the next 3 years in a row – while spending less and less on “traditional” advertising. That led to me helping a couple of friends with their websites and eventually getting out of the party rental business and into helping local service businesses, like yours, make the phone ring.
Today I run an exclusive agency right here in Wichita. I say exclusive because we only work with clients we are a great fit with and we only work with ten clients at a time. Our clients aren’t just a number to us.
I have worked with companies right here in Wichita such as Autocraft, Fenix Heating & Air, Patton Termite & Pest, Cambridge Family Dentistry, Treescapes, Hanna Heating and Cooling, US Logo, Overhead Garage Door, Decker Electric, and Trinity Rental.
I have also presented to hundreds of business owners at Million Cups, WSU, Center for Entrepreneurship, Chamber of Commerce, and Kansas Family Business Forum.
Read more about us here.
LET’S CHAT
I get it. You could care less about links, citations, useful content and any of this. (None of our clients do). You want the phone to RING. You know the web is important and you need somebody smart, someone you trust to help carry the ball and make things happen.
That’s what we do.
We only work with ten clients at a time and are very selective. We don’t do cookie cutter solutions or surface work. We dig deep and make things happen for our clients.
If you would like to have a chat and see if we are a good fit, you can reach me at 316-312-8181 or localseo@matthewrupp.com
Have a fantastic day!
Matthew
A few of the kind words said about us:
 | “I want to express how pleased I am with Matthew Rupp of Matthew Rupp Consulting. He and his company recently redid our old web site (Cambridge Family Dentistry located in Wichita, KS). Wow, were we ever pleased. Matthew is smart, easy to get along with, a hard worker, and knows his stuff. I would highly recommend him to any person who wants to see their Internet business take off and bring in more customers.” Dr. M Dean Wright |
 | “4Media is a media buying service. We are essentially the gatekeeper for our clients marketing budgets. I found Matthew after 4 years of searching for somebody smart, reliable, and ethical to help our clients with their digital needs. When it comes to web design and SEO I just don’t think you can beat the model Matthew brings to the table. He stands behind his work and has a way of delivering value every day. When you talk about online marketing and web design it can easily drag out for months and begs for leadership, Matthew brings that leadership to the table. He just makes the process easy and effective.” Mike Macomber |
 | “Matthew is creative, authentic, and truly cares abut his clients success. His passion for what he does comes across in everything he does. We have seen a noticeable increase in business since we began working with him. “ Gina Terry |
 | “I really enjoy our monthly meetings with Matthew. He brings a fresh perspective and a great deal of value to the table. I was really surprised at how thorough Matthew has been in all his interactions with Auto Craft. He is truly a part of the team.” Jaden Randle |
 | “With Matthew you don’t just get a website, you get a relationship. Matthew and his team have done a great job driving traffic to our website.” Dave Martine |
 | “Matthew’s extensive knowledge of web and S.E.O., along with the fresh perspective he brought to the discussion, proved to be just what our team of creatives needed. Our new website reflects many of his insights and the performance continues to grow. My hats off to Matthew Rupp Consulting!” TJ Smith |