In the days before the internet, it wasn’t any effort for businesses located within a city to tell potential customers that they were situated in the same area. Giving them a brochure that contained business information and an address was an indicator of your business location. Advertising in local newspapers or the Yellow Pages was how you became known in your community.
Things have changed over the years, and search engines are the primary ways people locate nearby services and products. In today’s digital world, it’s not always evident where your business is situated in today’s digital world or the people you provide services to. This could be challenging when it comes to local business owners.
Although there is an ever-growing number of local SEO techniques you should implement, one thing that often does not get noticed is the importance of local-specific content. It would help if you committed the effort and time to create local content that will inform people on your site to the location you’re in to ensure that you are reaching the right people in your town, not on the other side of the globe.
The issue I often see is that many local business owners aren’t aware of the amount of effort required to create content to get their business well-known locally, or they are aware but don’t know how to start. So, rather than being a guesser, here are some valuable hints that will help guide you in the proper direction.
The creation of local content
I’ve repeated it many times, and I’m sure I’ll keep saying it. . . It’s no more the only thing that matters. And it’s now air.It is indeed crucial to your business’s marketing. Without it, the potential to be noticed and rise above your competitors on results pages for search engines becomes much more difficult.
While most of your content is broad and focused only on your customers and how you can help them solve their issues, it’s essential to include some content focused on your audience. In doing this, you must remember some critical things to remember:
Be a part of the community, not just what you offer – demonstrate that you’re involved and aware of the happenings in your community, whether it’s by backing a local team or discussing local news and other events. Discussions about the community, customers, and employee-related information is an excellent method of mixing your local content with authentic content.
Develop case studies that examine the various neighborhoods you serve. Demonstrate that you’ve achieved success in the areas of those you’re trying to be able to reach.Write about local events that people are interested in. Don’t write only about what you are interested in. Write about things that your readers would be interested in.
One thing you must be aware of throughout developing content is your intention. What are you hoping to achieve with each piece of content you create? It’s easy for content to be spewed by listing the same old local content. Therefore, linking it to your company is a good idea. Be aware that if you intend to use the content to increase local traffic, you need to ensure that it is practical and relevant to the local area.
A great example of local content executed well was created by my client Schloegel Design Remodel. They made a blog post about a local community event known as Big Splash. This post was informative and valuable for people in the community, but it also seamlessly ties into their business.
The idea of having local contributors and guest bloggers publish on your website is an excellent way to increase the amount of information and also expand your reach to the audience of the contributor also.
Alongside blogging, do not forget to add local content to your other websites:Make use of the names of your cities and suburbs throughout the pages of your website.Include your NAP (name, address, name, and telephone number) to the footer or header of your site to display it across all pages.
Create the Google map to ensure that users can pinpoint precisely where you’re situated and the areas you service.Today more than ever, your website is at the heart of how you are noticed and is ranked. Be sure your web content is designed specifically for the results you want to appear in.
The best practices for local content
Link building and keyword research
Keyword research is a significant game-changing factor when it comes down to local SEO. Ensure local keywords to the content that you use to link back to your website from sites such as LinkedIn or directories of articles. Make sure you include local keywords to your web pages’ internal links.
Link building through external websites has evolved, and it’s now more about quality than quantity. Inbound links from the important businesses in your local community, like directories of tourism and chambers, as well as local strategic partner pages, can be a vast and massive win for your company.
On-page elements
Make sure you optimize your posts and pages with local keywords in these areas:
Title tags
Meta description
Copy of the body
Anchor Text (linking on to another content)
Tags H1 (Usually in your headline)
Bold and bold italics tags
URLs
Text in alt text on images
Use rich snippets
Utilizing rich snippets, you can aid Google in locating geographic information and information on people who work within your company and reviews about your services and products. They help visitors find your site whenever it is linked to an area in the vicinity.
Do not forget about reviews.
Reviews are one type of content that many local business owners ignore. At the same time, you’ll need reviews to prove your business’s social standing. They also serve as a part of your local SEO efforts.
You have to put effort into obtaining reviews consistently. Even a company with many raving customers must be diligent in getting reviews from satisfied customers. It is essential to inquire frequently and make it as simple as happy customers to sign up to the relevant sites, like Yelp and Google, and then leave reviews.
It is possible to incorporate these reviews into other types of local content for your website and vice versa.
Create local content as an absolute priority. By putting your time into it and working to improve it, you will begin seeing the results start to appear.
