Content is the lifeblood of any digital marketing campaign. Learn how to use content marketing to improve your local SEO
People search for local businesses every day using relevant keywords. By adding specific location names to their keywords, people can find local businesses close to them. This is indeed what people do as Google has found that 76% of smartphone local searches result in a store visit.
If you want to drive foot traffic to your location, you need to focus on attracting local searchers. To get ahead of your competitors, you must make sure that people find your business when they conduct a related local search. To do this, you need to increase the visibility of your website in local search results.
What is local search engine optimization (Local SEO)?
Local SEO is very similar to organic search engine optimization. Rather than focusing on inbound links and keywords, local SEO focuses on improving your website’s rankings in local search results. Compared to traditional SEO, local SEO can be much more challenging depending upon the competition in the location you are targeting.
If you want to promote your business to local customers at the exact moment they are looking for your products or services, you need to focus on optimizing your local search ranking.
Four strategies to improve your local SEO
There are more local businesses competing for the same coveted spots in local search results. As a result, competition is increasing.
There are strategies a small business can use to increase their visibility in local search results. Here are four to consider:
- Claim your Google My Business page and Bing Places for Business and provide the relevant information and local keywords to be found in a local search. Doing this will help your business show up in search results and in Google and Bing Maps.
- Claim as many name, address, and phone number (NAP) citations and listings as possible in local directories. Make sure your information is consistent across all of your listings.
- Improve local ratings and reviews to stand out in search results by optimizing your web pages.
- Produce local content to rank for long-tail keywords and below-the-fold results.
While the first three strategies pertain to search engine optimization, the latter focuses on content marketing.
How to use content marketing to improve your local search rankings
It is possible to improve your local search results by making a few changes to your content marketing strategy. In this post, I will discuss four ways to use content marketing to improve your local search rankings.
Use local keywords
Just as with organic SEO, keywords matter for local search engine optimization as well. They should be used to enrichen and optimize your content.
Whether you are creating content for the first time, rewriting it, or creating a blog post, using the correct keywords can help attract searchers local searchers.
The best keywords and phrases are those that are relevant to your business and are used frequently in your target location. Add a location keyword such as the community, city or region to those business-specific keywords , and use any combination thereof to optimized your content.
There are several tools you can use to find the best keywords. While there a large number of excellent “paid” tools, one of the oldest and most popular is also free. Google’s Keyword Planner queries the Google AdWords database to report search statistics for a given keyword or key phrase. It reports such information as the number of times the keyword or key phrase was searched for, competition for the keyword and bid amount and much more.
While Google’s keyword planner is primarily designed for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, it is equally applicable to organic and local SEO.
Let’s use the Google Keyword Planner to do some keyword research. However, before using this tool, you need to set up your AdWords account.
Once you have set up an account and are within the Google Keyword Planner, go to the home page, and select “Tools” at the top page. When you get to the Keyword Planner page, select “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category.”
Start your keyword research by using phrases related to your business. In the screenshot below, you will see fields to enter a relevant phrase, your landing page, and your product category. You can also select your target selection.
The goal of your keyword search is to create a list of keywords with high average monthly searches and low competition.
Armed with your list of keywords, you can combine them with your city and location and use them to optimize your content for local search.
Write local content
If you are doing the exercise, you should have a list of keywords in front of you. The next step is to add them into your website content in the pursuit of better local search rankings. It is not enough to simply use these keywords in your page content.
To fully leverage them, write local content posts for your blog. One of the best ways to do this is with “Best of” and “Top 10” lists that are related to your niche or industry. Guides and “how-to” articles relevant to your target location and your industry is another great way. This will help you attract a relevant local audience.
Participate in and write about local activities
A great way to source local content and get backlinks to your site is to get involved in the community. There are many ways to do this. You can participate in local charity drives and awards events. When doing so, ask the charity or event producer to link back to your website from their official website, providing you with a valuable backlink.
If you prefer not to participate charity fundraising drives or events, you can sponsor local events, clubs, sporting teams and organizations. Many of these events and organizations will advertise their sponsors as part of their publicity and include a link to their sponsoring organization.
For some local media publications, a sponsorship or participation may be newsworthy which means additional links, in some cases from local media sites.
There is a secondary benefit to getting involved with the community in addition to a better link profile. It can also help to build your brand’s reputation which can affect your local search rankings as well.
There is a third benefit to participating in and writing about local activities. It is local content for your blog. You can write about your event, your experience, and the results and public it to your blog.
The old saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is especially true online. If you can include, photos and/or videos from your event to maximize engagement. The next step is to promote your content on social media.
Promote your content on social media
Social media and email are channels to get your content in front of your target market. It is one thing to share your content on social media but you also need to be promoting your content on social media. Social media is a great way to also interact and engage with your target market.
If you are not already using social media, consider that in 2018, there were x worldwide social media users. That number is expected to increase by y to z billion users. Expect that many within your target market are already using social media.
To engage local audiences and grow your followers, join relevant local groups on social medial platforms and share your location-specific content within those groups. Additionally, you can reach out to local, relevant Facebook pages for help promoting your content.
To illustrate, your business is an organic market and you are based in Denver, Colorado. You can write a blog post containing recipes that calls for the use fruits, vegetables, and ingredients that are grown locally.
How to optimize your content for local search
Now, that you have learned a few ways to leverage your content marketing for local SEO, it is time to put everything to practice.
The first step to optimize your site for local SEO is to add high-quality local content to your website to attract and engage a local audience. All of your website content and blog posts should include location-specific keywords.
Just as important as what type of content to create is how it is going to be distributed. How your content is positioned, published and promoted across channels matters. This is the next step.
The primary channel should be social, followed by high-ranking local landing pages that would house lists and important local information. The third and final channel is your blog and it should be used to distribute topical content such as news events and updates.
With content and distribution defined, the next step is to build up backlinks to your site. Backlinks are important in organic SEO as well as local SEO because search engines look them as a proxy for popularity and how well your content aligns with the keyword or key phrase associated with your content.
Link building for local SEO is already aligned with current local SEO strategies, specifically:
- Acquiring directory links and mentions
- Acquiring local media coverage
- Inserting landing page links into relevant citations, and
- Local guest blogging
Conclusion
In this blog post, we discussed how content marketing can be used to improve local SEO. Specifically, we discussed four strategies to improve your local SEO. They include:
- Claim your Google My Business page and Bing Places for Business
- Claim as many name, address, and phone number (NAP) citations and listings as possible in local directories.
- Improve local ratings and reviews
- Produce local content to rank for long-tail keywords and below-the-fold results.
Next, we touched on four ways to use content to improve your local SEO, including
- Use local keywords
- Write local content
- Participate in and write about local events
- Promote your content on social media
While this is a lot of information, it just scratches the surface of all there is to know. In future blog posts, I will write about more strategies pertaining to content marketing and local SEO.
If you need help with content marketing for your local business, contact us and we will get back to you as soon as we can.