The Greatest Local SEO Tactic Is Interesting Content Creation.

Once you have your website in shape, and your normal link profile finished, you are going to find the difference between ranking highly on Google search, and just ranking, is all in the content and the attention that content gets from relevant sites and viewers (readers) of that content.

Now, one of the big mistakes in content creation is when a business views a social media “post” as the content. The social post should be viewed as the gateway to the content, and that content should be hosted on your website.

Content comes in many many forms. As long as that content uses the combined principles listed below it doesn’t matter how it’s communicated.

Some content types include:
Graphs and charts
Research
Blogs, articles
Price estimators
Photo galleries
Coupons or savings offers (don’t cringe)

An example of local business content:
I once owned 3 bagel shops. I built the website with a large section for pictures of our customers. We’d take a picture and tell them to check the website. Did they? Yes, and then we had a trivia game on that page where they could win free bagels by playing. It worked, we saw lots of “trivia”
winners cashing in for a free coffee. It increased our customer average visits per week and built a feeling of community.

The “content” was our picture page of our customers!

Here’s the bad news, most Local Content is Ummm, Disappointing. “We offer free estimates” is not unique or interesting.”

Here are the principles that work when used together, any content you post should be:
Shareable (Ask them to share)
Valuable
Timely
Targeted
Unique
Visual

Where do you post to drive traffic or receive attention for your content?
Facebook
Insta
Twitter
G+
Adwords
Promote to bloggers and media
Press release (In certain cases)
Sending emails

When I read posts and articles from local companies on social media, they reek of self-promotion and bore me and I assume, most viewers, to death. Do you know why? Because creating content, if you are not a professional writer, is hard and time-consuming (but can be accomplished).

How do you know if your content is worth the effort? Simple, it is being shared or creating engagement between your prospects and your business. It doesn’t, then you may be wasting your time.

Here’s another little tidbit about Content in 2018. If you expect it to be shared, expect to spend some money getting it out there. You’ll need to pay Facebook for a promoted post, or no one will see the post. In general (unless you have spent a huge amount of time building your companies following on social platforms, and I bet you haven’t) you may need to pay for new eyeballs.

The days (and myth) that social media exposure is free are over my friends.

Let me give you what I think has been our most successful “Local Company” content work
We created a basement finishing cost calculator for a client to answer the number one question prospects want to be answered about Basement Finishing, that being: How much will it cost? By filling out their online form the prospect see’s a ballpark cost range for the options they have chosen. See it here:

We did some posts and after a few months, this page became the most popular on the site attracting 200+ local users a month. It now can be linked to over $600,000 in new revenue a year. Why? Well, it meets the majority of the principles we listed above for content.

Is it shareable? Yes, sites have shared it as a resource.
Is it valuable? Yes, you won’t find anything else like it online and helps answer the number one question people have about basement finishing
Is it timely? It is updated and meets an immediate need
Is It Unique? Very!
Is it visual? Not really but we are working on this.

So 5 out of the 6 principles were present, and at a very high value.

 

If we can help you with your local SEO please call us for a free consultation or video review of your rankings and SEO.

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