Content Marketing for Your Local Business
Are you a local business or creative who’s lost when it comes to content marketing?
Do you need some help promoting what you have to offer online to the world? Look no further!
We’ve got a complete guide to content marketing you can use to help build your brand or business.
When designing websites for local businesses, we take a deep look at their competition.
And, we have found that most small businesses overlook the importance of better content for local business.
Content marketing is the ideal way to reach your target customers. It gives you the chance to take your product and services to your desired audience. And, it also gives your business a ranking boost to appear on the top tier on Google.
But content marketing is not easy.
And, that’s one of the biggest reasons why people fail to create better content for local businesses.
According to Zazzle, 65% of companies find it a challenge to create engaging content.
A more engaged audience means better chances for you to drive sales.
And, I know… content marketing for local businesses is not the same as for big brands.
But it is equally as important.
So, in today’s blog post I’ll dive deep into content marketing for local businesses.
I’ll curate a step by step guide to help you create content that’ll help you keep up with your local competition.
In the first section, I’ll talk about things local businesses must do for content creation and content marketing.
And in the second section, I’ll share some important tips to help you create better content for your local business, and beat the competition.
So, let’s begin!
Section 1:
Content Creation & Content Marketing for Local Businesses – How & Where to Start?
1. Have a Blog for Your Website
Small businesses with blog posts get 126% lead growth compared to those who don’t have a blog.
Most local businesses and small companies have a website, but they stop just there.
You need to have a blog for your website. And you must post content on it consistently.
If you haven’t, start a blog for your website.
If you’re tech-savvy, you can start a blog with WordPress. And if you’re looking for something simple and easy, Squarespace is a great option.
As far as what kind of content should you be creating for getting organic local traffic, here’s what I think you should do:
- Topics: Choose trending topics from your industry but focus more on local issues.
- Length: Longform blog posts (over 1000 words, at least) drive more traffic.
- Frequency: Post consistently. You can start by posting at least one or two blog posts per week.
2. Have a Strong Social Media Presence
Once you start posting on your blog, you need to build more channels to drive more traffic to your blog.
In 2020, there are almost 3.797 billion social media users.
Here’s how you can reach your target audience and get a share of this massive market:
- Make sure you’re active on all the major social media platforms. If you need help figuring which ones, here’s a list of the 10 most popular platforms for content marketing.
- Create a brand story that conveys your message to your local customers.
- Make sure your social media posts stick with your brand story.
- Market your content on these social channels.
- Other than blog posts post regularly, you can post pictures and videos, and any other content that helps you connect with your clients.
3. Promote Your Business Through Influencers and Other Local Businesses
Influencer marketing is one of the most effective methods of advertising your brand and marketing your content.
The influencer marketing industry is thriving and is expected to hit $10 billion in 2020.
So, get in touch with social media influencers and market your content through them. You can also try partnering with other local businesses.
Partnerships will allow both of you to mutually benefit from each other. Get some backlinks, improve your SEO, and share your traffic.
4. Have a Solid Presence on Mapping Platforms
Unrelated to content marketing, your presence on mapping platforms like Yelp, Google Maps, and Apple Maps is important for local businesses.
These platforms let visitors see that you’re a trusted service provider or product seller.
Adding links to your Yelp and Google Maps accounts can help people find you and read reviews from your customers.
And platforms like Yelp and Google allow you to connect with your customers and respond to their comments.
Whereas other social media platforms like Facebook allow people to tag you, share badges, and use location tags.
This serves as indirect marketing and gets your business the exposure it needs.
Like social platforms, mapping platforms can also help you in delivering your brands’ story, and share links to your content channels.
5. Create a Content Strategy and Schedule
When you’re new to blogging, it may seem like you have a good idea of the topics you need to post.
But after publishing a few blog posts, you’ll start getting short of topics.
Therefore, it is important to have a content strategy.
Whether you’re writing blog posts or making videos, a content strategy will help you strengthen your brands story.
You should also make a schedule. Your schedule will help you maintain consistency which is very crucial for creating better content for a local businesses.
And keep you on track with growing your business online.
6. Don’t Forget About Offline Marketing
We naturally associate content creation and marketing with digital and online marketing.
But I believe the purpose of creating better content for local businesses is to tell your story. However, for local businesses, telling their story is not limited to their online content only.
As a part of the community, you have the unique opportunity to create tangible marketing connections.
So next, I’ll talk about how to create content for offline purposes.
This includes everything from printing cards and fliers to becoming a part of the local news.
And when doing so here as well, make sure that every content you create is relevant to your online brand story, and supports it.
Creating Offline Content:
- When marketing offline content, leave your business cards and flyers in public places.
- Participate, host, and sponsor local community events.
- Advertise through local media and try to be a part of local news.
Those are the 3 major ways I know to get more local attention for what you do and your business.
Section 2:
Creating Better Content for Local Business – Useful, Actionable Tips
How to Create Better Content for Local Business that Gains More Organic Traffic?
There is only one thing that can get you better organic traffic, and this is the ranking of your content on search engines.
While creating content, the following steps can help you in boosting your SERP ranking.
1. Find Keywords
Searching keywords for local businesses is different than that for national and global companies.
Keywords are words or terms people use when searching for something on search engines like Google.
For local businesses, keywords are very valuable as their target customers search with the intent to order products and services.
For instance, someone searching ‘homemade cakes, Florida’ is more likely planning to order a homemade cake. Therefore, it’s important to target local keywords.
You can use free tools like Google Adwords Keyword Planner to find local keywords.
These tools allow you to search for a specific location. You can also use tools like Keywords Planner (Chrome extension) to find keywords and their search volume.
One of the best ways to find highly targeting local keywords is Google Keyword Planner.
You can find keywords related to your industry through the planner. Just open Google Keywords Planner, choose to Get Search Volume and Forecasts.
Then, choose the keywords that are relevant to your industry.
Tip: For local SEO, search volume doesn’t have to be too high.
Since your target audience is very limited, even a small amount of 10 to 100 will help in getting the results you’re after.
For topic suggestions, you can even go right to Google and type the keyword you found and want to use and let Google Suggest guide you.
When ready, make a list of topics. For example, you can write about:
‘Birthday Party Essentials: How to order the best homemade cake in Florida?’
In this blog post, don’t go overboard when talking about your local business.
Even if you mention it, mention it very subtly.
If you need help finding or using keywords in your business, reach out. I can provide SEO consultations as well.
2. Collaborate with Other Local Businesses
Creating better content is one thing, presenting it to your customers is the main challenge.
In any business, partnerships and business relations play an integral role.
You can use your business relations to market your content and reach the clients of your friend’s business. But, your friends’ business should belong in the same or similar industry.
For example, the homemade cake business owner can collaborate with event planners, decorators, florists, homemade food deliveries, etc.
You can offer to write guest posts and help each other in building relevant links.
For the collaborative posts, you must think of topics that’re relevant to both businesses.
For instance:
If you are collaborating with a florist, you can write a post on, ‘Valentines Gift Done Right – Surprise your Loved One with Beautiful Flowers and Yummy Homemade Cake in Florida.’
3. More Content Ideas for Local Business
One mistake most new business blogs make is writing only on titles that are directly related to their industry.
You can attract more traffic if you write on a variety of related topics.
There are endless options:
- Write blog posts on topics related to city guides. People are always looking for new and fun places to try. Inform them where to dine in, and where to shop.
This will help you in expanding your business blogging network, and you will gain more traffic every time someone looks for the best pizza place in town. - Extensive posts and long guides are also great for attracting more traffic. Your content should bring value to your readers. And, to do that the best way I know hoe is to post guides.
For instance, the homemade cake business can write a long post on ‘Make the Best Homemade Cake, Grandma’s Secret Recipe Out – Step by Step Fool-Proof Guide for Baking the Perfect Cake.’ - Seasonal posts are also great for gaining traffic. You can post about something specific to the seasonal changes in your city or a post related to local celebrations and events.
4. Go Big by Going Viral
TheDress that Broke the Internet received 3,622,960 visitors and 7.9 Million views.
Roman Originals, a UK-based dress company, went viral overnight when their infamous dress went viral on the internet.
A woman wore The Dress to a wedding, and no one could agree on the color of the dress in the pictures.
Celebrities, social media influencers, news channels – everyone talked about the dress everywhere.
This wasn’t even a planned marketing strategy and came as a happy surprise for the company.
But keep in mind, things like that don’t happen every day.
Going viral is very rare and mostly due to luck. Don’t put too much thought, effort, and strategic planning into creating content that can go viral.
I believe if it happens it happens. You can’t force a piece of content into going viral.
But how can you increase your chances of this happening as a local business?
- As a local business, you’re in luck. Your audience isn’t so big or hard to target.
Plus, you have the edge of living and moving in the same circle. This gives you insider knowledge of what the people in your local community are talking about. - So, create posts on topics that’re happening right then and there in your community.
- Or, create videos or blog posts compiling interesting aspects in a fun way.
- You can also use your blog to voice your opinion or your brand’s standings on controversies that’re hot.
How to Create Better Content for Your Local Business – The Takeaway
By creating better content for your local business, you can gain visibility and traffic every business needs.
Local business owners often overlook the importance of content marketing. However, just like national and global businesses, local businesses need content marketing.
Based on my guide, here are the steps you need to take:
- Start a blog for your local business website.
- Create content based on a strong content strategy.
- Use social channels to drive traffic to your content.
- Market your content through other local businesses and social media influencers.
- Create better content that offers more value to your audience, and get more organic traffic.
Creating better content for your local business may seem like a challenge. But it’s also easier due to limited targeting of local customers, and your local community.
I hope what I wrote will help you in forming an effective content strategy for your local business.
What’s your biggest challenge in creating better content?
Share it with me, and I’ll share more tips with you.
