A local business has an advantage over international businesses. For one, your SEO is a lot easier to manage and plan. Secondly, your target market is easier to identify.
So what kind of content should you be creating for your local business blog to rank high on Google?
Today, I’ll show you some tips—a formula, if we can call it that—how to write blog posts that your audience and the search engine will love. Bookmark this page and come back to it every time you are writing a post.
Before we start, there are two things you need to keep in mind:
- SEO – always use the name of your town or cities nearby that you are targeting. This should tell Google and other search engines that you are writing for these specific localities.
- Customer Avatar – you need to create a persona of your customer; if you are writing for locals, you must craft content that serves the interest of people who live near you, not people from around the world who may have different attitudes about the product or service you are providing.
Once these two are set, you can begin writing content for your local business blog.
Write About the Products and Services You Offer
The first thing you need to write about, which you can consistently recycle in so many ways, are topics in the services you offer. In the beginning, the blog post must be straightforward—a direct sales copy telling the reader what you are offering.
Here are some example titles you can start with:
- 7 Plumbing Services You Can Get from New York, New York
- 5 Affordable Yet High-Quality Shoes in Salinas, California
- Affordable Aircon A/C Services in Denver, Colorado
If you look at these titles, you will notice that they both have a number. This number represents what people can buy from your store, or what services they can avail from you. Also, do not forget to add the target city or place, as it tells Google how to index the blog post.
If a person from Denver goes to Google and types “air-con services near me”, your blog post is more likely to rank than articles from Australia—all because you have keywords that show what you offer and where.
Write About How Your Target Consumers Can Solve Their Problems
Another type of content that you should create for your local business blog is anything that solves a problem. In this case, you need to use good judgment as to whether you will use a keyword on the title or not.
Here are some examples:
- 5 tips to maintain your A/C
- 7 ways to fix acne problems
- 5 steps to fix a leaking faucet
In the content of these articles, you have to insert the name of your company and the services or products you offer. Make it subtle and not too salesy.
Blog posts like this are beneficial to your target consumers. If you can help them solve a problem, you are essentially building credibility. Over time, your readers are going to trust you.
Write as many possible blogs as you can about various issues and problems that your customers have. Always tell them that you can do this service for them, or that you have a product that best solves an issue.
Write About Each Area You Specialize In
An article like this must come in the form of a listicle. This content is different from the first one we talked about in the sense that this is not just about your company, but about your area of specialization.
Let us say you are a plumber. What you can do is to write content like:
- 5 tips in choosing a plumber
- 4 faucet brands that last forever
- How to determine if you need a plumber
- A guide to the cost of plumbing services
- How to shop for the best plumbing services
As you can see, all of these topics are a combination of the first and two points. However, these blog posts do not directly talk about you—they talk about how a consumer can make a good decision about plumbing issues.
And because you gave them these tips, they will naturally know that you are an expert—that you are someone that can be trusted. You are a specialist in your field, and what you want to do is to share your expertise about many areas, especially expertise that you have gained over many years of experience.
In this type of blog post, you can add an author box, or add your company bio in the summary. Make your point straightforward—that you are an expert in the field and that you know what you are doing.
Write About Local Laws and Regulations
As an expert, you need to guide your audience about the existing laws that govern your business. Content like this should position yourself and your company not only as experts, but also as law-abiding entities.
Let us say that you are a builder or a contractor. Here are some of the types of content you can write about:
- How to apply for a permit when building a deck
- Documents you need to prepare before starting a construction project
- The cost of paying for building permits
- Top 5 building laws you did not know about
As you can see, articles like this offer a service to people—the service of education. Not all consumers know what the law expects from them. Over time, your readers will see you as a capable and trustworthy expert—credible enough as a source of legalese.
However, you need to be cautious about this. You need to put a disclaimer at the top of your article, and explain that you are not a lawyer. Tell the readers that the content of your advice is based on your experience and that the law may be interpreted differently in each situation.
Write About Novelty Items
Novelty items are mostly listicles. These are blog contents about things that people may not have thought of before, or things that they did not realize exist.
If we go back to the plumbing service, here are some topics you can write about:
- 10 most expensive faucets in the world
- 11 whack jobs in plumbing
- 10 worst plumbing designs
- 5 things you can do to recycle PVC pipes
As you can see, these articles do not solve real problems, and they do not really tell readers what your services are. However, they show people one thing—your humanity. If you write novelty articles and items like this, you are getting yourself closer to the heart of your target consumers.
If you can plan your novelty articles ahead, do it. Write one novelty item a month—and ask your consumers to subscribe to your email list if they loved that article.
Summary
Writing for a local audience is not the same as writing for the world. You need to be in touch with your local environment, and write content that serves the interests of your locality. You should only create content that best fits your local business blog, not content that your target consumers do not need.
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