Search Engine Optimization (SEO) describes the methods used to increase a website’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Local businesses should ensure they employ SEO tactics in their local content marketing to enhance business visibility and to get more clients.
Local target content marketing is tailored more toward location-specific content targeting customers in a specific geographic region. Local content marketing is creating content, such as blog posts, videos, or social media campaigns, to educate, entertain, and empower your prospects. Local content marketing helps local businesses engage, build trust, and nurture interest so prospects can become customers.
Knowing what SEO and content marketing are, let’s dive in to understand more about the role of SEO in Local Content Marketing.
What Is the Role of SEO in Local Content Marketing?
SEO in local content marketing helps improve the visibility and ranking of a local business’ online content in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant local search queries. When local businesses optimize their content for relevant keywords for local search, they can drive more traffic to their website, increasing their visibility and customer base.
Search engines consider the user’s geographical location when serving up results. It is important to also use targeted content marketing and optimize your content with location-based keywords so they can be found by customers in your area. When you optimize your content marketing for SEO and get on the first page of Google, you will organically promote your business for free, giving you a fair advantage over your competitors.
Why You Should Use SEO and Content Marketing Together
Here’s why SEO and content marketing should work together:
SEO brings traffic.
SEO helps you stay ahead of your competition and become an authority in your industry. Proper SEO will help you attract customers who are
actively seeking information and trust that you have the knowledge to provide them with what they need.
Investing in SEO will ensure that you’re always at the top of search results for relevant terms, drawing more attention to your business.
When you invest in SEO, ensure the content you provide is helpful. Content that is not read is useless and will not help convert prospects into customers.
SEO and content marketing enhance brand awareness.
When people look for solutions online, there are words they use to describe what they are looking for; these words are called keywords. You should use these keywords to create content that addresses their needs.
When prospects find the content helpful, they will share it with others, which will help spread the word about your business. Ensure you appear consistently for key industry terms so your brand can establish authority in the industry.
Best Practices for Local Content Marketing
To write SEO content that will help build your brand, you should:
- Understand your target audience. You should consider your target audience’s needs, wants, and interests when creating content. Understand the language they use and craft content that speaks to them.
- Create high-quality and relevant content. Content should be informative, engaging, and full of relevant keywords. Content that is not relevant to your content or is of low quality will not help you make sales or profit because the customers will look for relevant information in another place. In addition, ensure the content appeals to your target audience.
- Promote on social media. Once you have created content, promote it on your social media pages. Encourage customers to share and comment on your content, as this will help increase visibility and reach to draw more prospects to your business.
- Utilize local keywords and phrases. Your local business content should be optimized for local keywords and phrases so that local customers searching for what you offer can easily find your business. You should research local keywords, as these are the words prospects use when searching for solutions online.
- Optimize for mobile search. As more and more people are doing their searches from mobile devices, you should ensure that the content is mobile-friendly and loads quickly on smartphones and tablets.
Should You Hire an SEO Agency to Help with SEO and Content Marketing?
SEO and content marketing are great ways for a local business to grow and acquire new leads. It is easy to underutilize SEO because you don’t have experience using it to improve your online visibility.
Digital marketing Agencies like SwingPointmedia can help improve your online visibility and drive organic traffic to your online store because they understand best practices to utilize SEO to your advantage. They also have tools they can use for SEO, which may be expensive if you buy and use them. Since SEO and content marketing need time, you may miss creating and posting content regularly to the detriment of your business.
Takeaway
SEO in local content marketing allows businesses to increase their visibility and customer base by optimizing their content for local search terms. The two should go together to ensure that your business is seen by prospects in the area while providing helpful and relevant content that will help convert them into customers so you can make more profit.
SwingPointMedia
Local businesses, especially the ones that are maybe too small to be managed by a marketing company, often struggle to be found by new customers on the internet. SwingPointMedia recognizes this and has created a podcast for local businesses, sharing strategies and tactics that can be applied to help you grow. In addition, SwingPointMedia offers affordable guidance and coaching to local business owners who want or need to “do it themselves” with a goal to reduce and eliminate wasted time and money chasing the wrong “best strategy” for your business.
Want to learn more? Contact us today – Jeff@swingpointmedia.com