How to Create Content to Support Local SEO Rankings in 7 Easy Ways

by Bridgette Hernandez May 28, 2019

Once you get your local business online, you want people to actually find it, and seeing traffic from Google is essential here. Ranking better on search engines should be one of your objectives as soon as you have your site up and running, but how can you manage meeting that particular goal?

Regardless of what services or products you are offering, people are probably searching for them online, but if your local SEO isn’t on point, they’re less likely to actually find you.

You don’t need to have extensive digital marketing knowledge to understand that local SEO rankings are important, and with a bit of research, you’ll discover that your content creation strategy plays quite a relevant role here.

Boosting SEO rankings through optimal content creation practices can bring impressive results to the table, but in order to do that, you’ll need a few guidelines on the topic. Here are the most popular ways of creating engaging content with a local SEO reach:

 

1.     Follow popular topics in your area

To provide you with optimal results, your content should actually be relevant for the audience you are targeting locally. What topic are users actually looking up in your area? Creating content based on local searches will help you boost the visibility of your platform online.

Writing about something that’s popular in your area will make things easier, considering these are topics that have already succeeded. But how can you actually discover those “hot” topics?

  • Google Trends – use this tool to track search terms and topics based on popularity. Before you start creating content on a subject or another, this tool allows you to see if your chosen topic is actually trending at the moment in your area. Google Trends is great because you are able to search by region, by simply choosing a specific location. You can thus figure out what your local audience is interned in.

Source: Brightlocal.com

  • BuzzSumo – analyzes the reach of specific topics. A tool that facilitates a simple content research process. You can use various filters to obtain the topic search results you desire.

Source: searchenginejournal.com

  • Cyfe – sometimes, finding out what your more successful competitors are writing about can make things clearer for you, and help you go in the right direction with your content creation. Cyfe is a dashboard platform where you can find data from different sources and allows you to track the post of your competitors.

2.     Include relevant, local keywords

Even the most inexperienced content writer knows that if local SEO rankings are wanted, they need to incorporate relevant, local keywords. In recent years, Google has been working to produce more localized search results, aspect that ca work in your favor.

To find relevant terms for local online searches, simply use Google’s keyword planner tool.

  • Create an account on Google Ads,
  • Log in,
  • Select “Find New Keywords” ,
  • Enter the keyword variations that would describe best your services or products,
  • Select your local area by clicking on the location tab
  • Discover the most frequently searched phrases and terms in your region

You now have accurate keywords to incorporate in your content and make it more relevant for local searches.

3.     Maintain content quality

Perhaps you have found the right local keywords, and have even directed your attention towards a topic that would interest your target audience. While that’s great, if your content is filled with grammar or spelling mistakes, or is simply poorly written in general, it won’t have the effects you desire, even on a local scale.

To increase your odds of generating interest through effective content marketing, you will need to make sure quality is in order. Because not everyone has excellent writing abilities, it’s best if you simply rely on some useful tools and services when you are trying to create high quality content to support local search engine rankings.

You have plenty of great options available, and more businesses are using the following:

Hot Essay Service – this writing service can help you overcome the worry of having content of poor quality posted on your site. If you already have a topic in mind, but you don’t have the necessary writing skills, you can rely on Hot Essay Service to cover your needs here.

Readable – this tool allows you to check your texts’ readability scores. You need to make sure the content you post is actually engaging and easy to read, and Readable will show you if there are any issues in this department.

Grab My Essay – with this service, you’ll get exactly the texts you need, without any effort from your part. With content already created by a specialist, all you’ll have to do is upload it.

SEMrush – Content Analyzer – high performance content analyzer with a focus on SEO and social relevance. You can use the tool to see how your content is performing on social channels and check its quality.

4.     Extend FAQs

Being one of the easiest and most popular ways of creating business content, extending FAQs will help you share more relevant information with site visitors, include more local keywords and expand your SEO reach.

Transforming a three-line answer into an actual blog post, for example, is a smart content creation move. Your content remains appropriate for your niche, but you can maximize its potential. The best SEO practices for your FAQ pages would be:

  • Offer value added information
  • Add links to related pages
  • List out all major questions – think of what people want to find out, when they are searching for your product or service type
  • Include call-to-action buttons

FAQs can become a powerful part of your site’s content, if optimized accordingly.

5.     Use Schema Markup

Schema Markup is one of the latest SEO evolutions. The optimization power of this approach is quite impressive, but it’s often overlooked, because not that many businesses actually understand the concept.

Schema markup stands for code, or semantic vocabulary. Similar in some way with rich snippets, you can use the code on your site to allow Google to provide more informative results for targeted users. With Schema markup, some of your content will get indexed and returned in a more effective manner, by telling the search engine what that content is actually about.

Schema.org explains how you can use this approach to your advantage:

source: Schema.org

With hundreds of markup types available, you will easily find itemscopes and itemtypes appropriate for your website data.

Use this option to denote pieces that include subjects of interest on a local scale, and you will start observing an increase in rankings.

6.     Focus on local activities – write about local events

Getting involved in the local community is a great solution to upgrade your content and make it satisfactory for local demands. It will be easier for you to write pieces people in your region will actually want to read, when you are an active participant in popular activates carried out in your area.

While this is a strategy that demands consistency, and you will need to share new pieces on the regular, it can work great in drawn more traffic to the blog section of your site, and naturally trigger more attention to your business.

When users are searching for info on an event that has taken place in your area, they could stumble upon something you have written on the subject, and continue browsing your website to find out more details on your brand.

“Topic diversity can be just as important as content quality. While businesses should write pieces that are relevant for their services/products, making a connection to other business niches that draw interest locally is often advantageous. This way, content engagement can remain at high levels” – explains Ethan Dunwill, a marketing content specialist at Supreme Dissertations

7.     Promoting content on the web

Sometimes, you need to go one step further and actually promote your content directly, using the right strategies – this way, you can increase odds of seeing appealing results. Promote your brands’ story online:

  • Facebook Ads – if you are present on social media, sponsor one of your content posts on these channels. Facebook Ads are a great option here.
  • Adding guest posts on other local sites – find websites with high traffic in your region. Work with these sites and add regular guest posts.
  • Cross-promoting with other businesses – establish collaborations with local companies that benefit from better online exposure. Promote your content with their help by adding posts on their platforms or having your content shared on their social media channels.

These are a few promising ways to boost content quality and make it more resourceful in the SEO department. Look through each one of these guidelines and use them to your business’s advantage – obtaining the level of local success you want can be possible through proper content creation.

Bridgette Hernandez
Bridgette Hernandez is a creative writer and a content marketing educator from Tulsa. She has graduated from Langston University, and started a career in creative writing, now currently working at IsAccurate. She regularly contributes to websites such as The Guardian, Huffington Post and Telegraph.