You’ve heard that content marketing gets your business found. In this article we are going to explain an ultimate guide to content marketing plan or strategies.
The reality is that most content marketing approaches don't work well when you have to market to your local community and appear in local searches.
That’s why you need to use local content strategies for your local business.
Content Marketing Plan for Local Businesses
According to Deloitte, digital influences 64 percent of the time spent in retail stores. This means that before visiting any local store, people will research it online.
If they don't find your business online, then you are missing out on a huge opportunity of getting found locally. You will also not be able to influence these customers’ purchasing decisions.
Following a clear content marketing plan for local business helps you be found in local searches, build rapport with the local community, and leverage your locational advantages that many large corporations and big-budget companies will never be able to garner.
How to Do Content Marketing for Your Local Business
List your business in Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that lets your business appear in Google searches and on Google Maps.
Having your business listed in GMB listings is important if you're focusing on local SEO. When people are searching for local shops, they generally Google terms such as ‘watch repair near me’ and when your business listing shows up, there is a high chance that they will visit your local store.
You should approach GMB by creating an account, verifying your business, and optimizing it for appearing in searches. Here’s a guide to help you get started with GMB listings.
Identify the local audience
Being able to identify your target audience is a very important step in approaching content marketing plan for local business. Specific information about your audience’s demographics like age, gender, income group, likes and dislikes is helpful when you have to formulate marketing strategies.
Facebook Audience Insights from your Facebook page can give you very specific information about the demographics of your local audience.
Create a blog for your website
Optimize your content marketing plan, it is very important that you have a blog for your business so that you can write high-quality local content. This helps you attract and engage customers, and build brand awareness.
Some types of content that you can publish on your blog are:
- Long-form and quality blog posts
- Infographics
- Instructional videos and your product guides
- Case studies that tell how your products and services have been beneficial
To find out the results of your blogging efforts, set up proper conversion tracking in Google Analytics. This will help you to find out if the right type of traffic is being attracted to your blog and whether you are able to convert that traffic into leads or sales.
Write SEO-optimized content for better search rankings
You should aim for ranking your content for commonly used local search terms that relate to your business. For this, doing keyword research is important. Research local search keywords to find out what people are searching that’s location-specific and is relevant to your community. Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that helps you find these keywords.
Don't forget to use related keywords throughout your content. These keywords are called LSI keywords, and LSIGraph.com will help you find them out.
Build social profiles on social media platforms
Having a presence on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter where your community is present is such an important content marketing strategy for local businesses.
You can build engagement with your audience by creating buzz through contests, offering discounts, and encouraging more comments.
Posting videos of your satisfied customers, promoting your content through local hashtags, and running Facebook ads are other ways that help in your content marketing.
In all your online listings, keep the name, address, and contact number the same to maintain uniformity and help you be found easily.
Encourage online reviews
Encouraging customers to post online reviews about your business on relevant sites like Yelp, Google Maps, and TripAdvisor has many benefits. They will help in bringing people to your local store because around 88 percent of people check online reviews before they make a purchasing decision.
Reply to negative reviews by apologizing for the issues the customers have faced, and outline the steps you are going to take for their rectification.
Partner with local businesses
Collaborating with other local businesses that complement your own can be a good opportunity for content marketing to each other’s audience. You could do guest posting, joint partnerships, package deals, and blog about them. This would also help you in getting local backlinks.
Optimize content for voice searches and mobiles
Many local searches happen through voice searches. These search terms are long-tail keywords and are generally in the form of questions. So you should optimize your content for voice searches by using local search terms that are in the form of long-tail keywords.
Local searches also happen on smartphone devices. According to Google, 76 percent of smartphone local searches result in store visits.
Having a mobile-responsive website will help you appear in local search results. If your site’s mobile version loads quickly, you get higher rankings.
Optimize your website for mobile.
Use guest blogging opportunities
In content marketing plan for local businesses, guest blogging is one of the best ways to get local backlinks, build local brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and attract customers.
Contact the editors of local newspapers and magazines for such opportunities. Agree on an interesting topic that relates to your business and that the editors are ready to publish.
Participate in local events
Invest in local content marketing by participating in local events and distributing offline material like brochures and leaflets. Get business cards made.
You can host local events and get the community involved. Some tactics that you can use are giving early-bird offers, discount vouchers, free gifts, or holding a lucky draw to build awareness and engagement.
Advertise about the event in local publications and contact local media to get coverage.
If you follow these local content marketing plans or strategies listed above, then you are sure to take your local business on a high-growth path.
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