One of the most consistent and reliable ways to improve your local business’s SEO is by maintaining a business blog within your website. Having a blog that relates to your business can direct extra traffic to your website, increasing your amount of leads. It will also increase your rankings with local search queries.
The absolute best thing you can do for your local business is to start a business blog right now. And also, to try a few of these tips:
- Write blog posts about your local region frequently. Name the best restaurants, parks, free activities for families, thrift stores, etc. and list them in a blog post. This piece of advice often feels wrong to many business owners because they are wary of giving their competition business – however, acknowledging that other companies in your area are good at what they do can only help your reputation. Include the name of your area in the blog post title.
- Do your best to include your unique voice as a writer. Blogs that are relatable and come across as very human do better than stiff, boring writing. You can do this by using contractions, colloquialisms, regional slang, and Internet trends. Although you want to be able to communicate to the best of your ability and have a semi-polished blog, don’t be afraid to let yourself shine through your writing.
- Write consistently and frequently. How much you post will depend on your schedule and abilities, but it is recommended that you publish a new blog post at least once a week. 2-3 times a week is preferable.
- When you create a blog post, do your best to encourage customer interaction. Post your piece on social media in a way that encourages a conversation. Put a call-to-action at the end of your post that pushes the reader to engage in the comments section.
- Use common customer questions and Google search queries from your Google Analytics to inspire blog post topics. Answer questions in your blog post.
- Make your blog posts easy to scan. Internet users generally do not do a deep reading of online articles, but instead speed read through them. You want your traffic to glean information from your blog post without bogging them down; if they start to feel like there’s too much work involved in reading your piece, they will leave without finishing the article. You can make posts easy to scan by using a numbering system, bullet points, pull quotes, rich media, and short paragraphs.
What are the best methods you’ve used in creating a business blog? What has worked for you? Tell us in the comments!