Content for Local Sites & Local Search

1. Content for Local Sites & Local Search How local marketers can build content that earns inbound traffic Rand Fishkin | CEO Chat with webinar attendees:http://bit.ly/seomozchat Technical problems or feedback: Please email team@seomoz.org

2. Challenges Local Businesses Face w/ Content and SEO

3. The Dreaded Time Crunch Many local business marketers have lots of other responsibilities apart from web marketing

4. Web Savvy of Content Creators Many of them probably wouldn’t catch on to silly memes from Reddit like those featured above.

5. Local Listings > Natural SERPs These results do nothing to answer my query  Ugh. If I wanted maps for Korean restaurants, I would have used Google Maps. I want content!

6. Multiple Listings vs. “Thin Content” The numerous listings on http://www.in-n-out.com/locations.asp don’t provide particularly unique content.

7. Temporal vs. Evergreen Content Via Cyrus Shepard’s http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-fresh-factor

8. Earning Broad Recognition for Locally Focused Work Lyle Lanley’s brilliant monorail work never received the national attention it deserved.

9. Competing w/ Big, National Brands I already know about these guys. I want local pizza  Now Google’s prioritizing standard SERPs over local listings? What the what!?

10. How Do We Combat These Challenges?

11. The Content Process

12. Step 1: Know Your Customers Who are likely customers? What are their likes/dislikes? Why do they come to you? Who are you missing?

13. Build an Email List (Maybe Offline?) In-store guest books can turn walk-in traffic into an incredibly valuable resource for online marketing efforts

14. Create & Send a Customer Survey Getting your customers’ feedback

15. Step 2: Brainstorm Broad Keywords Novelty Goods Notebooks Font Geeks Paper Goods Creative Gifts Typeface Goods Stationery Decorations Your products & services provide an easy roadmap to start the keyword brainstorming process

16. Conduct Competitive Analysis Oooh! Brands is a good way to think about keywords, too. Aha! Hadn’t considered words like “portfolio” or “writing instruments” Paperhaus is a nearby store to Paper Hammer and carries many similar products

17. Use Local Filters to Find Relevant Terms Via Google AdWords’https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

18. Build Your Target Keyword List High Volume (many searches/month) Low Competition (weak sites/pages in the top 10) High Value (large % of visitors buy) Good advice here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyphrase-competition-and-targeting

19. Step 3: Content that Deserves to Rank If a user searches for a query, do you have the answers they’re really seeking?

20. One Way to Get “Great Content” http://www.seomoz.org/blog/great-content-for-seo-simpler-than-you-ever-imagined

21. An Aside on “Must-Have” Content Details on your location & hours Description of your business What you sell (and hopefully how much it costs) Lots of photos Why you’re special/unique Accolades If your local website doesn’t have these, you’re in big trouble.

22. An Aside on “Must-Have” Content Details on your location & hours Description of your business What you sell (and hopefully how much it costs) Lots of photos Why you’re special/unique Accolades That’s what happens if you don’t have the content basics nailed down on your site.

23. Step 4: Build Your Creative Content Via the awesome Ben Heine http://www.flickr.com/photos/benheine/4770218308/

24. Creative Content Guidelines Your goal is to target stuff in the middle, but anything that hits at least two of these is worth a shot!

25. Some Ideas To Help You Get Started What’s interesting in your neighborhood? What’s unique about your customers? What are the FAQs you get from friends when talking about your work? What unique things do you do that few know about? What mysteries or secrets are associated with your business? What have been your biggest challenges? What are unique ways you’re leveraging technology/the web? What are unique applications for your products? What aspects of scientific or cultural inquiry apply to your business? What are creative projects your staff engages in? Also check out http://www.blueglass.com/blog/5-ways-to-brainstorm-for-creative-content/

26. Content Types that Work Blog Posts Articles / Essays Photos & Photosets PDFs / Whitepapers Video Charts and Graphs Infographics Content Curation Slide Shows Tools Start with content formats that feel easy and accomplishable – don’t stress trying to do the uncomfortable

27. Getting Distribution

28. Want to Rank? You Need Links & Citations! Via Mike Blumenthal: http://blumenthals.com/blog/

29. Channel 1: Local, Content-Centric Sites Nearly every region has multiple, content-focused sites targeting the local area

30. Channel 2: Broad Social Platforms Users: 50mm 750mm 200mm 10mm 120mm Users: 14mm Millions 14mm 6.5mm The usual suspects – lots of local-related activity and opportunity exist thanks to broad adoption.

31. Channel 3: Local Directories Generic directories, especially those that have hundreds of cities, are usually less valuable than specifics

32. Channel 4: Travel Sites + Blogs In addition to these big guys, there’s a huge, long tail of travel sites and blogs potentially worth reaching

33. Channel 5: Discussion Forums Local newspapers, Yelp, Craigslist, VirtualTourist, TripAdvisor and others often have regional forums.

34. Channel 6: Government/Municipal Sites Many city government and municipal services/membership organizations offer member listings

35. Your Job with Each Channel: Visit and investigate options for biz dev/listing/content/participation Pursue those where you believe an opportunity exists Watch your analytics/foot traffic/referral sources to determine impact Revisit sources that continue to provide value Ignore those that don’t Don’t try to force a channel – if it’s not working, don’t sweat it. There’s plenty of opportunities.

36. KPIs to Track

37. Traffic (Visits) I like “visits” rather than “unique” because the latter is very hard to quantify accurately

38. Conversions / Actions Newsletter signup = conversion Contact might even be a conversion! Reservation = conversion Anything that’s likely to yield direct value should be tagged as a “conversion” in your analytics

39. Growth Rate of Referring Sources This shows traffic from Facebook to SEOmoz. You’d ideally want to know how each channel you invest in performs.

40. Growth Rate of Social Reach Yay! Our new Social Dashboard: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/introducing-social-analytics-in-seomoz-pro

41. Citations / Brand Mentions Via Google’s “search tools” and then “past week”

42. Links and Link Metrics Via http://OpenSiteExplorer.org

43. 10 Tips and Tricks to Accelerate Your Content’s Effectiveness

44. #1) Local Guest Content Contributors This works both ways – you can BE a guest contributor and/or invite others to contribute on your site!

45. #2) Events Promoted on the Web The Paper-Hammer site sadly neglects many events they participate in, but noted this one on their blog.

46. #3) Email as Content & Conversion Point Awesome! Slightly less awesome http://mailchimp.com/pricing/ offers a free tier for up to 2,000 member lists!

47. #4) Partnerships w/ Hyperlocal Friends http://shooflypiecompany.com/friends.html does a brilliant job of this and earns links/citations as a result

48. #5) Specials for “Wired” Customers Offering incentives for customers likely to leave reviews, tweet, share, like, follow or link can be effective

49. #6) Show Off Your “Reviewable” Pages Go with the one on the left – linking directly to where users can leave reviews

50. #7) Create Top X Local Lists Aim for “best of” or “top x” lists that don’t include you, but are likely to attract outside attention.