Tag Archives: local business listings

Coming To Grips With Your Websites Content Strategy

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I’d like to take some time and focus on the content strategy for your companies website.  Why does website content seem to be an after thought for a lot of businesses?  It seems like a lot of businesses brush over the fact that their website actually needs to have a strong message and a valuable content strategy.  The content for your website needs to be able to drive a visitor to take some kind of desired action.  Whether that’s making a purchase, becoming a lead or coming into your business you want your visitors to feel like they can take that next action.  Websites can serve a variety of purposes, but for the most part businesses want to take their website visitors and turn them into customers.  So how do we do this?

Describe Your Products Or Services In Depth

I’m sure you have more to say about your business than you think.  No matter if you are a local business or a Fortune 500 company.  I would bet that you could expand the content on your website or make it better.  If your website is on the smaller side then you need to think of each product or service that you offer as a unique page on your website that is completely dedicated to that product or service. A lot of times I’ve spoken with companies who think a single page on their website labeled “Services” is going to list out and describe all the different things their company offers.  You should really push yourself to consider more than 1 services page as a general role of thumb.

If your website is on the larger side then you should have more resources and offer more, which means more pages and a larger site.  Don’t just think too that the answer is always adding more pages just to get your page count up.  You always want to approach content by adding value to your website visitors.  Larger websites can do much more with their content and add even more value by evaluating a larger content strategy.  If you need more ideas think about developing content then think about playing the recency card.  Develop something timely that is relevant to your audience.

Blogging For Your Business

Blogging is a great way for anyone to develop content on an ongoing basis very easily.  Blogs present unique opportunities to create interaction with your audience whenever someone comments on your post, and posts are often shared more often than other standard website pages.  Most of the time your blog posts are ordered by date, but you can also do things like assign categories and tags to your posts it often makes it easier for users to navigate to the content they are looking for.  Most people think that writing for a blog is either too much work, or that they aren’t going to be able to come up with new ideas for posts.  Here is just a small list of content ideas we’ve compiled over the years:

  • Changes or additions to your companies products or services.
  • Company or industry updates.
  • News that is relevant to your industry.
  • Discussing the most frequent problems that your customers bring up to your sales department or customer service department and develop answers to those questions.
  • Joining an internet community for your industry and blogging about topics that are presented often within that community.  Examples could be:
    • Social Media
    • Forums
    • Reddit

Developing Local Content

We work with a variety of local and regional clients that often come to us with this same problem about developing content relevant for their audience.  If you want to develop content or optimize content for a local audience think about how your business relates to those local consumers and integrate your web content with the interests of their local region.  Maybe you should start breaking out pages individually for each region you service and merge that content with how your company has serviced or been involved in that local community.  Work with a local journalist who reports on the area you service and help develop content that can be promoted on a local news outlet as well as your site.  Find local bloggers who live in your area that write content that supports your industry and present them with a guest blog post.

Ultimately Trying To Provide Value

At the end of the day whatever content you are producing with your website or for your company you need to be adding value to your visitors.  Also remember that you shouldn’t be running out of ideas.  Try to come up with creative pieces of web content that will help your audience and be pertinent to your business.

Local Search and the Multi-Platform Approach

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I was just reading this article from Search Engine Land about the topic above. While their “case study” method left a bit to be desired (why would you ever go from your own Facebook page to the yellow pages and put them in front of ALL of the competition make absolutely NO SENSE!), you do need to have multi-platform strategy to effectively keep your presense in a local marketplace.

You do need the local search methods, the directories, and your web content all to help you maintain your presence and potentially “own” the local listing, I just don’t see yellow pages being the answer. Social media would be more effective than that. I cannot tell you the last time I personally looked in a phone book. I also don’t go to online yellow pages unless there is something specific that I am not finding through Google/Bing/Yahoo. You can tell the writer definitely came from the Yellow Pages world.

As these mediums, try to revamp to become more relevant in an Internet driven world, there could be some value here, as web strategy is the “sum of all parts”. Local Search is something that needs a trained professional to help you with in order to maximize effectiveness and ensure you are getting your ROI. If you are interested, find someone (like Bevelwise) who understands it, can explain it, and has no reason to be bias to any one media – only to produce the results you desire.

Success in Local Business SEO

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1.Non-Business Name Searches: It’s great if people searching the internet are discovering your website without typing in the name of your business. Probably most of these visitors were previously unaware of your business. This signifies that your website is ranking well for phrase that describe its location and the type of products or services.

2. Specific Service or Product Searches: If your company offers a exclusive product or service you will definitely want to be found for it. These keywords will point to your website because you have a search engine friendly website well optimized even for its more unique services.

3. Searches by Zip, Street, & City: An important component of Local Business SEO if having your address in the footer or on every page of your website. Your company can even gather online traffic for searches by multiple zip codes across your region. This is also a result of having a well optimized map listing. For example, in your Google Local Business Listing, make use of targeted keyword phrases in your list of services or products.

4. Synonyms for Products or Services: If your website is well optimized, it will be able to draw traffic from multiple keywords describing its services. Optimize for multiple phrases to describe your business’s services and products on pages within your website.

Local Business SEO – #1 Use a Local Phone Number

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What can a local business do online when competing with a big, national brand? The websites of both local and national brands make their products/services available 24/7. But one thing big brands lack is community uniqueness and it can be as simple as a local phone number. Sometimes people just need to talk to a real, live human being, and this can be what sets you apart.

Admit it, the internet can be a bit impersonal. If you are a local business, adding you physical address and the phone number (with a local area code) gives evidence that you are a real person – which makes people feel more comfortable. It gives your customer a convenient way to order, but most importantly it means that a real person is give service.

  • A phone number is instantaneous way to get your visitors’ feedback
  • A prominent phone number on a website builds trust and confidence.
  • Local SEO Factor
  • A telephone number is how Local Business Listings verifies that your listing is valid (Google will actually call you!) It is an on-page trust identifier.
  • It is also believed that Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing often combine the local area code with local search ranking factors.

Make the most of Contact Information

A business’ address and phone number are instrumental for conducting business locally. But this contact information also provides a critical clue to search engines that a business is local in nature. Make sure to display:

  • Your full address (with Zip Code) on the footer of every page, with prominence on the “Contact Us” page
  • Local phone number, even when a toll-free number is available
  • If appropriate, provide information on areas served
  • Driving directions and a local map

List your Local Business on Search Engines. These ones are free for basic listings:

From here, you actually have to answer this phone when it starts ringing off the hook!

Of course, please feel free to Contact Bevelwise if your business needs a better web presence.