Do you run a local business that could use a better online presence? Perhaps you run a local business and wonder if posting a few times a week Facebook is enough of an online marketing plan. Here’s the easy answer: it is not enough.

True local businesses rely heavily on word of mouth marketing. After all, people have to be in your geographic location in order to buy your products and services. The question becomes, how do you position your local business as THE place to go?

Create a local business blog. Oh wait, let’s start from the beginning. 

When you’re in the market to buy something, what’s the first thing you do? Most of us hit Google and search for what we want. Many of us will ask our friends for a referral. And this search usually takes us to one place: a company’s website.

Whether you’re running a local business like a restaurant, fitness studio, or healing souls as a life coach, people are most likely taking a look at your website before they visit your business. How do you drive traffic to your website, and keep those visitors coming back for more?

You keep them coming back by updating your website regularly. However, there’s usually little need to keep updating your static website pages. I mean, how many About Us pages can you write? How many times can you really update your Services page?

 

There is one type of website content that can get updated regularly. One type of content that would give your visitors a reason to return to your site. One type of content that will boost your credibility, position you as an authority, and provide value to your readers. This one type of content: a blog.

Learn about the power of a local blog.

Why Every Local Business Needs A Local Blog

The best way to get new eyes on your website is to have continually updated, relevant and useful content. The easiest way to display this content is with a blog. Businesses that blog generate a lot more traffic to their website than those who don’t. It’s just a fact. Businesses that blog have more inbound links, higher ranking and up to five times the traffic of businesses that don’t blog.

Many local business owners think that they don’t need to blog, and they can simply tweet or use Facebook for their local marketing. Not so fast. Even a local business can benefit from blogging. Learn why:

1. Get More Site Traffic

The way search engines work is that a human enters words into a search bar, clicks enter, and then is returned with what are, hopefully, relevant results that give them the information they want. The search engine uses code to compile a list of results, based on keywords and a bunch of other factors in hopes of giving the human results that are useful. When you use relevant keywords, a local blog will help you deliver more useful content.

2. Increase Your Page Rank

The more relevant your website is (determined using an algorithm that considers keywords, links, and more), the higher your website will appear in searches. Having a higher page ranking will cause you to get more traffic to your website since most people don’t look past the first page of results to find the information they’re searching for. A local blog (which is SEO’d up) will help you get more clicks, due to having more local keywords.

3. Keep Your Audience’s Attention

People have no reason to view your website more than once if there is a finite amount of information. A blog enables you to keep the relevant information flowing to your website. This will encourage your audience wants to keep reading the new information that you put on your blog. Your local blog will keep your audience’s attention by providing new relevant reading material, as well as new content for the search engines to crawl.

4. Become a Local Expert

The more you blog about ideas, products and experiences relevant to your local area, the more locals will begin to see you as an expert. If your local business blog is about issues related to your niche, where you teach beginners something new, and share what other experts are saying, you will start to become the go-to local expert in your niche. The more you blog, the more you share, and the more you promote what you’ve written, the better.

Finally, writing a blog will help you build relationships with your audience in ways you may not have considered. As your  local blog becomes more popular you’ll be able to get to know your audience better. In turn, you’ll be in a better position to offer them products and services that they truly want and need.

With all of this said, lemme ask… are you blogging?

Ciao,
Miss Kemya