How to customize content writing for your local business for better SEO

Writing content for your local business involves understanding your local market and then creating a presence on the Internet that makes it easier for people to find you as quickly as possible. When I say customizing content writing to promote your local business I don’t mean to say a business that mostly depends on the clientele within a building compound (we have a grocery store in the basement that doesn’t need any sort of promotion or advertising) or a business in the lane or even a business in a village because in such case scenarios you don’t face much competition.

You have to think in terms of content marketing and content writing to promote your local business when your business depends on Internet traffic and you have tough competition even when people carry out very specific searches. Local business in terms of using content writing means business within a city or within a small town.

For example, I live in Indirapuram, which is a big city within the district of Ghaziabad. You need to hire an auto rickshaw, a cycle rickshaw, get onto a public transport bus, or drive your own vehicle in order to get around within the area. What I mean to say is, there can be many businesses providing the same service or the same product or the same utility within the ambit of being a local business in Indirapuram.

My computer was heating up really fast and it would just shut down after a few minutes. Lots of dust had accumulated inside. I needed to find a computer maintenance service within Indirapuram so that the servicing engineer could visit my place as quickly as possible, and not just visit my place for that particular requirement, I also wanted to find a service I could use consistently. I wouldn’t find a service in Ghaziabad because Ghaziabad is a big area and travelling within Ghaziabad would be a big deterrence. I specifically wanted to find a computer maintenance service in Indirapuram and that’s what I looked for: “computer repair service Indirapuram”.

Of course there were many results. The website results were interspersed with Google Local Business listings and online business directory listings. I wanted to find a service that had its own website because it is very easy to list oneself in a business directory and then forget about it. My experience is, local businesses that have a website are more professionally run compared to those that simply have an online directory listing. But not everybody is this choosy. So, if you have a website, you have to compete with all sorts of results.

How to set down to writing customized content for your local business

1. Prepare your list of important keywords: When writing and customizing content for your local business for better search engine rankings, make a list of all the keywords someone from your local area would use in order to be able to find you. Having a list of keywords is very important before you start writing customized content. You will need to use these keywords in the titles of your webpages and blog posts, in your social networking profiles and within the body content of your webpages, blog posts and social media updates.On the top of your list should be all the keywords having the name of your locality. For example, if I want to promote my content writing services within Indirapuram, then Indirapuram must feature in my keywords as frequently as possible: “content writer in Indirapuram”, “Indirapuram content writer”, “content writing service Indirapuram”, and so on.

   You can also get ideas about the important keywords for your local business by asking people questions: what do they search for when they are looking for your service? This can give you plenty of ideas.

2. Find reasons to write about your locality: This can be broader content marketing. People should come to your website and interact on your social media profile for other reasons related to your locality. For example, if I want to promote my content writing services in Indirapuram, lots of activities are taking place on an ongoing basis. I can write about those activities on my content writing website so that when people read about those activities happening within Indirapuram, they also come to know that I offer content writing services from the very same website.Whenever you get a chance, participate in cultural activities and then write about your experience as a business owner.
3. Write about what a positive difference your business is making to the community: Since you are a local business, you get most of your business from the local community. So, naturally you are interested in the welfare of the community that gives your business. This might not be possible in every case, but whenever you feel that your business is making a positive impact on your community, write about it.
4. Avoid keyword spamming: Repeating the same keyword senselessly all over the web page isn’t going to improve your search engine rankings and even by some fluke if you manage to get good rankings, the webpage is not going to convert because people are going to get confused. Some website owners try to cram all the keywords into a single webpage – this doesn’t work.Create different topics if you need to cover different keywords and then create dedicated webpages or blog posts on those topics.

   Suppose you are a realtor in the US covering multiple counties. You don’t have to cover all the counties on the same web page (I actually convinced one of my realty clients in the US to avoid this and she got very good results). Ideally, only one keyword or one phrase should be covered – in various combinations – but at the most, stick to 2 keywords or key phrases.

5. Write about customer experience: Have you been serving well? Are local customers happy with your service or product? Then write about that. Write about all the extra measures you are taking to serve your customers and clients in your locality well.
6. Encourage your local customers and clients to share their experience about your business: Nothing works like a good testimonial. Create a testimonials section on your website if you don’t already have it and encourage your local customers and clients to leave positive feedback, or even constructive feedback about your business. Encourage them to write testimonials even by offering them freebies. Serve an extra helping to get a good word written about your local eatery. Do a free computer checkup to get a testimonial. Do a free health checkup for a paragraph of recommendations for your local health clinic.

Writing customized content for your local business primarily revolves around writing about your area but in such a manner that you also get to mention what you can offer to people living in your area. You need to write about your business vis-à-vis your locality on an ongoing basis because a typical website has 5-10 pages and in terms of getting good search engine rankings, 5-10 pages cannot help you especially when your competitors might be publishing new webpages in your blog posts on a weekly basis.

So, publish content on your website or blog regularly. Write about your services. Focus on the work that you actually do rather than your business name. Keep finding excuses to write customized content for your local business.