How Small Businesses in Northamptonshire Can Create ‘Localised’ Content

Contrary to popular belief, small business owners like you don’t need a massive marketing budget to drive brand awareness and attract the attention of your target customers. What’s important is that you know how to use the resources available to you to successfully generate customer interest and enquiries.

Because customers are constantly looking for the best products and services near them, you have to ensure that they can easily find you when they are looking. Local SEO, or search engine optimisation, can help you with that.

What is Local SEO and Why is it Important?

Local SEO focuses on optimising a website to ensure that it will appear on local search results. It is a branch of SEO designed for small to medium-sized businesses that target customers in a specific area or region, rather than those found all over the country.

Small businesses in Northamptonshire should make local SEO a part of their online marketing strategy because of many reasons. But perhaps the most important reason is that optimising for local search can help increase your chance of making a sale. According to research, 50% of people who did a local search ended up visiting a store and 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within 24 hours.

Content Designed for Local SEO

There are different strategies you can use to optimise your business website for local search. They include on-page optimisation, link building, and content creation. Today, we’re going to focus on content creation and talk about the types of content that speak well to a local audience. When done properly, creating these types of content can help your site rank well on local search results.

1. Location-specific landing pages

It is much easier to rank in local search engine result pages (SERPs) when you have web pages dedicated to specific locations. Whilst you can rank for local keywords without a location-specific landing page or webpage, it could take some time, which is something you do not want because you could miss a lot of money-making opportunities.

If you serve multiple locations within Northamptonshire, you might be tempted to build separate websites for each location. This could be overwhelming for a small business like you as it is not easy to create and maintain multiple websites. Plus, from an SEO perspective, it could reduce your authority so it is better to stick to the “one page per location” strategy.

2. Regional landing page

If building location-specific web or landing pages may seem too much for you, consider starting with a region-specific page instead. For example, let’s say you own a plumbing company that serves customers in Northampton, Wellingborough, Towcester, and Rushden. Instead of building four landing pages to accommodate each of these locations, you can simply build one for Northamptonshire. With this, you have only one landing page to build, track, and maintain. Just make sure to mention in your landing page the areas that you serve to avoid confusion amongst your customers.

3. FAQs

Pages containing FAQs, or frequently asked questions, also provide excellent opportunities to rank on local searches. One reason for this is that they offer answers to the common questions asked by customers. This particular characteristic helps your site rank for long-tail keywords. Plus, they optimise your site for voice searches, which are getting popular these days when it comes to finding local businesses. A BrightLocal study shows that, over the last 12 months, 58% of consumers have used voice search to find local businesses online.

4. Location-specific specials

These days, it is rare to find someone who doesn’t like getting discounts or special offers. Therefore, if you have extra funds, you should consider offering special deals that are specific to customers in a particular location. This should help you gain their attention.

For example, let’s say you want to attract more potential customers from Northampton. By offering a discount exclusively for people living in that area, you can make them feel special, which can help you convince them to check out your business.

5. Content which promotes local events

Apart from giving special discounts, a great way to generate customer interest is to host a special event. A special event, such as a limited sale or a charity run, is a great marketing strategy in itself. When paired with content marketing, it becomes even more powerful. Just make sure to write about it on your website and social media pages so you can spread the word and drive awareness.

If organising a local event is too much for you because you neither have the time nor the budget, you should consider partnering with or joining a local event instead. For example, if you’re in the business of selling food, you can team up with organisers of food bazaars and food festivals around Northamptonshire.

6. Blogs

Because Google loves fresh content, having an active blog is a great way to rank well on local search. Aside from allowing you to engage your audience, maintaining a blog is a great way to keep your site fresh and SEO-friendly. If you’re not sure what to write, here are a few ideas to help you get started:

• Product or service announcement
• Location announcement
• Interviews and testimonials
• Industry news
• Interesting stories relating to your niche/business

7. “Best of” guides

“Best of” guides make for great localised content because they give your readers what they like the most about a particular topic. Plus, it allows you to promote not only your business but the local community, as well.

For example, if you own a coffee shop, you can make a list of the most popular coffee flavours in the country. Or if you own a bed and breakfast or an inn in Northamptonshire, you can list all the best places visitors can go to when they are in the area.

Conclusion

Creating content with a local flavour is an effective way to optimise for local SEO. Apart from that, it also allows you to attract local customers and give them something they are very familiar with. By creating quality content made especially for the local audience, you won’t need a huge marketing budget to promote your brand and boost your earnings.

At Springhill Marketing, we can optimise your website for local search engines. Contact us today to obtain SEO solutions that works.

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