Are they helping or hurting?

Local SEO can be a winner for many types of businesses.

Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store or a service-oriented business, you know that many potential customers will begin their journey with search.

If you want their business, you have to show up.

To get started, you will (hopefully) run a Local SEO Audit On your website, this will help you create your local strategy.

This will be your roadmap to make sure you’ve checked all options and are on track to reach customers near you.

One thing you may realize during this process is that specific content type Designed to increase your visibility to users looking for your product or service in their area.

It also means that to actually be in the right place at the right time, you’re going to need quite a bit of content.

This can cause the following problems:

• How can I create so much unique content on the same exact topic?
• can i copy and paste Same info and change city name?
• What’s the best way to target my customers? No penalties for duplicate content?

Well, let’s take a look at six different types of content you might want to replicate, and whether you should make it unique or just rinse and reuse it.

1. Service area page

Service area pages are prime real estate for your local keywords, including cities, states, regions, and subways.

As a service-based business, these pages tell your customers exactly where you do business.

If you’re a brick and mortar store, a location page might be an appropriate option.

As a business serving a large area, or if you have multiple locations, it can be tempting to use the same template for every page.

Do not do this.

This is your chance to speak directly to your customer’s needs and tell search engines exactly where you want to be in the map results.

Take advantage of this great opportunity to differentiate yourself. By having the same information on every page, you’re sending conflicting signals to search engines about which page is important.

Make it very clear that if a user is searching for a specific term in that field, you are the best site to help them meet that need or answer a specific question.

Unique Content Tips:

• Talk about how your service is Each specific service area is unique for that client.
• think about The problem you are solving for your client live in that area.
• if your The service mix varies by location, this is the place highlight these changes. Offering your services on this page also adds the main term or short-tail keyword you are targeting in that location.
• use this page as Opportunity to link to specific city and metro landing pageswhich we’ll talk about later.
• be sure Add local schema to ensure search engines understand all the important information About your business, including your name, location, hours of operation, coordinates of the areas you serve, services and associated social accounts. If you have multiple locations, be sure to write a unique schema for each location and place it on the corresponding service area page.
• Add Google Maps associated with your Google Business Profile. This will signal that this website serves the target area referenced on this page via a direct link.
• Don’t forget about your business Include your NAP, hours of operation, email address and relevant pictures. Bonus points if these images are geotagged.

2. City-specific landing pages

We briefly mentioned city-specific landing pages in the previous section.

This type of page gives you the opportunity to target the metro area or city in which you serve.

This is especially useful if you don’t have a physical location within the area.

Since the purpose of this page is to drive organic traffic from a specific city or metro area, it’s important to make sure your content is unique and targeted to the keywords you’ve defined in your strategic plan.

This can be specific to [your service] + [city].

When search engines are looking for the best sites to provide their customers with the most relevant search results, you want content that screams, “I’m that business!”.

Unique Content Tips:

• talk about individual services or products The services you provide in the field and why they matter.
• Be sure to include surrounding cities and suburbs in the content. This will help expand your local presence.
• Local landmarks will help Validate your knowledge of the field.
• do not forget Include the address of the office or location Serve the target city.
• Local reviews, testimonials and job stories Help build your credibility.
• Don’t forget your focus. Think of this as a landing page for customers within the target city. This could be an opportunity for you to convert customers or keep them on your website.

3. Articles and Blogs

In the current social culture, everyone loves a good article or blog, especially if it is relevant to the situation they are going through at the time.

The resources section of your website is a great place to talk directly to your client’s specific needs, while showing that you are an authority on your space.

The best part of having articles and blogs as part of your strategy is the flexibility to really dig into any topic and make it work for your service or product.

Don’t make it boring by reusing the same thing over and over.

Get rid of that creative hat and have some fun.

Unique Content Tips:

• Get hyperlocal! Talk about what’s going on in your community or area.
• Relevant and timely. Create content your users will care about right now. This can range from social issues to events and promotions. Listen to what customers care about.
• Deploy your long tail keyword strategy here. Use your resource pages to create content for super-targeted keywords that may not fit into the main areas of your site.
• be creative and Leverage checklists, top 10 lists, infographics and video content Attract local audiences.
• Not sure what to create?use your keyword research tool or Google Trends what’s popular in the area your goal.

Screenshot of Google Trends, February 2022

4. Nap Information

While your NAP (name, address and phone number) may not be a full page, This is very important for local SEO.

Consistency is important in this case, and you want it to be consistent across the board.

The level of detail required is as deep as using “St”. or “street” in an address.

This is important because it’s how search engines verify your presence on the internet.

If they can match your name, address, and phone number to other sources of information, it shows a connection between your website and other mentions of your company.

You should add it in your website footer, subway page and About us page.

Help your customers and search engines connect the dots.

5. Comments and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials build trust and credibility with your customers.

According to BrightLocal, 77% of users always or regularly read reviews when browsing local businesses.

Don’t be afraid to use the same reviews and testimonials on different pages of your site.

The key here is to refresh this content regularly.

This can be done manually or via a plugin that pulls comments directly from the source.

6. Directory Listing

web directory Still very relevant to local SEO.

We’ve all heard of the most common directories like Google Business Profile And Bing Places, however, there are plenty of other places that are often used that just might not be on your radar.

These include local search directories, map sites, affiliate/review sites, and chambers of commerce.

Each directory may give you the opportunity to have a profile that includes your NAP information as well as your service listing and business description.

It is not necessary to create a new description or service listing for each catalog.

Similar to NAP, consistency is important.

You want search engines to be able to connect the dots in the directory site to your website and have no doubts that you are the same company.

To save a little time, you can sign up for a listing service that pushes your business information to the directory that works best for you.

As you experiment with these different types of content, you’ll find ways to start integrating your other marketing efforts, such as social and video content, into your local SEO strategy.

Consistency across platforms will further connect the dots across the marketing mix and create a comprehensive user journey.

Don’t just copy this.

Give them more information at each step using the bite-size snack model.

start using

When you’re just starting out, planning content for your local SEO efforts can be daunting, but with the right planning, it can be worth it.

Check out SEJ’s Local SEO Guidelines Start this journey.

This will keep you on track, strategize, plan the right content, increase traffic, and improve rankings.

More resources:

Featured Image: Lime/Shutterstock