If not CONTENT MARKETING, what can win SEO for local business?

If not CONTENT MARKETING, what can win SEO for local business?

Marketing for local business is a tough deal due to budget constraints. The difficulty increases with incoming tactics like SEO- where it’s challenging to define the ROI in advance. This problem was less impactful three- four years ago, when low-cost/ anticipated SEO was probable (even if black hat SEO with spammy tactics certainly posed a menace to brand repute.

But the situation has revolutionized now. Google has changed its tactics with latest algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin. These updates have transformed the way SEO may perform, driving substantial traffic from the search engines within a narrow budget is almost impossible. But according to the stats, Content marketing is the new SEO. If the typical SEO opinion is to be trusted, without an effective content marketing strategy in action Google would not do any SEO favors.

That’s not the complete fact. There is a lot more to unfold above content marketing. As a local business, you have other options that can build an effective SEO marketing strategy.

1. Consider an alternative to Content:
Compelling content is shared by users. But, it is not necessary at all. A website can drive in the traffic with many other features like Game, Communities and Utilities- these may gain effective victory over content marketing. The goal here is not to create a great content but to create something that people find entertaining, interactive, useful and on the top of all- compelling.

Rather than merely creating “content,” introducing an online community in the form of a forum might come at ease for you than running an expert blog.

2. Avoid exactly matching domain names:
Google analyzes the search activities as a way to decide which sites are influential. Millions of people search for “Amazon” every day, and when someone clicks on Amazon.com, Google clearly interprets that users are not looking for Amazon River. If people look for a merchandise name followed by word Amazon, it is obvious that results displayed will include a large number of product listings on Amazon.com.

Naming your website after a previously common search phrase like “e-commerce”, it would be next to impossible for Google to tell whether extra searches for the phrase are accredited to your trade, or to a budding common interest about that phrase.

3. Building in-built, responsive website with rich UX and UI for mobile devices:
Responsive design is necessary. Your site should look good, and convenient to use, not only on desktop but also on mobile devices. People often search for local businesses while they are on the way. Conduct usability tests to decide for which purpose people navigate through your website. Try to make it simpler for them to do it. Understand the customer’s psychology, and try to involve it into the website.

4. Optimizing strong on-page factors:
On-page SEO is still very significant, this hold more authenticity for local businesses as compared to the general websites. The keywords that you target are of utmost importance here. Also wise use of title, meta- description, images, heading tags, schema mark-up, page-loading time, interlinking will make the on-page optimization strong.

Some other efficient solutions apart from content marketing to market your local business are developing local citations and confirm uniformity, Including Social media into your store, getting natural reviews (as they are eminently looked by many customers) and enlist your business to Google+ to let people easily find you and add in to your circles!