Blog Writing Tips For Little Rock Businesses
A key part of effective SEO for small businesses is producing consistent, high-quality content containing the keywords and phrases you want to rank for that are both useful and educational to your target audience. The primary way small businesses can do this is through blogging on their websites. You can also incorporate videos, podcasts, infographics, guest blogging, etc. but for this post on blog writing tips, let’s just focus on written content you produce.
It’s important that your Little Rock business tailors a content strategy to fit the needs and wants of your local audience. But, first you need to identify the specific areas you want to target as well as your local audience. Which neighborhoods do you want to reach? Who are the people living in those neighborhoods (i.e., personas)? What are they searching for, and how can you help them? As an example, say you own a women’s clothing store in the Heights area of Little Rock. You want to ensure much of your content is focused on women and fashion. But you can also increase your local keyword targeting by writing about the best places to see and be seen in Little Rock, or write a top five list of the best salons in the surrounding neighborhoods — it’s both relevant and hyperlocal content.
The key for local content is to become useful to your audience and becoming the go-to business in your area.
You also need to identify the goals you want to achieve — do you want more traffic from Hillcrest, West Little Rock, North Little Rock? Do you want to rank for local queries? Do you want more nationwide sales? Once you’ve identified your goals, your local content strategy should be tailored to achieve them.
Blog Writing Tips
Writing blog posts sounds easy enough (hey, anyone can write, right?), but it can be difficult and time consuming to come up with topics to write about. So, here are some ideas you can use to generate enough blog post ideas to get you going – and probably sustain your efforts for 6-12 months:
- Frequently asked questions – What are the 10 (or 20, or 30) things your customers/partners/vendors most often ask you about your business? Write those questions and the corresponding answers as individual blog posts.
- Your sent email box – Look through your “sent” email folder and find all the emails you’ve sent answering questions for your customers or educating customers and prospects – re-format those responses into blog posts.
- Sales pitches – Think about your sales conversations and pitches and the education you do for customers and prospects. Turn what you say in those conversations into a blog post.
- Your staff’s expertise – Turn your employees’ proficiencies in your business into a blog post generator. Maybe even offer an incentive or contest for the staff members producing the best content.
The point here is that you don’t have to stare at a blank Word document to blog; use what you already have handy and get going!
Blog Post Writing 102 (or 201)
Now that you’ve got the fundamentals down, let’s take it up a notch. The next step in your blogging and content creation journey is to spend some dedicated time narrowing down your target audiences, articulating your voice and point of view and exploring different forms of content to create.
Be sure the create content that educates but also moves a reader further into a potential relationship with your business by discussing not just why someone should be interested in your business but also what it is like to do business with you. Case Studies, Testimonials, and Service Stories can all make great, compelling blog (and video) posts.
One last tip: do not just publish and hope. Be sure and leverage your social media, email and referral channels to amplify your content and grow your readers. Engage with readers in social media and you will see your community grow and expand the full network of audiences you can reach.