Hello SEO Folks,
The last time we have shared How to fix data-vocabulary.org schema deprecated Error in Google Search Console, With Google constantly updating its core algorithm, site authority and relevance have become even more important than before. While authority has always been a vital local SEO factor for a long time, it now gaining even more consideration in the broader SEO conversation. For a local consumer, authority assumes a very important consideration, as he is more likely to choose a brand with a good reputation over relatively unknown brands. It is obvious that unless there is trust, consumers are unlikely to progress further along the sales funnel.
Let’s start with Some very useful tips for local businesses on building authority:
Create Genuinely Helpful Content?
Everyone in the SEO community is familiar with the phrase, ‘Content is king”, however, it is equally common for people to encounter marketers who say that even though they publish regularly, it does nothing to their rankings. The reason for this dismaying fact is not very hard to identify – quantity is no replacement for quality. Content achieves its purpose only when readers find value in it. When a user performs a search, he expects to have his query answered by clicking on the initial few results. Google, for this reason, gives superior page ranking to those sites that do the job well and not sites that just contain fluff. So, when you create content, do it for solving a genuine user-need and not because you want to publish something.
Relevance Is Vital?
One of the best approaches for creating content for local businesses is to determine what is unique in the area in which the local business operates relating to its business niche. By identifying these business opportunities, you will be able to provide content that is useful to your target audience, which increases the chances of conversions. Not studying the local market in which the business operates can lead to the creation of either content that is generic or content that is irrelevant to the users. When creating the content, content managers should try to address major issues and concerns of the consumers to whom the content is being targeted. Essentially this means that for content to bring about the desired leads and conversions, it has to be relevant and helpful. By accumulating really useful local content, your website can easily become a valuable resource for the community and pave the way for building website authority.
When creating content for local consumption, it is important not to go haywire and start creating content on everything that the local population requires. The trick is to stick to issues that are relevant to the business niche in which the local business operates because you need to keep in mind that at the end of the day, the search intent is the most important factor that should influence the content delivery. Content that does not have relevance to the local population is merely filler.
Build a Community?
Large brands have often been very successful in raising their profiles by building online communities by employing different channels like forums, membership sites, and social media. You can speed up the building of the local community if you buy real Instagram followers. This strategy can serve as an inspiration for local businesses and owners can try out engagement tactics like creating a blog with the content of interest to the target audience, social media pages, and even a YouTube channel for connecting with the local audience. The engagement can be taken a step further by encouraging users to contribute their content in the form of photos, videos, comments, articles, and more. These kinds of tactics can result in local businesses becoming tightly integrated with the local community and generating better traffic volumes and conversions.
A Different Perspective about Local Links?
Even though people generally do not pay a lot of thought to it, it is obvious the links for local business sites work somewhat differently than with websites that have a larger footprint. While domain authority will always remain an important factor, it is not necessarily the sole metric for measuring the link quality, especially for links to a local site. What is more important is the relevance of the site to the local audience. For example, an orthodontic clinic may find far better value by sponsoring a local league team that would carry local relevance to its website and also exposes the business to a larger local audience than what a link with a very high domain authority could have achieved.
Put Additional Focus on Getting Quality Reviews
In recent years, high-quality reviews by customers have assumed more importance in local businesses getting better ranks in search results. According to Searchengineland,84% of people tend to trust online reviews to the same degree as personal recommendations. Google can understand better the perception of customers of a local business when it encounters a good quality review. This can assist the local business to build more authority, which has a positive outcome on the search engine results page rankings. It is very important for the reviews to be of high quality and also authentic. This means it is a strict no-no for content managers to post fake reviews. Posting fake reviews is easily the fastest way of getting Google My Business listing blacklisted, and it can be troublesome to get out of that sticky situation.
Since Google believes that every business will get a wide assortment of reviews not just good ones, the best way of acquiring them is from genuine customers. If you are going to delete the bad reviews just because you want to project five-star quality, you are making a huge mistake. Every customer complaint is a learning experience and a huge opportunity to improve your products and services as well as delight customers with a proactive stance to resolving issues. The fact you are ready to acknowledge deficiencies and are willing to act on them is much appreciated by the target audience and is very likely to influence their future buying behavior.
Over to You!
With the sort of budgetary limitations that most local businesses have, building website authority and trust in the business is one of the most effective ways of connecting with the target audience. The better the connection, the better the SEO performance leading to better search engine rankings that in turn leads to more organic traffic to the website.
