Importance of blogging for local SEO

Blogging for SEO can be very helpful in the marketing of small businesses. Statistics has it that people prefer blogs to newspapers. As of 2010 WordPress claims that over 409 million people read 17.8 million of their blogs each month. Another startling statistic is the fact that 46% of people read blogs more than once a day. Blogs are very important to the business and enable them to do some important stuff.

Blogging for local SEO enables you to write about content that big businesses see as unimportant. You will be able to write about local events and in the process you can write about how your business is connected to these events. This will help you increase traction for your site as locals will be very interested in your blog.

Writing a blog also enables you to naturally target long tail keywords. When a person types in some keywords your site will rank highly in search results.

Write about local news and events

Writing a blog requires that you keep tabs with the most recent local events. Though this may not get much attention as they are confined to the local people they will increase your ratings based upon the Google’s algorithm rank contest. This is based on recent events and topics. Your audience though small will be very satisfied with your content as you will be giving them what they want. This will increase your rankings in the SERPs.

Showcase customer testimonials

Once in a while it is nice for you to showcase your customer satisfaction levels. You may occasionally mention the reviews that you got on Yelp or Google+. However you have to be careful not to overdo it. You don’t want to sound too self-promotional or you risk losing some people. If you decide to show off your successes it is important to keep the focus on the customer. You have to make sure that you show that you have helped your customers.

Keep content relevant & interesting

One of the most common fears that local SEO bloggers have is that they will be boring. Most of them fear that the nature of their business might hinder them from writing about topics that interest the public. It is very understandable if a business like plumbing may lack something interesting to say. However this does not have to be the case. There are ways to present your blog such that no matter the nature of your business you are always writing about fresh interesting topics. A good example would be a blog run by a Watford electrician. He blends resourceful and relevant posts to make up a very interesting blog. He talks about topics like “Why are My Lights Flickering?” “Lower Your Electric Bills This Winter” and “Texas # 1 in Choosing Green Electricity Plans.” Though they may not be flashy headings they contain information that is very useful to his customers. It is this strategy that has enabled other businesses like Premier Roofing Company and Heritage Bicycles General Store to gain so much traffic on their blogs.

Blogging for local SEO can thus be seen as a tool that you can use as a business to increase the number of customers you