Importance of Blogging for Local Businesses & Its Effects on Local SEO

---

Blogging has been the success mantra of most businesses for years. The most successful businesses have stuck to consistent blogging. It has led them to increased lead generation and conversion rates. Companies with blogs generate 67% more leads than companies without blogs.
The fate of local businesses is not different. Through consistent blogging, local businesses are seeing a massive improvement in SEO. Blogging can help local businesses to generate highly qualified leads.
Blogging is essential for your local business’s success. Let’s look at some solid facts to prove that.

1. Blogging Will Increase your Brand Awareness Locally

When you are starting with your local business, bringing attention to your brand can be tough. The users need to have previous interactions with your brand. Else, people in your area won’t discover you for a long time.
When they witness your insightful thoughts often, they decide to visit you whenever they have doubts or requirements on pet care.
By putting out consistent, relevant content, you can eliminate this. Through blogging, you can expose your brand to a wider audience. More and more people in your area will learn about your products and services. And they would want to know more.
Usually, your target audience will not have any interest in your adverts or promotional content. It is especially true when you are not an established brand. Instead, people want to gather information through valuable content.
You can expose your content to the users in your locality through blogging. It will take more time than advertising. But, the results will have a huge impact. More people will learn about your brand and would want to learn more.

2. Blogposts Can Establish Your Expertise as a Local Business

Why and when do people create content?
People create content when they have something to share with others.
Creating content on a subject will make you an authoritative person in it. It is because you know something that probably others might not know.
If you create blog posts, you are establishing your expertise in your industry. For instance, suppose that you have put up 50 blog posts about “pet care.” Then people in your locality will start perceiving you as an expert in pet care. Hence, they will come to you if they need products or services in that area.
It works especially well when your blog posts are unique, informative, and valuable. Once you establish yourself as an authority in your locality, you’ll generate more leads.

Related : Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Local SEO Agency

3. Blogging Will Generate More Pre-Qualified Leads for your Local Businesses

Through blogging, you can optimize your content for local search keywords. Most of the time, users search for keywords with local search intent. So, Google will consider ranking your website and content.
Users doing local searches are mostly pre-qualified leads. It means that the user has already made up their mind to look for local businesses. This way, you are avoiding the lower quality leads. Such leads might be more interested in your content rather than your offerings.
With pre-qualified leads, you waste less time on users who do not intend to use your product or services. It leads to a significant increase in the ROI for your local business.

4. Up-to-Date Content In Blogs Improves Search Engine Rankings

All search engines have their users’ best interests in mind. Search engine algorithms want to provide the best possible experience for users. It is the reason why search engines like Google love updated content.
Updating blogs make Google crawl your site often. When Google Crawls often, it sends a signal that you provide fresh content to the users.
Google always tries to rank updated content higher. In short, regularly updated and fresh content works better for local SEO.
Through blogging, you will be creating content regularly. Hence, Google will prefer your website as compared to other local businesses.
Once you start ranking higher on Google, more local users will learn about your brand. Updated content will also increase the domain authority of your website. It will give a boost to your local SEO services.

5. You Can Rank for More Local Voice Searches

We all know that voice search is the new trend. With every passing day, more and more voice assistants are being purchased. Voice search essentially seems to be the future, especially for local businesses.
Last year Semrush published a report from Microsoft on % of voice searches done by various voice assistants. With the recent addition of voice search in the Google search box, it’s more likely to increase. Hence, the onus is on you to create quality and to-the-point content that best suits you as an answer for local voice searches.
Studies show that 58% of consumers have found local businesses through voice search! It comes as no surprise because we all have done the “near me” voice searches. Voice searches make it a lot easier to find local businesses. That is why you can grow your local business if you dominate voice search for your target keywords.
But, what is the role of blogging in ranking for voice searches? The answer is Google’s featured snippets. These are the small snippets of answers that show up on Google when you search for certain keywords.
Almost 40% of voice search answers come from featured snippets! And, blogging helps you to optimize your content for featured snippets. Without consistent blogging, it won’t be easy to rank in featured snippets.
Through blogging, you can maximize your chances of ranking for voice search answers. Since most voice searches have local intent, you can grow your business this way.

6. You Can Increase the Number of Indexed Pages for your Website

When search engines crawl your website, they scan your website’s indexed pages. An increase in the number of indexed pages leads to better local SEO and rankings.
Blogging can lead to a significant increase in the number of indexed pages for your website. In fact, according to DemandMetric, blogs can result in a 434% increase in the number of indexed pages!
By indexing more pages of your website, you can rank for a wider range of keywords. Apart from the main target keywords, you’ll also rank for LSI and long-tail keywords. It will lead to an increase in the number of indexed pages. Inturn it increases the exposure to your target prospects.

7. Blogging Will Improve UX Signals & Get Better Rankings for Local Keywords

Search engine algorithms also use User Experience (UX) signals as a ranking factor. UX signals are indicators of how users are experiencing your website.
It includes aspects such as how long visitors are staying on your website. How often are they bouncing from your website? How many times are they clicking on your website link when it appears in Google search results. UX includes bounce rate, click-through rate, dwell time, and more.
It means that if people do not stay on your website for a long time, Google will lower your rankings. But how is this related to blogging?
Blogging involves putting up high-quality, engaging content on your website. Hence, when users land on your website to read blog posts, they will stay for a longer time. Users will find your website content engaging and valuable.
Therefore, blogging brings a drastic improvement to your website’s UX signals. So, you’ll rank for more and more local keywords. It will lead to increased traffic and leads.

8. Rank for Long-Tail-Keywords Specific to your Location

When users are looking for local businesses, they tend to use long-tail keywords. For instance, instead of searching for “restaurants,” they will search for “vegan restaurants in [location name].”
Long-tail keywords contain more specific terms and words than usually searched terms, which has a lower search volume and higher conversion rate.
You can optimize your blog posts for these long-tail, location-based keywords. This way, you can increase the chances of ranking for local searches.
Different people will search for local businesses using different search terms. So, through blogging, you can optimize your content for a wide range of keywords. It will lead to better local SEO results.

Related : Steps to do Local SEO for Multiple locations

9. Use Blogs To Create Content Specific to Local Search Intent

Search intent refers to the main goal of a user while searching for a keyword on Google. For instance, suppose a user is searching for the term “vegan restaurants near me.” This query’s search intent is that the user wants to eat in a vegan restaurant in his location.
Google uses the RankBrain algorithm for this. Using this algorithm, Google pulls up search results that are most relevant to the user. Then it matches the search intent.
Rankbrain gives results based on search intent. Thus, when a user searches for ‘Olympics location, it shows the right result and the previously held locations, citing that the user may also be looking for previous tournaments and doesn't have to search it again by year. Creating content for various local search intent increases the chances of ranking your business on top.
When users look for local businesses, they tend to use terms such as “near me” or “in [location_name].” These terms indicate a local search intent of the user. Hence, Google tries to pull up local business websites that match the local search intent.
Blogging helps to create content that specifically targets local search intent. Hence, Google will consider your website when users are looking for local businesses.

10. Blogging Will Improve Website Traffic & Increases the Conversion Rate

Consistent website traffic is very important to generate leads and increase conversions. Today, the competition on social media is quite high. Hence, solely relying on social media for traffic is not feasible.
Through blogging, you can generate increased traffic to your website through search engines. Traffic from search engines tends to be more consistent. Also, they will be long-lasting than other mediums. Moreover, blogging also increases traffic generated from email marketing by 200%!
Here’s a Google metric of a business site captured between two different periods showing the traffic shoot up when you create several user-worthy blogs.

11. You Can Rank for Keywords with High Purchase Intent

The purchase intent of any user’s search indicates that the user intends to make a purchase soon. Examples can be keywords that include “buy now” or “near me.” If you notice closely, local searches usually tend to have a purchase intent. When a user searches for “vegan restaurants near me,” they intend to eat at a vegan restaurant soon.
The advantage of searches with purchase intent is that the lead is already qualified. A highly qualified lead means that the chances of conversion of the user are higher than other leads. Highly qualified leads are better for your business, as the ROI is more. You spend less money and effort, and you gain more.
These keywords are most likely to get most qualified leads than the normal users. Also, the search engines know that you have the right product/service they are looking to purchase and rank you up on the search results.

If you create blogs that target local search keywords, you’ll generate more highly qualified leads. It is even better than advertising. As in advertising, the leads might not be as qualified as those with purchase intent.

12. Get Discovered More on Social Media Platforms/ Improve Online Presence

Most of your target audiences are likely to hang out on one social media or the other. Thus, social media can be a great medium to generate leads for your local business.
Blogging is an excellent way to establish a social media presence for local businesses. Creating blog posts is only half the job. The rest is its promotion.
By creating blog posts, you’ll be promoting it on social media platforms. Hence, it becomes possible for your target audience to discover your local business through your blog.
Moreover, you can brilliantly repurpose the blogposts into more social-media-friendly formats. It may include content such as videos, social media posts, graphics, and more. It is a great way to reach your local business prospects on social media.
You can repurpose your blog posts into tiny yet attractive visual posts to market through social media channels. For instance, here’s a blog post on Google algorithm update converted into a user-friendly video post.

13. Generate More Backlinks & Get Better Local Search Rankings

Backlinks refer to the links that come from other websites to your site. Google considers backlinks as one of the top 3 ranking factors. It means, more the number backlinks to your website, the better will be your Google rankings.
Producing quality content helps in generating quality links rather than just (spammy) links. Google penalizes websites with low-quality links. You can keep track of quality backlinks to your site using this tool.
Now, why would anyone want to link to your website? Only when you have something valuable to offer to that website’s users. Without blogging, this won’t be quite possible.
Create high-quality content by solving some users’ pain points. It will help you to get more backlinks. You can gather backlinks by reaching out to relevant websites with your content. Or, you can also expect others to link to your website naturally.
Either way, blogging helps you to generate more backlinks. And, more relevant backlinks lead to better search engine rankings.
Backlinks can help users to discover your local business from other websites. It will lead to more traffic and brand awareness.

14. Use Blogging to Implement Internal Linking & Get Better Google Rankings

Internal linking is a great way to improve your search engine rankings. Through internal linking, Google understands the context of your website better. Hence, you’ll be able to rank for more and more local searches.
Internal links create a hierarchy among your pages and send signals to Google that users get a lot of relatable information once they enter your website.
And guess what provides you the perfect opportunity for internal linking? Blogging, of course! Through blogging, you can interlink many of your website’s pages. It will lead to increased rankings and traffic.

15. Blogs Offer Better User Experience

Offering the best user-friendly blog posts increases session duration and dwell time. This sends a signal to search engines that you offer valuable content to users, making them rank you on top for similar searches. A user-friendly blog has a decent font size with decent spacing between the lines and paragraphs.
You can impress your customers with your products and services. But they will remember how you made them feel. That is why top businesses focus more and more on user experience.
When you start customer relationships on the right note, things will turn out in your favor. And the best way to do this is by adding free value.
When users consume your blog posts, it will start impacting their lives positively. People will always remember such experiences. Hence, blogging leads to a strong foundation of trust and positivity. It becomes a good starting point for your customers’ journey. It starts from the awareness stage till the final purchase stage of our sales funnels.
You can offer positive and long-lasting experiences to your users through blogging. This way, people will reach out to your local business when they need your offerings.

16. Start your Local Business Blog Today

By now, you would have understood that blogging is essential for local businesses. Blogging is an absolute must if you want consistent pre-qualified leads. Hence, start now to obtain long-lasting results for your local business.
Get in touch with us to know more about our pricing packages on Local SEO