Seven Local Angles to Address in Your Content

My Web Writers

As a local business or blogger, location alone is not enough to help maximize your reach to your target audience. It’s equally important to highlight local angles in your online content as well. In doing so, you create a niche market and improve search engine optimization (SEO) for those who may be searching by specific location. This is a powerful tool that can be easily incorporated into any type of content, no matter the size or industry. Take a look at these seven ideas for addressing local angles in your content:

1. Highlight other well-known businesses

As a local business you should be in touch and in tune with the fellow businesses that surround you. If you have a synergistic relationship with them, it’s easy to incorporate their services or skills into your own content by including their name and location. In doing so, you harness a portion of their SEO power for yourself. Link back to their web site and refer to them by their full business name. For content ideas, you can write about how your services complement each other and create an even greater benefit for customers who patronize you both.

2. Include landmark photos and tag appropriately

Another way to highlight your immediate surroundings is to include a mention of local landmarks, well-known businesses or tourist destinations in your content. All of these are heavily searched terms online. By including these same terms in your content as well as photos that are tagged with relevant keywords, you will improve your SEO for local searches. Try taking your own photos and writing about the personal meaning they have to you or your business. Maybe they’re something you see every day or something that inspires you.

3. Feature a local blogger

A quick search should provide you with many options for local bloggers in your area. They can cover an array of topics including opinion, sports, community events or night life. Reach out to one that is relevant to your content and ask if they would be willing to contribute a guest post for you to use. Even more simply, ask for permission to re-blog an article that relates to your business. Be sure to link back to the blogger and include their name and bio in your own content to maximize the impact.

4. Write a review

If you’ still stumped with how to include a local angle in your online content, try writing a review for a business or event that you know well. People are often searching for reviews online and by offering relevant and valuable content you will draw in more viewers to your own web site.

5. Make a resource guide

This is similar to writing a review, but instead you create an entire guide of multiple businesses or events in which you can offer some expertise. Give tips and advice that people can use to get the best experience and utilize links and keywords to your resources as much as appropriate.

6. Cover a community event

Businesses and night life are hot topics for local content, but so are community events. People are often looking for things to do or more information on a festival or community gathering they heard about. To incorporate an event into your content, try writing a “what to expect” feature where readers can learn what all is going on and when. Again, this creates valuable content which drives more readers and increases SEO.

7. Link to other local sites as often as possible

For all of the local angle ideas mentioned, it is critical that you include links to external sites for the different businesses, events and resources you reference. Linking to a web site that has strong SEO will help improve yours as well and will rank you higher in searches for the keywords you both share.

By adding a local angle to your content on a regular basis, you will improve your reach toward your target audience. For local businesses and bloggers this is a critical tool for maximizing your online potential and the impact of your content marketing! ~ Stephanie

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Is Your e-Store Prepared for Summer Shoppers?

My Web Writers

Are you marketing and merchandising your website for this summer’s sales potential? According to Internet Retailer, the U.S. Commerce Department said that U.S. online sales totaled $225.5 billion in 2012, up 15.8% from $194.7 billion in 2011.  With the exception of sales in categories not commonly bought online—

Internet Retailer estimates that e-commerce accounted for 7.6% of total retail sales during the year, up from 6.8% a year earlier. Commerce Department estimates are based on a quarterly survey of more than 11,000 U.S. merchants.

It’s no wonder that such a large marketing emphasis is placed on preparing shopping web sites for each new season and sale.  Every effort counts.   As the weather finally heats up for the summer, many e-stores have rolled out their new merchandise and revamped their web sites. All businesses, regardless of size or industry, can learn from other creative and competitive websites. Let’s take a look at three examples of big name brands and how they’re poised to sell more this summer:

 

1.  Target.com

Target is known for its chic and trendy styles and its unique in-store shopping experience. Target pays special attention to creating this same vibe in its e-store. The web site design is simple, clean and incorporates the signature Target red color to promote brand recognition. Though this main design remains the same year-round, the homepage content is customized to the upcoming holidays and season. Going on right now is a sale on patio furniture and family swimwear.  Aside from the featured sales, Target has changed the photos to represent each of its main shopping categories to be summer-themed. For example the “Women’s” category shows a summery dress and the “Sports and Outdoors” category is represented with an above ground pool. These images, though subtle, entice shoppers to click and browse in areas they may have had no original interest in shopping.

What you can learn: The takeaway from Target’s summer-poised marketing is that images are powerful. If you are trying to sell seasonal items, then every image should be carefully chosen to remind shoppers of all the things they enjoy about that season. Even if they weren’t originally in the market for a pool, customers will be intrigued to click on images that pique their interests.

Target.com’s weakness is its lack of content.  It’s missing tips or suggestions to help customers visualize how to use its products.

Target.com is ready to go for the summer, though the “d” in “deals” should be capitalized and the exclamation point should be dropped. Oops. Can you spot the other capitalization errors?

2. Petsmart.com

Petsmart’s images are ready for summer.  The web site’s main sliding banner greets customers with various pictures of dogs running outside on sunny days. The other still images on the homepage are also of animals in outdoor settings. Moving beyond the homepage, the main items featured are geared toward use in the summer. For example, the dog section has leashes, harnesses and bike trailers aimed at outdoor lovers on the go.

What you can learn: While it’s only April, Petsmart has already positioned its web site with the most summer-related items first.   Like end-caps in physical stores, identify your store’s most desirable and in-demand products and place them at the forefront of the e-store.

Petsmart needs to add seasonal content.  Currently, its homepage bottom content is duplicated on several category pages, which isn’t great for search or for customers.  Petsmart.com could address pet owners’ most frequently asked questions about each category in those spaces.  It’s missing opportunities to educate new animal owners about the pros and cons of buying fencing, habitat accessories, and other pet supplies.

 

Even though it’s a cold spring in many parts of the United States, Petsmart.com helps consumers visualize summer outside with Fifi and Fido.

3. Gap.com

Gap is a brand that adapts to every new season. The colors and styles of their clothes act as decorations for the web site and can change the whole tone from summer to winter.  Clothing stores start advertising their new lines nearly a season in advance. Today, Gap.com is vibrant, bright and cheery with summer apparel.  Even the background graphic on the web site has been changed to read “Be Bright” in art-deco style lettering. From shorts and capri’s to sundresses and tank tops, one would think it’s already August at Gap.com.

Gap.com employs a clever trick with some images. Notice the blue highlight of “uniform shorts.” This phrase looks like a hyperlink. It’s not, but when clicked, the image is linked to the corresponding shorts store. Also, on this page, Gap transitions from spring to summer through use of a jacket with shorts and words that close out spring, while promoting summer.

What you can learn: Not all e-stores and web sites can be as adaptable to changing for each season as Gap, but if you are – utilize it! Tailor your font, graphics, background and colors to represent each season. Summer products seem to “pop” so much more when accompanied by other summer colors on the site and when your products look good, they sell.

However, the Gap is content light.  Sentences are placed over images like memes; but, there are very few words in text above or below page folds.  The Gap performs fairly well in search, but it’s likely that online conversions would improve with carefully-crafted content that adds value to the customers’ shopping experiences.

Overall, the common theme among these e-stores is to move your seasonal and most desirable products to the front. Incorporate the colors of the seasons, but stay true to your brand.  Place seasonal items on your homepage and tailor your images and content toward creating vibes that put shoppers in the mood for summer.

Don’t forget those whose experiences are enhanced beyond the layout, art, and images by the words they read.  Store content should educate the consumer, complement images, and describe the feel of the season.

Is your e-store prepared for summer shoppers?

~Stephanie & Jean

Other MWW Articles:

National Websites without Physical Stores Struggle to Rank

Guidelines for Writing E-Tail Category Content

Five Ways to Prepare Your E-Store for the Holidays

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Local SEO Ideas for National Brands

by My Web Writers

Now that local search results show up at the top of the page on Google, it’s imperative that both local and national businesses have local presence.  Here are a few ideas to help boost your local impact.

Create Local Category Pages

List your company’s address, phone number, email and web address on the corporate website.  Does your company reside in multiple locations?  Consider highlighting each store with its own webpage.  While some SEO’s would suggest not taking up meta space with city or state names, in some cases the technique still effectively works.  Devote city or regional keywords and unique content to these location-specific, category pages.  Appeal to each location’s customers with photos, descriptions, and videos.

Add Your Business to Google Places

While you can no longer add post office boxes to Google Places, you can choose to add a service area to indicate a region that your brand delivers service.  There are a few verification workarounds, but you’ll have to give your company’s physical address.  Of course, some SEO’s suggest just entering your post office’s physical address if you own an online business with a P.O. box.

Pin it!

No doubt about it, Pinterest is taking over as a huge marketing tool for businesses. When looking for help with local SEO, first make sure your boards in Pinterest are searchable via Google. Then, make some of your boards “local.” For example, say you’re a national food magazine. You could have a Pinterest board for different cities and the restaurants your magazine has covered.

Optimize for Mobile Local Search

Sim Marketing offers an informative, thirty-minute webinar entitled, How to Tackle National Brand, Local & Mobile Search Marketing, which suggests that local content scores well when using mobile devices.  After all, 13% of all search traffic flows from mobile devices and those devices are often used while doing errands and shopping.  Distribute data about your business’ locales across various channels including Yelp and Google+.  Your content writers should optimize your content with prices, product information, stories, and reviews.  The return on investment is well worth the effort!

~Natalie