Sure, CONTENT IS KING 👑 … but only when it’s done right.
If you’re providing a product or service people need, chances are, you have competition and in today’s highly saturated local markets, business owners and marketers alike are finding it more and more difficult to rank on Google for local searches and get people to engage with their content.
The good news is that you’re not alone.
The bad news… is that you’re not alone!
The BEST NEWS 🙌 is that you can easily rank on Google Maps, make your content pop, and cut right past any competitors with an effective content marketing strategy — and I’m going to tell you the 4 simple things you can do right now to start ranking on Google and seeing 👀 the results your business needs.
1. Quality
Really, if you just made QUALITY the key ingredient in everything you do, your competition wouldn’t stand a chance against you.
The quality of your products and services is critical, of course, but most businesses don’t put that same level of quality or work into developing their Google My Business page, website content, blog content, social content, etc.
Being “that company” that does… is a serious GAME-CHANGER.
Instead of making the same mistakes as everyone else and pushing quantity over quality, be different and perhaps minimize the quantity so you can [consistently] deliver quality content which Google, future customers, and even your existing loyal / repeat customers will appreciate.
2 great posts a week is much better and also more cost-effective than say 7, 14, or even 21 posts if they don’t resonate with your audience and the isues and challenges they’re facing.
An exhaustive amount of research and experience shows us that people are much more likely to engage with content that speaks to their needs, is well-researched, and either makes their lives happier or somewhat easier.
If instead you chose to go down the path of copying what everyone else is doing and writing about, you’re just sharing the same lousy strategy with a bunch of other people who are barely getting results themselves, if at all…
Who wants to compete for an increasingly small audience set when you can set yourself apart by upping the quality of your content??
I should also talk about the “Google My Business SEO Content Myth”…
Spamming your Google My Business profile with lots of keyword-filled content doesn’t result in high Google My Business ranking.
It actually does the opposite.
If experience has taught us anything, it’s that Google’s algorithm strongly favors Google My Business SEO plan that takes the time to create quality content and as such, rewards high quality Google My Business profiles with high rankings over everyone else.
If it isn’t good quality, it basically gets lumped in with all the rest on search engine results page 2 and beyond (which no one goes because Google generally does a good job of getting people what they need on page 1 search rankings).
Fyi, if you just added one new blogpost a week — targeting just one of your important keywords — with a low bounce rate (meaning people didn’t immediately “jump” off the page) and long visitor sessions (meaning they spent significant amount of time on the page and actually read it) your entire site would quickly start ranking like crazy and Google will want to send highly-qualified leads to your site which means you’ll be put in front of real live people who are looking to buy whatever it is you’re offering!
2. Visuals
I’m sure you’ve heard it. A picture is worth a thousand words.
While that isn’t always the case, a picture will definitely help attract more eyes and attention than content missing one.
Visuals are very important if you want to get noticed (and they’re also really good for Google My Business SEO 📈).
Did you know our brain processes visual information like photos, infographics, and video 60,000 times faster than it does text?!
If you want to attract customer attention and keep that attention despite all the noise trying to steal the attention from you, add visuals.
It’ll allow you to quickly grab your audience’s attention and in the few seconds you have to “impress” them, help them to quickly understand what your content is about (or at least hook them towards wanting to learn more about the content and clicking onto your site where you can limit the distraction).
That said not all videos, photos, and infographics are created equal.
Poor quality visuals are literally a strain to look at and tell the world your content and possibly your brand are bad quality… so always always always use high quality video, photos, or images.
Sidenote: Try using people in your images wherever it makes sense and if you can capture their eyes, even better!
Bonus: Use a photo where the person is looking right at the reader because those will generally pop right off the page and grab a person’s attention better than a photo of someone looking down or in another direction.
3. Social Media Integration
Most people don’t realize the huge role social media plays in supporting local rankings and just knowing this, gives you a considerable advantage over everyone else competing for your same audience.
Not only is social media a great way to market your content, but it’s also a great way of letting new prospects discover the things you’re doing at your company.
Most importantly, it’s an effective way to get people onto your site and learning (or in many cases getting reminded) about what you do and how you can help improve their lives with the products and services you provide.
Sidenote: If you’re looking to link up with industry influencers to create a partnership where they share their audience and lend credibility, social media is where it all begins so quality posts that clearly communicate what you do is key to attracting influencers.
Again, if you want to rank high (positions 1, 2, and 3), having good social media content that people can click onto, link to, and share with others is a huge help for your SEO (search engine optimization) and helps you get noticed by Google AND real people (plus it builds massive credibility with both as well).
4. Research
It won’t matter that you created the most amazing content ever if there isnt actual demand 💖 for it.
You have to understand and know what your audience is after.
What are they scared of? 😱
What keeps them up at night? 🌙
What is the one thing that you can help them with that will make their lives better / easier / happier? 😊
These are all things that when you understand, creating powerful Google My Business pages, ranking #1 on Google for all your keywords, and getting incredible engagement that lead to sales becomes incredibly easy.
The 1st thing you want to know is what are the search words / keywords people in your market are using to find the products and services you provide.
Next find out which of those keywords are most likely to generate sales (pro tip: searches that start with “best” or “how to” have higher chances of turning into sales) but are not as competitive or so difficult to rank for — a tool like KWFinder can help you find keywords with low difficulty and competition.
Pro tip: Once you have an idea of what keywords you want to target, use a tool like SEMRush to see who’s ranking locally for your keywords and whether there’s been recent movement on page 1 of the search results (which are both important in estimating how easy / difficult it’ll be for you to rank).
…this all means delving deep into data and trends to gain credible insights like traffic demographics, surveys, customer feedback, third party analytics, Google My Business Insights, those of your social accounts, SEO tools like the ones I linked to above, etc.
5. Consistency
I had to add this one because persistent consistency wins every time (and the above 4 works BEST when you do them consistently).
Need guidance or help tackling any of the above (or other important marketing tasks that are getting neglected)??
The best way to actually SEE what I can do for you is by getting a free evaluation where I tell you what’s working, what isn’t, and what I would recommend to a friend or family-member (no salesy fluff or B.S.)… and then you decide how you want to move forward.
Learn more here.
