Location, location, location is the mantra you hear from any real estate professional about how important it is to have the right spot. It might be more accurate to say, “location-based content” three times as the new catchphrase.
If you are a local small business or a larger franchise owner with multiple locations, you’ll be interested to know that you can show up high in search and social results based on how people share content. You see, consumers are sharing content that is directly related to a location or event or venue. Yelp, Foursquare and other up and coming platforms let you say, “I am here now sipping a latte at Starbucks on Main Street, Seattle.” The location is inserted automatically. And that local-flavored content is surfacing in the search results.
What can you do?
- Get a smartphone so you can see what your customers see when they look at your website.
- Register with the location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and then download the iPhone or Android apps.
- Get with a local search expert. I have read and recommendDavid Mihm for both beginner and advanced level local SEO ideas. He runs a Web design and SEO company, but he produces an amazing Local Search Ranking Factors report once a year.
- Start creating localized content.
According to a recent brand study by Valuevine called “The Local Blind Spot for Consumer Brands,” 53 percent of mobile searches have local intent (as reported by Bing). The study covered many large consumer brands, but I think it presents some great opportunities for small and medium sized businesses to keep an advantage over competitors.
The study explains that most social media monitoring tools are keyword-based. That is, they monitor keywords that appear in various social streams and within search results. What is missing is the local aspect. Valuevine highlights this gap because their business model is based on location analytics, but it is a missing piece of the online marketing equation. At the simplest level, you could simply monitor the location-based services on your own or set Google Alerts with locations in them.
Some points covered in the study:
- There are a growing number of third party sites gathering content about business. Think Yelp, Citysearch, Foursquare— and the list grows daily.
- As smartphone usage increases, the volume of consumer content rapidly expands. In 2010, Foursquare reported 381 million check-ins. All of that shows up in social streams and in some search results.
- Brands are unaware and not listening to these local sources.
Consumers are increasingly accessing local content. That means their search either starts by them typing in the location along with a specific search term like “Coffee Shop” or “Chinese Cuisine” or their smartphone does it for them because it knows where they are and they need only put in the term.
The point of this post is to highlight how location-based content may be the new black, as the saying goes. Even if you decide not to have a website (which 40 to 50 percent of small businesses do not depending on which study you read), your brand is still found online by consumers who are on the go. The question is: What are you doing to reach a mobile consumer with local content?
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