Announcing: The Local Business Content Marketing Guide
The author's views are entirely their own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Edited by Emilie Martin
What kind of content will help my local business achieve its marketing goals?
This was the topic sentence I began with when writing this guide, and four chapters later, I feel I’ve truly had the space to answer it more fully than any other single resource anywhere on the web.
I hope you will think of The Local Business Content Marketing Guide as your big book of ideas, inspirations, tutorials, workflows, best practices, and real-world examples. Turn to it at different stages of local business growth for actionable tips from twelve of the world’s most respected local marketers, including Amanda Jordan, Amy Toman, Carrie Hill, Claire Carlile, Colan Nielsen, Darren Shaw, David Mihm, Greg Sterling, Joy Hawkins, Sherry Bonelli, Stefan Somborac, and Mike Blumenthal.
There are many good guides to online content marketing, but this one is written specifically for the unique circumstances and opportunities of local businesses and their marketers. There is so much information across the internet on what local businesses should be publishing, but this guide organizes dozens of topics into a single resource. In keeping with the 80/20 rule of thumb that you should spend 20% of your time writing and 80% marketing what you’ve created, this resource will teach you not just what to write but where and how to promote your work.
Why I wrote this guide for you
I had two key inspirations for taking a thorough approach to this guide.
The first was all of the local business content marketing FAQs I’ve identified over a twenty-year career of consulting with fantastic business owners. I’ve seen the in-house expertise that exists at every local business, and I’ve empathized with the struggles of turning that knowledge into customer-centric content that becomes a major asset to the company in meeting its goals for discovery, engagement, acquisition, and retention. I wanted to share both what local business owners have taught me, and how I have helped them.
Second, I was watching one of my favorite gardening programs some months ago in which researchers were documenting how a single tree can become the host to hundreds of different species, from animals to insects, from ferns to mosses, from tall vines to microscopic fungi. Great trees not only feed us, but they absorb carbon and contribute to the very air we breathe. All at once, I felt I had a working analogy for the role local businesses play in communities, and the way in which they can come to host hundreds of types of useful content that contribute to the overall quality of local life. Because of this inspiration, I’ve structured this guide along the phases of the life of a tree, and I hope you’ll enjoy each of the stages of growth.
Beyond this, and because of the heartfelt respect I feel for the vital role local businesses play in our daily lives, I’ve included some straight talk in this guide about the societal, economic, and environmental challenges in which most small companies presently exist. You’ll find some thoughts on how using your voice on these issues as part of your content marketing plan can improve life quality in the communities you serve, and perhaps even in the world.
Who is this guide for?
This guide was written specifically for local business owners and marketers at the small to medium business level. It is also meant for SEO and marketing agencies with local business clients. It teaches a multi-faceted approach to local business content marketing through the understanding that the umbrella term “content” comprises everything from text to video to images to audio media.
Something as small as the text on a button or a quick answer to a question on your Google Business profile is content. And something as huge as the decision to launch a local podcast for your community can be part of your business’s content strategy, too. Local business owners become publishers the moment they step online, and this guide is for anyone who wants to know what to write, photograph, film, record and promote.
What's in this guide?
Read this comprehensive guide for insight into all of the following topics:
Chapter 1: Plant a Healthy Sapling — Foundational Content Assets
The first chapter kicks things of by showing you how to:
Set achievable goals
Do customer research
Do keyword research
Do market research
Create and market assets, and more!
Chapter 2: Grow a Strong Trunk — Core Website-based Content Assets
Moving on, the second chapter explains how each page and content asset you create is an opportunity to give your customers and search engines a better understanding of your website and content. You'll learn all about:
The local business publishing mindset
Onsite local SEO
Basic website pages
Location/city landing pages
Practitioner landing pages
Optimizing CTAs, and more!
Chapter 3: Root Down and Branch Out — Offsite Content Assets
In the third chapter you'll learn how to branch out into offsite strategies that can build authority awareness and draw in more new customers, we cover:
Creating local business listings
Review acquisition, management, and analysis
Unstructured citations
Inbound link strategy
Featured snippets, and more!
Chapter 4: Play Host to Thriving Local Life — Further Content Opportunities
The often forgotten, but vitally important segment of any content marketing strategy, the final chapter take you through how to get the most out of your assets through:
Continuous remarketing of assets
Ongoing asset refresh
Continuous growth of internal link architecture
Publishing for all phases of the customer journey
Publishing for B2B relationship development
Publishing for good
Growing your own content tree may sound like a major undertaking, and it is! But in this guide, you’ll find both quick wins and longer-term strategies for a continuous harvest of business benefits. Well-rooted local companies operate for years – even for generations – and that goal of longevity gives you plenty of time to experiment, implement, reflect, and grow over time. From getting started with identifying a unique selling proposition, to seeing opportunity through a big forest that includes major questions on topics like AI and changes in consumer behavior, this guide is here to help you act with intention, purpose, and excellent information as you reach up towards success on behalf of the local brands you market.
Please, come have a read, and share and bookmark this guide as a reference you can return to as your local business grows and thrives. And, please feel free to reach out to me on X if new questions arise as you’re reading. Wishing you all success!
