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Stop recommending blog content to every local business
I’ve seen several posts here where a small town electrician or dentist asks a question and half the answers are “write content focused on long tail keywords”, then going on to list a bunch of questions that could go in an FAQ.
This shows a lack of understanding of search intent. Most of the questions people suggest fall under “informational intent”. In our dentist example, this would be something like “how often should I floss?”. The problem is, Google doesn’t show local results for informational searches unless you explicitly tell it to.
So now our small town dentist is competing with Healthline, Colgate, and the dentists who have managed to land first place for that keyword – which, as of this writing, are in Toronto and Santa Fe.
It’s also worth noting that those practices that do land first page keywords are also getting a lot of unqualified traffic. Traffic is not the goal of a business, conversions are. And unqualified leads can bog everyone down, especially if you aren’t prepared for them.
TL;DR Blog content isn’t the right choice for everyone, be a little more creative with suggestions for local businesses.
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1 Reply
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It’s about awareness and engagement which leads to Experience, Expertise, Authoritative, and Trust. E-E-A-T. This rolls up nicely to the three pillars of local SEO – Prominence, Relevance, and Proximity.
Yes, your posts are going to show up for people that are not close to you – but it will show up for people that are close to you as well – you say it is unqualified traffic which if your only KPI is appointments, then sure. However, that person that is within a reasonable radius of your office has now seen/heard of your office which otherwise may not have happened. They had a need, and you just provided it. Those of us in digital marketing would call that upper-funnel engagement.
These posts also help get links to your site (see first paragraph) – could also lead to local citations as well.
Helpful content is important to every site if they wish to be relevant. What I would do is take some of this blog content that you aren’t fond of and add it to your GBP via Questions and Answers, or Posts.
Don’t be so narrowly focused in your marketing strategy – you won’t succeed if you are only casting your fishing line from the shore when others are out in the ocean with nets.
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The challenge is that blog content and information content in general (Google doesn’t differentiate between a blog or service page) can be very helpful for local clients in answering questions and making decisions over time. In your dentist example, the prospective patient might want to know more about invisalign before they call. You’re bringing them along the buying journey and allowing them to learn at their own pace.
There’s a very specific science to the conversion process. And yes, I agree that you’re not going to compete with Colgate and co for general searches like “How often should I brush my teeth?” But there are opportunities to rank for valuable long tails. And the good news is that as trends evolve so do search terms, giving smaller dental clinics (or any niche business) the opportunity to rank, scale and grow.
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I think blog posts get recommended because there are so few elements in your control when it comes to local SEO: besides GMB pages, localization of the website and building citations/local backlinks, there’s not a whole lot more you can do.
For businesses that don’t need eyes from everywhere, I agree – focusing on ranking posts for competitive head terms wouldn’t provide much benefit; instead, I’d focus on nurturing the relationships with existing customers and use that content in emails and local social groupings.
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So I agree with your specific examples.but not your overall premise and think a portion of it is bad advice. First I don’t know what kind of idiots you are seeing but suggesting flossing articles? Really I hadn’t noticed the stupid are invading again. However, you premise of suggesting to people that building a content hub and becoming a topical authority has no merit is completely wrong and sounds like some a ppc company salesman would say. In fact I know Marcus Sheridan and anyone following the they ask you answer model would laugh at you about.
Still you have a point because the content hub model only really works when you are dropping high quality content at scale with a lot going down at once. Most sites and people creating content are creating very slowly or a lot of garbage fast, neither work well.
I couldn’t imagine an office manager in a dentist office agreeing to pay for flossing content when they are in business to make revenue and not floss. Many of those rank and rent business models do very well and generate converting calls when done right. I have no interest in them but others dig it.
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Just want to say thanks everyone for the discussion; I think it’s important. Even if you disagree with me I’m glad to see people are thinking through their strategy and are happy to go to bat for its viability.
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Honestly, it gets recommended largely because most of the people who are “SEOs” have no business working with clients. They don’t know what else to do, and after they fix up a few title tags, meta descriptions, and H2’s they are all out of ideas.
One could argue that you can use blog content to build topical authority, support your service pages and home page, and perhaps if shared in appropriate channels start to build a recognizable brand name, but let’s be honest. All of that flies way over the head of your typical SEO out there.
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Agree. A portion of this sub only knows that. You take away blog content and they have zero idea how to do SEO. Its also why they think ai is killing SEO.
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Does it not build the website as an authoritative source on the overall topic?
At all? Or just to no meaningful degree?
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Lol OP is so wrong.
Good luck to your plumber client who only ranks in the top 3 for plumbing your city.
While my plumbing client is ranking for the same keywords in his city whilst also ranking for top of the funnel informational keywords that I use as
– link bait: which makes my clients link acquisition cost significantly cheaper
– A buffering page to follow users around the internet marketing my clients brand for cents on the dollar
– A means of targeting keywords that signal buyer intent but may not lead to an immediate call or sale.
– Not to mention the amount of E-E-A-T it does for the companies brand.
– A means of future proofing my client’s site.If your aim isnt to make your client’s blog the best in his market youre doing it wrong.
Id take a plumbing site getting 1k traffic per day over a plumbing site that gets 1k traffic per month.
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