Selecting Savvy Content Strategies for Local Businesses in 2024

The initial trepidation that local business proprietors might experience when embarking on the journey of crafting city or location landing pages for their online platforms is understandable. Yet, the actual breadth of choices for populating these pages with valuable content is as abundant as an all-you-can-eat salad bar. The quandary lies not in a scarcity of content ideas but in the discerning selection of what to incorporate without overloading your greens!
Encountering a creative block when deciding what to pen for your local enterprise? Feast your eyes upon our rich and comprehensive Local Business Content Marketing Guide. While we're navigating the options at the salad station today, let's delve into the nuanced task of creating compelling content for pivotal location and city landing pages, ensuring each one stands out as distinct, useful, and actionable, with the caliber to climb the ranks in organic SERPs. Armed with a curated checklist and a prototype layout, I aim to kindle your imagination and offer a swift-paced Q&A to tackle prevalent questions on this theme!

Location/city landing pages: animal, vegetable, or mineral?

These classifications can often be jumbled like a mixed salad. Before we dress the greens, let's clarify these two landing page variants:
City Landing Pages: These are akin to crafting a unique serving for each urban area you serve. A nursery serving five local communities? That calls for five city landing pages. Or consider a plumbing conglomerate with 30 operators, each catering to five towns, culminating in 150 city landing pages across the corporate site. Even physical businesses, such as pizza joints delivering to several cities, should contemplate individual pages for each delivery area.
For instance, a green carpet cleaning business anchored in Nevada City, California, has meticulously cultivated a city landing page for its clientele in Pacifica, California.
Consider the REI store in San Francisco, which has cultivated its own niche location landing page within the expansive network of outdoor equipment suppliers.
Location Landing Pages: Picture these as bespoke servings for each physical spot your business occupies. A restaurant chain with a trio of locations? Three distinct location landing pages. A hardware empire with 250 outlets? That's 250 individual pages.
While it’s true that some big-name brands might bypass individual location/city landing pages in favor of a simple store locator map, such a strategy might overlook ripe opportunities for engagement. If you're vying for visibility in organic and local search results, pouring resources into well-crafted location/city landing pages could be one of your most strategic moves in the coming year.
One constant concern for local business owners is the risk of producing pages that come across as repetitive, uninspired, or as drab as an underdressed salad. Cast these doubts aside by exploring a lavish buffet of content checklist items designed to ensure your landing pages are captivating and cater to your visitors:
Each of the 20 selections on offer is a potential ingredient to make each page both rich in content and distinct from the others. Now, let's apply this checklist by imagining how it might be placed on a location landing page for a conceptual garden center. Each component is labeled for easy reference, and a descriptive legend accompanies our sample page blueprint:

Essential Elements of an Ideal Local Landing Page

E-E-A-T Verification in Action: Google's E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, key factors for search engine rankings. On our sample page, the showcase begins with an award from a reputable local horticulture magazine, affirming our hypothetical garden shop's status as an esteemed expert in rare plants. For a thorough understanding of E-E-A-T, our comprehensive guide is available.
Navigational Ease: A landing page for locals should have a clear and intuitive navigation system. Ours includes quick-access links that let visitors jump to the content they're interested in without unnecessary scrolling.
Immediate Contact Details: At the forefront of the page, you'll find the full name, address, multiple contact options, social media connections, and hours of operation for the business, ensuring visitors have all the information they need.
Captivating Imagery: A dynamic image carousel highlights the garden center's environment and offerings, aiding in visual recognition. For businesses without a storefront, images of project successes, team members, and branded assets are featured.
Clear-cut USP: The garden center's unique selling point is crisply articulated: it offers the richest assortment of rare plants in the locality.
Rich Internal Linking: The page includes numerous sections with internal links, guiding both users and search engine crawlers to additional relevant content, indicating the importance of various pages on the site.
Accessible Directions: Directions cater to every type of visitor, complete with local landmarks for easy orientation, ensuring anyone can find the way to the garden center.
Map Integration: A map is embedded for easy location spotting or, for non-physical businesses, a representation of the service coverage area is provided.
Transaction Methods Galore: All the ways customers can do business with you are listed, from virtual shopping experiences to direct home deliveries and beyond.
Local Business Collaborations: Our garden center partners with a local eatery for mutual promotion or suggests an internal deal, like a package offer of products or services.
Inviting Premises Features: The center boasts accessibility for all, pet-friendliness, and gender-neutral restrooms. Service-oriented businesses might instead advertise precise scheduling or support in multiple languages.
Customer Feedback Showcase: Reviews and direct links to review platforms are displayed, inviting new feedback and exemplifying the "Experience" aspect of E-E-A-T. Where available, handwritten customer testimonials are also presented. 
Video Content: Engaging video content, like an expert interview with a master gardener, highlights the "Expertise" element of E-E-A-T.
Audible Branding: A unique podcast episode relevant to the garden center's offerings is included for auditory branding, with alternatives like company jingles for those applicable.
Supporting the Community: The garden center's involvement in the community is highlighted, like donations to a local children's garden, reinforcing its commitment to local well-being.
Trust Assurance: Policies and guarantees are detailed to boost the "Trustworthiness" factor of E-E-A-T, ensuring customer concerns are addressed proactively.
Location-specific Specials: Special offers tailored for each location of a multi-location business are featured, like a special gift for meeting certain purchase conditions.
Expert Local Insights: Expert advice on local gardening peculiarities and plant recommendations demonstrates in-depth local knowledge and expertise.
Personalized Guidance: Promotions for local events, workshops, or one-on-one guidance sessions are advertised, with a calendar widget suggested for regular occurrences.
Actionable CTAs: Multiple calls to action are strategically placed to encourage shopping, contacting, and further engagement, culminating in a final CTA to explore the online inventory, guiding customers toward meaningful interactions that support business goals.

Lightning Round Location/City Landing Pages Q&A

Flashback to a quirky 1970s eatery my folks enjoyed, where a contraption brought excitement to the dining experience by launching salads onto diners' plates — an amusing family tale I relate to now as we swiftly tackle common inquiries about local business content on landing pages. Prepare your queries!
Q: What objectives should location/city landing pages aim for?
A: Consider location/city landing pages as a dedicated service to potential customers. They serve a twofold purpose: achieving prominent search engine placement for specific business locations and captivating visitors to encourage patronage of the featured site.
Business leaders sometimes concentrate solely on search engine optimization, neglecting content appeal for human visitors. This can lead to a proliferation of stale, repetitive pages that don't resonate with people. In light of Google's Helpful Content Update, it's crucial to remember that these pages should entice real individuals to engage with your business. Reflect on our detailed options and select those that will most benefit your community.
Q: What quantity and type of content are necessary for these pages?
A: Not all 20 content types previously outlined may be necessary for each landing page, and you might have additional content types that better suit your business and community needs.
Certain details are critical, such as business name, contact information, and operating hours. Beyond that, assess what resonates in your sector — might videos be impactful, could photos boost your business, do you need to amass reviews to compete in Google's local searches, or do promotional offers influence your customers' purchasing decisions? Your strategy will be tailored to your business and clientele. Be open to experimentation; for instance, the plumbing field might not obviously benefit from video marketing, yet there are cases of plumbers achieving remarkable success on YouTube. Investigate how "shelfies" can attract customers and consider how promoting your eco-friendly practices can differentiate your business locally. You have a wealth of information to share about why customers should choose you!
Q: How should I fine-tune my location/city landing pages for optimum performance?
A: Historically, web pages that were heavily optimized with keywords for location and city specifics have been problematic. It's important to strike a balance that appeals to human users by naturally incorporating crucial location-based and product/service keywords into various elements such as:
  • Page URLs
  • Title tags
  • Headers
  • Sub-navigation
  • Internal links
  • Main content
Avoid keyword stuffing. Focus on serving the customer, using language they can relate to, and addressing their most pressing questions.
Q: Do I need to be concerned about repeating content across multiple landing pages?
A: Disregard any talk of a "duplicate content penalty," as this is a myth debunked by Google. It's normal for certain content elements to be consistent across multiple landing pages, like customer service promises or brand-wide announcements. Such repetition is not problematic.
Concentrate on crafting useful pages in line with Google's Helpful Content Update. Many elements will naturally differ by location, such as contact details, local reviews, and media content. You can also create unique offers for each location and provide town-specific advice. The key is to avoid a haphazard approach that could dilute your website's quality.
If resources are scarce, consider using a map-based location finder widget initially until you can invest in distinctive pages that enhance your website's value.
Q: What navigation strategy is best for my landing pages?
A: For a few locations, a dropdown menu labeled "Locations" might suffice. For businesses with more locations, a text or map-based store locator can help customers find the right landing page. For service area businesses, a detailed map can clarify which branch serves their location. To ensure all landing pages are indexed, list them on an HTML sitemap.
Q: Is setting up location/city landing pages a one-time deal?
A: Generally, no. Regular audits are necessary to keep information like operating hours up-to-date. You should also update these pages whenever there are changes to core contact information. To maintain engagement and signal to Google that your content is fresh and reliable, consider updating:
  • Customer reviews
  • Seasonal images
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Special offers
  • Events
  • Internal links as new site content is developed
Maintaining updated and vibrant pages not only aligns with Google's preference for freshness but also demonstrates to customers that your business is active and dependable.
Q: Is it beneficial to connect my local business listings to my location landing pages?
A: The decision ultimately rests with you. Your Google Business Profiles and other local listings can either point directly to your main homepage or link individually to their corresponding location-based landing pages. Ponder the following advantages and disadvantages to making an informed choice for your enterprise:
Q: Should I harness AI to craft my location landing pages?
A: Here lies another nuanced decision, contingent upon your company's ethos, structure, and aspirations. It's indisputable that businesses are dabbling with technologies akin to ChatGPT for swift generation of content for their websites, with larger corporations potentially utilizing such tools to efficiently produce landing pages in bulk.

Yet, I'd counsel prudence if your venture is of the small-to-medium scale as opposed to a vast conglomerate. SMBs often possess an overlooked edge in delivering services that prioritize personal touches over sheer speed. There's a familiar preference for personal interaction, such as the warm greeting of a human voice on the phone rather than the cold, automated alternatives. This sentiment carries over to the realm of local shopping, where customers seek out the unique, attentive service of smaller establishments instead of feeling like just another number in the system, a scenario not uncommon with larger businesses.

From my experience, it appears that Google's algorithms tend to show a preference for prominent local chains in search results, often independent of the caliber of their listings or the substance of their location landing pages. This dynamic shifts for local SMBs, who usually must exert more effort to cultivate brand recognition and credibility. Herein lies your chance to apply diligence to produce premier, locale-specific content for your distinct customer base. Relying solely on automated solutions may deliver rapid results, but could also bypass the crucial personal connections that are key to the triumph of small local enterprises. If you're steering a major brand with various outlets and opt for AI-generated content for your landing pages, it's imperative to rigorously verify and refine the material to ensure it accurately represents your business. Deliberate over your strategy meticulously, considering all potential benefits and drawbacks.

To delve deeper into the world of location landing pages, and if this article has sparked your interest, proceed to The Local Business Content Marketing Guide, where you'll find four comprehensive chapters brimming with advice on the myriad forms of content that can elevate local brands. It's complimentary and might be the very resource you need to navigate content marketing decisions wisely as the new year unfolds!

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