If the neighborhood you serve has a neighborhood discussion board, now’s the time to develop into a daily participant there. An obvious consequence of the “hidden gems” component of Google’s Helpful Content update is an uptick in forum-based results in the SERPs, including the local SERPs.
As my associates at Near Media describe it:
“The increase Google is giving to boards and social content material is meant to ship extra data from actual folks, with personal expertise, insights or first-hand data. That is additionally a manner for Google to preemptively handle the approaching AI content material disaster and different decrease high quality content material (e.g., spam, lead-gen) that does not actually serve customers.”
Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal, and David Mihm level to previous, established platforms just like the Berkeley Parents Network, and I’ve usually referenced neighborhood hubs just like the West Seattle Blog’s forum. Analysis whether or not your city or metropolis has such a discussion board and develop into energetic there.
Observe that this doesn’t imply repeatedly pitching your online business there, which is able to solely annoy your neighbors and potential clients!
As an alternative, take part in discussions and attempt to be useful to others as you develop a fame for trustworthiness and neighborhood spirit. Then, when somebody seems on the platform asking the place to get their wedding ceremony costume altered, their fence rebuilt, or the tree trimmed, you’ll be capable of reply from a spot of sharing somewhat than hard-selling, and if you’re well-liked sufficient, chances are you’ll discover neighbors recommending you.
In case your neighborhood has no stand-alone discussion board, you might be able to discover a subreddit on Reddit to your area.
The purpose of this exercise to your native enterprise is twofold: firstly, to develop into extra linked along with your neighborhood in order that it turns into native knowledge that you simply provide a specific service when neighbors want it and, secondly, that you could be discover a few of your threads surfaced by Google within the native outcomes as they try to supply content material based mostly on actual experiences somewhat than AI fantasies.
However, you’ll nonetheless desire a web site to direct events to, so we transfer on to tip 3.
