Content Marketing for Local SEO

Content Marketing for Local SEO: What to Write?

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When it comes to developing content marketing for local SEO, your approach should be the same as any content marketing initiative. (For the purpose of this post, let’s pretend we’re promoting an awesome senior living community in Austin, Texas.)

Why the heck do I need a content strategy? Why can’t I take a keyword phrase and write a blog post or something?

There’s no law stopping you from taking a keyword phrase like “is Austin a good place to retire” and writing a blog post that answers the question. 

After all, the phrase “is Austin a good place to retire” has a monthly search volume (MSV) of 90 and low keyword difficulty (KD). This means the blog post—if written well—stands a good chance of ranking high in search engine results. Plus, it’s got that whole “content marketing for local SEO” angle covered since it’s talking about Austin, right?

Sure, the blog post could rank well over time. Yes, it talks about retiring in Austin. And someone searching on a phrase like that is demonstrating an interest in making a move to Austin.

But so what? 

If someone lands on that one blog post, what are they supposed to do next? How does that blog post fit in with all your other content, like the guide on financing senior living or the video about your community’s new yoga studio? And how does that one keyword phrase work in the big picture with all the other viable local search terms your keyword research uncovered?

You’re probably starting to see it now . . . why you need an overall content strategy.

OK, so now I need a local SEO content strategy and a regular SEO content strategy?

Nope. You need one overarching content strategy. Your strategy will address content marketing for local SEO and content marketing for other relevant topics (e.g. financing senior living).

This is starting to sound complicated. Where should I begin?

Content marketing can feel daunting when you’re considering the big picture and all the different types of content you can create, from videos to podcasts, blog posts to guides, social media posts to digital ads—and that’s just the beginning.

But remember that your content strategy needs to support your overall sales and marketing goals. Those goals typically center around the number of marketing-qualified leads, sales-qualified leads, and move-ins your team needs to bring in each year (or each quarter or month, or however you measure these goals).

As we all know, compelling content drives everything in today’s marketing landscape. It will:

  • Attract people to your online channels (website, Google My Business listing, social media platforms)
  • Turn qualified traffic into marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)
  • Nurture MQLs into sales-qualified leads (SQLs)

Maybe you’re starting to see it now: Your overall content marketing strategy needs to account for those three tasks: attracting the right people, converting them into leads, and nurturing the leads to close. (Or if you like the sales funnel visual, you can picture it that way: top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel.)

Ideally, you should have a master content marketing calendar that highlights all the initiatives supporting these goals. The calendar doesn’t’ need to be fancy. You can use Google spreadsheets or project management software like Monday.com or Asana.

Month by month, you’d include all the various content marketing initiatives and label or color-code them according to whichever part of the funnel they’re for. (And yes, there will be overlap, which is OK—nothing is ever truly linear.)

How does content marketing for local SEO fit in?

You should produce content around local search terms every month along with content that’s focused on other relevant keyword phrases. We’ve been making this point a lot in our own content lately, so we’ll say it again here. Remember this nugget: All search is local search. (Read more about what we mean in our best tips for local SEO.)

Again, producing content geared toward local SEO will happen at the same time you’re producing other content (like evergreen content or content about related terms). In other words, you should always have a good mix of content marketing for local SEO in your month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter marketing strategy.

OK, but what should we write about in terms of local SEO?

Let’s use another keyword phrase we pulled from SEMrush (our keyword tool) that would work for our fictional senior living community in Austin: Retiring in Austin TX (170 MSV, 24 KD). MSV stands for monthly search volume. And KD stands for keyword difficulty.

Retiring in Austin, TX – here are three quick-hitting content ideas:

  • 10 Things to Know Before Retiring in Austin, TX
  • Why Retiring in Austin, TX is a smart idea
  • Thinking of Retiring in Austin, TX? Read this first

When developing content marketing for local SEO, aim to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck. Always try to repurpose one topic across different channels. 

For example, you could write a blog post called “10 Things to Know Before Retiring in Austin, TX.” 

From there, you could . . .

  • Create a video for your YouTube channel on that topic.
  • Share one point each day for 10 days across your social media channels.
  • Host a podcast on this topic.
  • Create digital ad campaigns around the keyword phrase and send people to a dedicated landing page where people can download the “10 things to know” in a nicely designed marketing piece. (Then, you could nurture them over the long haul.)

See how much mileage one keyword phrase has when you take a step back and develop a strategy for it? (Need more ideas? We wrote an in-depth article about how to incorporate local search terms into blog posts. Again, each blog post could be repurposed across other marketing channels.)

Wow! I think I’m starting to understand content marketing for local SEO. But I could still use some guidance.

That’s why we’re here! It makes sense to work with a senior living marketing agency like ours in developing your overall content strategy. From there, you and your team can run with it. Or we can help you with content writing, too. Let’s chat about your community’s specific content marketing needs.