The Local Marketing Stack

Blogs & Columns

Zone 4 • Difficulty: • Free Options Available

Few techniques establish you as a thought leader with prospects and customers to the extent that a consistent, authentic blog can. Demonstrating your involvement in and knowledge of your industry and community helps establish trust with your customers and also helps you attract more of them through organic search and social media.

Answer questions your customers and prospects ask
Many small businesses don’t have the time to blog regularly, though, and even if they do it can be hard to come up with topics to write about. The best place to start is to answer common questions that your existing customers ask, and then move on to questions from the broader public using freely available online tools like Google Trends and Answer the Public.

Doesn’t have to be on your own website
If you’re unsure as to whether you can sustain a consistent blogging regimen, you might think about establishing a monthly or quarterly guest column with a local newspaper or neighborhood blog. Guest columns can help you get in front of a wider audience and may help your SEO as much or more than a post on your own blog, if the placement of the column is sufficiently authoritative.