Have you ever struggled to generate content helpful to your local SEO efforts? We know what it is like. We can create only so much content around a phrase like ‘local SEO services near me’. But as a Utah SEO and digital marketing firm, we also have a few content generation tricks up our sleeve. One of them is user generated content.
Every piece of online information you use to reach your audience is considered content. Examples include blog posts, guest posts, videos, infographics, and marketing emails. It is all information that you want your audience to consume. It’s all content.
Knowing that, it makes sense that user generated content is created by the people who utilize your website, your social media channels, and your video channel. And guess what? What they have to say about your business is crucial to local SEO success.
When People Search for Things
People searching for things online go at it from one of two angles: they either know what they want and just don’t know where to find it or they don’t know what they want and are trying to figure it out. Now, let us apply this to local SEO.
Local searches are almost always for products or services people can find close by. One person might search for a restaurant in anticipation of an evening dinner engagement. Another might be looking for a plumber to fix leaky pipes. Both consumers are looking for local vendors. They are looking for businesses that serve a local audience.
As a consumer, do you care what your friends and family think about local businesses? Of course you do. Maybe you are looking to hire a new lawncare company. You’re going to ask friends and family members their opinions. The same goes for hiring a lawyer, finding a new doctor, and so forth. We know that future Webtek customers talk to business associates in addition to searching for ‘local SEO services near me’ online.
Word-of-Mouth Is Fantastic
In a practical sense, everything we have discussed thus far goes back to the principle of word-of-mouth advertising. Word-of-mouth is fantastic. It always has been. People trust the thoughts and opinions of their friends more than brands themselves. That is what makes user generated content so valuable.
Companies considering paying for local SEO services will be more impressed by authentic testimonials on our website than anything we could possibly mention in the ‘About Us’ section of our site. Potential customers want to know how our current and past customers feel about our service. The same goes for your business.
Soliciting User Generated Content
User generated content has tremendous SEO value. We already know that. The tricky part is soliciting such content without turning customers off. But the dirty little secret is that user generated content doesn’t have to be professional or lengthy. Even encouraging people to leave comments on your social media pages constitutes soliciting user generated content.
You can solicit content by conducting surveys. You can reward customers for leaving online reviews. You can ask them to tell stories of their own experiences with your company on social. The possibilities are endless. Just use your imagination.
Here at Webtek, we don’t rely exclusively on future customers searching for ‘local SEO services near me’. We are continually engaging in every strategy we know to reach our targeted audience. That includes finding ways to encourage current customers to generate their own content. User generated content is like gold for local SEO. If your company isn’t taking advantage of it, there is no better time than now to start.
