If the community you serve has a local forum, now is the time to become a regular participant there. An apparent outcome 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 friends at Near Media describe it:
“The boost Google is giving to forums and social content is intended to deliver more information from real people, with personal expertise, insights or first-hand knowledge. This is also a way for Google to preemptively address the coming AI content crisis and other lower quality content (e.g., spam, lead-gen) that doesn’t really serve users.”
Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal, and David Mihm point to old, established platforms like the Berkeley Parents Network, and I’ve often referenced community hubs like the West Seattle Blog’s forum. Research whether your town or city has such a forum and become active there.
Note that this does not mean continuously pitching your business there, which will only annoy your neighbors and potential customers!
Instead, participate in discussions and try to be helpful to others as you develop a reputation for trustworthiness and community spirit. Then, when someone appears on the platform asking where to get their wedding dress altered, their fence rebuilt, or the tree trimmed, you’ll be able to respond from a place of sharing rather than hard-selling, and if you are well-liked enough, you may find neighbors recommending you.
If your community has no stand-alone forum, you may be able to find a subreddit on Reddit for your region.
The goal of this activity for your local business is twofold: firstly, to become more connected with your community so that it becomes local wisdom that you offer a particular service when neighbors need it and, secondly, that you may find some of your threads surfaced by Google in the local results as they strive to provide content based on real experiences rather than AI fantasies.
But, you’ll still want a website to direct interested parties to, so we move on to tip 3.
If you liked How to Create a Decent One-Page Local Business Site in the Face of the Google Website Shutdown by Then you'll love Miami SEO Expert
Check how much traffic comes from commercial and transactional keywords, then look for gaps your…
1. Consider specifying locations or personasSo one of the big ones that you could play…
1. SemanticSo number 1, semantic. This is obviously one we're very familiar with from conventional…
Avoid prompts that create false positivesSeparate prompts into three types: branded, comparison, and non-branded.Branded prompts…
So even brands that have made their name synonymous with a product will not be…
The model breaks visibility into four quadrants:Open areas known to your brand and customersHidden areas…