When you’re running a business in Toronto, you need to know the city well. Thankfully, it’s easy to get around because of the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission); it’s one of North America’s most extensive public transit systems. Toronto is the biggest city in Canada, and also one of the most diverse. Even though most of us know this city as a sprawling metropolis and booming place for business, it still maintains its historic character. Take Casa Loma for example, a castle that was built in 1914 that remains a top tourist attraction to this day. With a population of over 6 million, your business needs to stand out to rise above the competition. Building out your website with content is one way to do that. The Internet revolves around content, whether from blog posts, videos, or Facebook memes. In this article, we’ll tell you why you need to write more, and how you can generate effective, captivating content.
Why does your Toronto business need to generate content?
Do you want Torontonians to find your business? Of course you do—that’s why you’re reading this. Before you start generating content, it’s helpful to understand why you need it. First, it gives your customers the information they’re looking for. When they come across informative blog posts or contact information pages, it supplies them with the answers they’re searching for. More data makes it that much easier for them to decide whether they want to buy your products and/or services. In summary, content will engage consumers, increase brand awareness, and persuade them to make a purchase.
What forms of content do you need?
These days, content comes in all shapes and forms: videos, tweets, and captions are just a few examples. But to boost your website’s rankings, you’ll want to focus on two specific forms: blogging and website pages.
- Blogs: All of us have stumbled across a blog once or twice during our Internet browsing experiences. They answer our questions, provide information, and entertain us. They also give Google plenty of text to crawl to rank your website. If you post blogs regularly, it signals to the algorithm that your website is consistently updated with new, relevant information. Blogging is an integral part of SEO (search engine optimization). It’s one of the most important forms of content generation. You don’t need to be an expert to write a blog post; a little outside research is always helpful. If you’re scratching your head and wondering what to write about, don’t sweat it! We’ll get into that later.
- Location pages: Tell your customers (and search engines) more about your business by building location pages to all the areas where you offer services. Beyond location pages, you can write content for the About Us and Brand Values sections.
- Content for other websites: That’s right—you’ll need to generate content for other people if you want to improve your website’s rankings. This is the process known as building links; it increases the authority of your website. How? The more websites that link back to yours, the more reputable and trustworthy it looks in the eyes of Google. Each link acts like a vote to affirm that yes, this content is informative/interesting/accurate. Offer to write guest posts for reputable websites, and include a backlink to your site within them.
The takeaway here is that the more high-quality content you generate, the better. How you choose to do it is up to you, but we’d recommend a blend of all three. When you focus on writing blog posts, website pages, and guest posts, your customers will be more informed, and your rankings will benefit.
Which keywords should you include?
It might be tempting to fill your blog posts with the highest-searched terms in your industry, but you should rethink that technique. That’s what’s called keyword stuffing, and it’s a practice that search engines have become highly aware of and penalize websites for doing. Instead of loading your content with keywords, pick a topic in which they’ll come up naturally. It’s more readable for customers and less suspicious to search engines.
How do you generate content?
If you’ve ever tried to write long-form content before, then you’re probably familiar with the dreaded blank page. It’s what greets you when you launch your word processing software—you find yourself staring at the empty document and wondering where to begin.
When you’re getting started, it helps to generate relevant topics that are specific to the Toronto area. We’ve listed a few examples here:
- If you have a food business or offer delivery/catering services, you can write about how Toronto has over 8000 restaurants. Make a list of the best places to eat in this foodie-centric city.
- Toronto experiences both extreme ranges of temperatures; it’s cold in the winter, and hot in the summer. Any HVAC business can write about ways to maintain your furnace when it’s freezing outside, or improve the efficiency of your air conditioner.
- Do you run an optometry or eyewear business in Toronto? Talk about some of the best sights to see in the city! There’s Niagara Falls, of course, and the CN Tower. With eye care services, people will have an easier time enjoying these destinations.
Understanding the benefits of content generation is one thing, but it’s another to sit down and write it. Creating content is a crucial part of a successful SEO strategy. Looking for a Canadian business to help fill your website with pages of well-crafted content? At First Rank, we have a dedicated team of writers. Our SEO experts can put together a dynamic strategy to help your Toronto-based business rank highly, by implementing link-building, technical optimization, and content generation.
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