Content is the core of any online marketing strategy. The term content is incredibly broad – almost anything you put on your website, from your “About Us” page to your blog, can be considered content.
There are a number of things we’re trying to accomplish with good content, but we’re going to specifically focus on two of them in this article – boosting your SEO, and creating the best possible user experience for your clients.
You might wonder what makes content generation in Vancouver different from content generation in any other place. The fascinating thing about content creation is that, to be at its best, it should be both industry-specific and localized. In other words, being in Vancouver has everything to do with content creation – we’re going to take advantage of trends in the Metro area and in B.C. in order to craft the best content for search engines and your clients.
We’re going to do a deep dive into two of the most important types of content you can generate to boost your Vancouver SEO – blogs and location pages:
Blogging
Your blog is going to be your primary content generation vehicle.
There are a few reasons that blogs will serve you well. First, they allow you to update your website on a regular basis in an organic way. That tells search engines that your website is being actively updated, which can give you an SEO boost.
Second, a blog that’s updated regularly (we recommend updating at least weekly for most businesses) can rapidly respond to local or industry-related changes. When circumstances change, the things people search for will change, and a blog allows you to craft relevant content to respond to those search queries.
Great keyword research is essential for blogging, and you should be doing keyword research regularly. One key element of keyword research is local knowledge – in other words, you need to know what Vancouverites are searching for at any given time of the year.
Let’s expand on this notion with examples:
- A restaurant might do well to blog about Eat! Vancouver within a couple of weeks of the festival’s start date.
- A garden centre could create a blog about growing your own cherry tree when the Cherry Blossom Festival comes around.
- A record shop could highlight local artists performing at the Jazz Festival
You’ll note that in all of these examples, local happenings are tied in with industry news. When possible, your blogs should always follow this format. When there aren’t any events in Vancouver that coincide with your industry, you can still use your blog to link Vancouver to your industry. There aren’t a lot of festivals for electricians to blog about, but an article about “Why Solar Panels are Perfect for Vancouver” is a great idea.
Location Pages
Vancouver is a big place, and Metro Vancouver is even bigger. Your local SEO could benefit immensely from targeting specific neighbourhoods and areas, so that searches for things “near me” will find you.
Location pages are a boon for these efforts. What you’ll do is fairly simple: build a page for each location you want to target. These locations can be quite large (Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, etc.), or relatively small (Dunbar, Oakridge, Mount Pleasant).
Exactly which locations you’ll target with these pages depends a lot on the size of your business, what your competition is doing, and more. While you can do keyword and competitor research yourself, it can be useful to get our Vancouver SEO services to do the hard work for you.
Whether you decide to get help finding which locations to target or take the DIY approach, location pages should speak to the people in the locations you’re targeting. Targeting North Vancouver? Mention the Shipyards Night Market. Targeting Fairview? Mention Granville Island.
You can use location pages regardless of whether or not you have a physical location in those areas, but they’re best used if you at least provide services (or deliver products) to those regions.
Other Content
While we focused on what we think are the two most important types of content for local SEO in Vancouver, your website should be chock-full of high-quality content. Make sure you have a compelling “About Us” page, an easy to use “Contact Us” page, and a number of product pages with enticing copy.
We can help guide you to create all kinds of content; check out our Guide to Local Business SEO in 2020 for a lot more information!
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