The #1 Reason Local Blogging Fails And How You Can Increase Website Conversions Alternatively

Hey there fans and followers, I wanted to shed some light on this topic of “local blogging” and why 97% of local businesses fail to increase conversions from it and I want to share my action plan for helping you improve immediately.

Have you ever found yourself on someone’s blog and you’re reading it and you think, “Wow this is amazing content? These guys must be the experts.”

Then you start snooping around their website and clicking on pages and after a few minutes your excitement wears off and you start to notice that while the blog you were just on gave you the feeling of authenticity and trust, you now want to take it all back because the pages outside of the blog are poorly optimized, poorly designed or have poor half relevant content.

In other words, all your pages suck.

The content is hard to read or it’s hard to grasp what the page is about.

There aren’t any H1 or H2 tags, there’s no flow, there’s no call to actions and no relevant keyword-focused content.

This happens to me all the time. I find myself browsing the web and taking an interest in a local business blog and right when I start believing that they are the experts and that I should trust them, I go and find that the rest of their website is poor in design, content, relevancy, authority, trust and authenticity.

That is why local blogging fails. 97% of local businesses are believing that the key to increasing traffic, exposure, and leads/conversions are to blog and publish industry-relevant content and then use social media to spread the word.

However what you don’t realize is that you’re writing great content on your blog that makes you look official but you fail to offer authenticity, relevancy, and trust on the rest of your pages. What’s that all about?

The fact is this, most local businesses just do what everyone else is doing without thinking about the bigger picture. Any time you publish content on your blog and then go and promote it on social media, you’re inviting the world to your website and even though you might be a great blog writer, if the rest of your site sucks, you’re dead in the water.

A poorly optimized website, with poor relevancy and content that doesn’t presell your products and services, talks all about you and “we this and we that” and doesn’t guide the user to taking action, is the death of local businesses who try and blog because A) you’ve been told to by your marketing company, B) you read that you should do it and so you’re “giving it a whirl” or C) you’re just trying to do what everyone else is “doing” to get more customers. Stop it now!

The problem is local blogging fails to increase conversions most of the time because you don’t know SEO and how to make the spirit of your blog writing shine through on the rest of your pages. 

You can’t expect to increase conversions to your website if the rest of your pages suck. No offense but you really needs to follow the action plan below if you are serious about growing your business and branding your company as being authentic, relevant and trustworthy in any market. We call it A.R.T.

Here’s what I personally recommend…

Prerequisite: Put blogging on hold. Don’t publish another post until you’ve finished completing all the steps of this action plan, otherwise, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot by publishing great content on a blog while operating under a crappy website with poor SEO and poor content marketing.

1) Get a current up-to-date website audit and speak to a professional SEO about ways you can improve your exposure and attract more paying visitors.

2) Research the option of investing in search engine optimization. This is where a professional SEO firm provides you with access to a keyword tool and let’s you choose the terms and phrases that are most relevant to your products and to your target market then they go into the back end of your site and tweak codes and plugins. Then they make sure your content is customer-centric, keyword-focused and action-driven.

*A good SEO will make your site match the appeal of your blog because consistency on the web is key in branding! (write this down)

3) Once your website is fully optimized and all pages have been cleaned up to match the authenticity, relevancy, and trustworthiness of your blog, you then want to hire a firm to help you with link building and rapid indexing to help you get those coveted page-one placements.

4) After you achieve page one placements, give it 30-60 days and then compare the traffic you receive within 2 months after being on page one with the traffic you’ve received in the last month of blogging. I think you’ll find that blogging is really just an overused content Spam approach to driving traffic and “trying so hard” to increase conversions. When all you really have to do is show up page one for the best keywords and phrases in your niche and you will drive 92% of the market to your website and make more money than you’ve ever dreamed about.

5) (completely optional) If you’re a die-hard blogger and you just “need to publish”, I understand. Take a deep breath. I feel the same way about needing to optimize websites. Like I personally crave it because I’m so great at it and it’s like nothing else in the world when you can take someone from failing at local blogging to ranking page one for 20-50+ local keywords and then watch them squirm and try and handle the influx of new business, traffic, and exposure.

This step is optional like I said. If you need to blog again go ahead and write and publish to heart’s desire. Don’t let me stop you if it’s internally fulfilling.

I promise you that it will make you feel saner to do what’s real within you but the traffic you receive from blogging is ‘buffered’ compared to targeted visits from people who find you naturally on page one.

Buffered traffic is when the sales flow goes like this:

Visitor performs a search on the web > finds your blog by chance, isn’t truly sold on you nor do they know what to expect > reads content > possibly clicks to your landing page > landing page presells or it doesn’t > and you get a conversion maybe or you don’t. (most likely)

Raw or organic traffic is the bread and butter of successful companies who rank page one because the sales flow is like this:

Targeted visitor does a targeted search on Google > your website comes up page one in spot #1-10 and the person scrolls down a bit past the Adwords and the map listings and then reads organic titles and meta descriptions > clicks through to the site that is most relevant to their search > reads some content which presells reader and commands action > reader-with-a-strong-interest-in-buying-what-you-sell clicks a button, fills out a form, makes a phone call etc.

Blogs are an open door for broad traffic to come in and eat all your food, destroy your house and mess with your bounce rate on Google analytics as well as give you poor conversions and poor performance results from months and months of content marketing and saturation.

(I spoke to a lady yesterday who told me she pays $9,000 a month for blogging and social media. What??? Are you serious?? Sign me up for a career doing that. Let me tell you, great blogging is Copyblogger.com and their writers. They don’t even charge that much and they’re the best. Don’t fall victim to traps.)

After blogging for years and years you will become a pro at it and people will think you’re a great writer that instills trust but if the rest of your site sucks and isn’t optimized or compliant with Google guidelines, you’re basically headed for failure and as a local business you can’t afford to throw money away at something that 97% of local business owners currently DO and FAIL at.

Take charge of your company and your brand and follow the action plan above and I promise you, you will get the results you’re after much faster than “local blogging” does to try and drum up business.

If you’re confused about “what is local blogging”, it’s easiest said like this, “You’re walking along online and you find a local plumber and his blog post lures you in talking about the top 10 things to know about home plumbing, you read the post and think to yourself that these guys know their stuff and I think I want to call them. Let me see their about page. You click the About page and to your discomfort you aren’t guided like you were on the blog, you feel like the page content isn’t relevant to the tab name, you find it hard to read or understand the content and how it relates to what you’re after. You then feel confused and you leave the site without taking action.” 

This is what we call #local #blogging #fail. Don’t fall victim to the trap. 

Sky High Media, LLC now voted Colorado’s Best SEO agency is now accepting new clients in the following categories: Attorneys, Doctors, Dentists, Specialty and Trade Contractors and Entrepreneurs with a home business or a service.

If you’re already making sales in your business and you have an idea of your marketing budget and what you’d like to invest to see results and you’re looking for expansion and growth into new markets you’re big advantage is allowing us to optimize your websites and pages and help you get to page one where 92% of your target market is going every month to research and compare before making the final decision to buy.