Less = More With Five Tips For Priming Content For Small Business

Design your content around the shopper journey and buyer persona, some of the research insights from Google and research based on a study by HubShout, among 450 respondents between the ages of 21 and 55 are:

88 percent of mobile users want to see prominently displayed business hours and 85 percent want to see the prominently displayed phone number. For smartphone users most important information required is business hours where as for desktop searchers the product availability at a store is most important information requirement.
As high as 96 percent uses smartphones for shopping.
24 percent of Respondents claimed looking for Local Business on daily basis.
94 percent of respondents – have used their phones to search for local businesses at some point or another. Of those who use their phones to find local businesses, most nearly 85 percent do so daily, frequently, or occasionally; more than half 61 percent perform these searches either daily or frequently.
Google Maps topped the list, with 57 percent of respondents having used it at one point or another, whereas Apple Maps came in at just 11 percent. Google Search App, was used by 32 percent of respondents. A full 24 percent of mobile users have also searched on the Yelp app.

An algorithm update focusing at on-the-go consumer is responsible for a significant overhaul in the way your local business appears in search results. According to 3qdigital, with the release of the local three-pack, a new quality algorithm for content, and more than a dozen other updates that ultimately support mobile consumers’ ability to:

find what they want as soon as possible.

engage with the most meaningful, relevant content.

progress through their individual search as easily and  fluidly as possible.

Plan Your Content Around the Customer

Plan your Content for discovery. To get a better view of your customers, dive into your analytics to understand the key source of traffic for your business. Google’s advanced analytics can segment your site visitors for Mobile, Referral traffic and Purchases to help you with retargeting audiences on different channels with timely and relevant content.

Content For Local SEO

82 percent of U.S. consumers have said that they used a local business within the last year. Developing a Local SEO strategy requires businesses to understand what consumers are looking for from local business.. With the increased sophistication of Google’s local indexes local search has become more specific. Rather than identifying businesses in terms of a city or a state region, rankings could soon be generated based on your street corner or neighborhood. Another important factor impacting results for local SEO according to a test conducted by MOZ is the inclusion of customer reviews that significantly impacts search results.

For local business to be found on Google, Social posts will carry a value and a consideration similar to any independent web page, and the separation of “web” and “social media” will begin to blur even further from an SEO perspective. Going Forward, According to an update from Frederick Vallaeys, AdWords will “integrate tools for retailers in Google My Business,” and that “Google Shopping Express will make it easier for small shops to start offering their inventory for sale on Google’s same-day delivery shopping service.”

Optimize Content For Digital Assistants

According to AudienceBloom, Digital assistants search for the specific information and the content that gets discovered on Digital assistants depends on the type of content preferred by the audience. Some of the suggestions that can help you optimize content for Digital assistants are:

Keep conversational language in your posts. Conversational queries naturally seek out conversational results. Including long-tail keywords, colloquial phrases, and long form questions in your content will help you appear for more voice-based queries.
Reduce your efforts on basic information. Venture into more complex, niche territory for Content.
Include more photos and videos. For now, digital assistants look for images, videos, and other visuals for content that is on your site. Including more images and Video can optimize content for digital assistants
Expand your reach on other platforms. Users don’t rely on digital assistants for everything. Stay active on as many social media platforms and third-party directories as possible—this won’t help you rank in a digital assistant interface, but will give you greater visibility elsewhere.

Omni-Channel and Local Business

Omni-Channel buyer behavior is as relevant for local businesses and stores as it is for Mass Merchant and Department Stores. Provide all possible options for purchases and business hours, such as pick-up in store hours for your mobile audiences. Creating content to maximize returns from your audience could mean targeting audiences on the go with new order options. Businesses looking at developing omni-channel capabilities can gain insights from Google analytics about Mobile searchers and their buyer journey by comparing the same with those who made a purchase. Mobile audiences that are looking at Omni-channel options can be targeted with relevant product offers.

Content Marketing For Transactions

With Deep integration of apps, and Digital assistants, businesses that are looking at audience engagement need to be in users content eco-system by offering content that customers prefer for closing out transactions. Target audiences for task completion with reward points offers or offers that are likely to appeal audiences. Businesses can look at signing Exclusive content deals to offer content based on buyer behavior as Digital Assistants work on Predictive modelling and recommend suggestions that audiences are most likely to use based on the past purchase behavior. According to Search Engine Land, Microsoft announced deeper app integration into Cortana for task completion. Actions and tasks can thus be accomplished without launching the app in question. Google is doing something similar by integrating action buttons and transactional capabilities into search and Google Now.