One of the best ways to build an audience is to create great local blog content. Your first readers are usually your friends and family. But you can easily expand your audience and get loal PR representatives to recognize your blog. Here’s how to find the content, make the connections you need and get your readers involved.
How to Get Great Local Blog Content
Maintain a local event calendar in your niche. Don’t worry about getting overwhelmed with maintaining a huge calendar of events. Target your local event calendar to focus on food events, family-friendly events in your county or professional events for your niche. Updating the calendar is an ideal job for a contributor, intern or virtual assistant.
Optimize your blog for local SEO. Although many brands use blogging networks to find local bloggers, there are still plenty who simply Google “California Blogger.” Make sure those terms on are your about page and tags for your blog posts.
Add your city and state to your social media profiles. Use local and regional hashtags in your social shares, especially Twitter.
Related topic: How Bloggers Can Connect with Brands on Twitter Without Looking Desperate
Meet and connect with local PR representatives. Follow-up on some of the local PR pitches you receive. Schedule a conference call, coffee meeting or lunch with a PR contact. Share your blogging goals for creating local content.
Create “Top 10” lists for your city. Explore the best restaurants, parks, attractions and service providers. Ask for input from your audience or allow them to vote. Create a pinnable image for each post and promote them on Pinterest. Show your local content Pinterest boards to PR representatives.
Speaking of lists…create a best of list of local bloggers. Feature your colleagues who are the best in food, fashion, crafts, etc. They’ll appreciate and share the feature on your blog!
Related topic: How to Be a Supportive Member of a Blogging Tribe
Host a local blogging event. Invite bloggers to at a store, restaurant or park. Many of our Niche Parent campaigns are targeted by city, so be sure to apply for campaigns with a local compomentt. We’ve worked with influencers to cover the Essence Festival in New Orleans, as well as local blogging events to kick off the 2014 Niche Parent Conference with a Piece of Cake in Atlanta.
Comment below: How do you #RockYourNiche locally? How often do you create local content for your blog? Are you connected with other local bloggers?
