
Being found: the four building blocks
A fast website, a complete directory entry, honest reviews and content people actually read. Four building blocks, in order of importance.
In this episode
- A website that loads in under two seconds on a phone
- Identical name, address, phone and hours in every directory
- Few but honest reviews, all of them answered
- Local, specific content in your own words
Chapters
Transcript
Presented by The Podiana editorial team.
Welcome back to Podiana. Today: how a local business gets found online. Not in theory, but in the four building blocks that actually move the needle. In order.
Building block one: a website that loads in under two seconds on a phone. Most local sites don't. They carry slide shows, plugins and fonts from all over the world. Strip that out. One clear page with what you do, where you are, when you're open and how to reach you beats a slow ten-page site every time.
Building block two: your directory entries. Name, address, phone number and opening hours have to be identical everywhere. On your site, in the member.show directory, on the map services, in the magazines that mention you. Search engines compare. If your Tuesday hours differ in two places, you lose trust you never knew you had.
Building block three: reviews. Not many, but honest ones, and answered. A reply to a critical review is read more often than the review itself. We'll dedicate a whole episode to this.
Building block four: content that people nearby actually want. Not ten tips for a better life, but what we do when the boiler fails on a Sunday. Local, specific, in your own words. And yes, an episode of this podcast on your site counts as exactly that.
Do these four in this order, and the rest, ads, social media, newsletters, becomes optional. That was Podiana. See you next week.
Show
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