Content Marketing for Local Businesses
Joel Conner • November 11, 2019
Consistent Content Marketing Can Catapult Your Business Success to a Whole New Level
Content Marketing for Local Businesses
Whether your business has only just launched their first website or you’ve got an established presence on the internet, there’s always more you can be doing online. There are an endless amount of opportunities to boost traffic, drive more high value leads, and ultimately convert those leads. Is there a way to do all that without spending a fortune though?
Your search is over. We even have proof that content marketing can be effective. This very article you are reading right now is proof. The fact that you are reading this article shows that our own content marketing has worked. It’s something you can take advantage of to. Here is our definitive guide to digital content marketing for small businesses to help you achieve your own success.
What is Content Marketing?
We’ll start by addressing what content marketing is. It’s when you publish high quality content on a regular basis. The content should be consistent with your own branding and your campaign goals. It also requires a great SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. One cannot exist without the other.
The Benefits of Content Marketing
Much like with major brands, small businesses are able to get a lot of benefit from a good content marketing strategy. It presents a great way to naturally boost organic search traffic for key words and terms related to your business. By hitting the top spot for important keywords you will;
• Boost engagement and sales
As the content climbs the search rankings, more and more people will be driven to your website. A great call to action can encourage readers to buy your products/services, subscribe to a mailing list, and more.
• Boost savings
Google AdWords has seen businesses drop a pretty penny to appear on top of search results. Effective content marketing can get your business to the top of rankings at a fraction of the cost of buying AdWords. Organic rankings also feel more authentic to visitors. People will see your business as being more approachable and genuine when it doesn’t have that “sponsored” tag attached to it.
• Better Quality Leads
By searching for keywords related to your business, people have shown their interest in what you can offer them. By writing effective content that ranks high on search results and attracts those people to visit your site, you’re roughly halfway to having a sale. You can kiss goodbye to broad advertising and cold calling, which are ineffective for about 90% of the people they reach.
• Build a Loyal Customer Base and RE-TARGET
After you attract users with high quality content you’ll see them coming back for more. You can further boost engagement with them by including a call to action to join a mailing list. Re-marketing will prove to be effective at this. It allows you to show targeted ads to people who have visited the website before in particular. Re-targeting means that you are always online when your customers are. These constant reminders make them more likely to return to your website. Just make sure your audience loves your content, don't spam them!
All in all, there’s a lot of evidence that content marketing just works.
How Long Can it Take for a Return on Investment?
We’ve seen people boost their Google rankings and get more online leads for their keywords through regular blog post updates across a year.
Just how long it takes for content marketing to offer a significant return on investment
for a small business depends on how much authority the business commands online. If you’ve got a huge presence in the industry and are ranking high on a number of keywords, the payoff for content marketing is almost instant. Google ranks websites higher if they have more “authority” and are more well-known than lesser-known sites.
If you are doing great already, you might think that you’ve squeezed every drop of value from important keywords. That is when content marketing is actually the most important. There are plenty of long-tail keywords that offer almost endless opportunities to increase traffic. Cast yourself a wide net and make a huge catch with your content marketing.
If you are just getting started with your small business though, then it’ll take time to build trust and authority with Google. You need to post regular high quality content. As you continue to produce online content, it makes you better established in the industry. That means that Google ranks you more favorably. You’ll notice major returns on relatively small investments over a period of time. With that said, it doesn’t mean that you can’t expect to see some big wins if you are a relatively young business. With the right amount of research and due diligence, you may notice some immediate returns. Make sure to target the best keywords and write really effective content that performs well immediately. That can be easier to do if you focus on local traffic in particular, but you can still do it on the national level and even the global level.
Create a Content Marketing Plan
This all sounds very good, but you still want to know how it works and how much effort is needed to make it work. Here’s our own handy guide to putting together a great content marketing plan of your own. We’ll shed some light on the tools and services you can use for an extra helping hand too.
• Do Your Research
You should never go into this blind. You’ll vastly increase your chances of success by doing some research ahead of time. Research is one of the first – and arguably most important – steps in the content marketing process. You should take notes now to allow yourself to make the right moves later. You should have enough notes to know your customers.
You need to know who the customer is, what they want, and how they plan on finding these products and services. You should understand customers so that you can make sales. You can learn more about the customers by finding forums and discussion groups related to your industry to see what actual customers are actually saying.
You can also take a peek at the competition. See what the big names in the industry are doing. Check their website to see the content they publish. What kind of structure does their website have? What keywords does it look like they target?
• Target Long Keywords
You aren’t done with the research just yet, as a lot goes into this area of effective content marketing. This is also the key to success though. Finding and targeting the appropriate keywords
is an important part of any digital content marketing campaign. For this step, you have to take your important findings from the initial research – such as the audience and competition – and determine the right keywords to effectively achieve your goals.
It's no longer a simple matter to just appear on the first page of results. With more and more businesses adopting healthy content marketing strategy, there’s never been more competition for the best rankings. If you are in the business of engagement rings, for example, you can give up on ranking for just “engagement rings”. There are around 1.5 million searches for engagement rings each month. That’s a lot of competition. You need to work smarter.
It’s more effective to understand your niche and then have tools like Google Keyword Planner help put together a list of keywords that offer less competition but still good amounts of traffic. Most of those keywords are “long tail keywords” that have longer strings. These long phrases are less likely to be targeted by the competition because they are less likely to be searched.
Long tail keywords are the backbone of a good content marketing campaign. When used properly, you could rank better – and get more traffic from – these keywords compared to keywords with a better search volume or more competition. If you could appear on page one for five long tail keywords with around 100 searches per month, that’s around 500 potential hits for your website. If you were to rank on the second page – or worse – for a single keyword with 500 searches per month, you are less likely to get more hits. Try to hit the target from as many different angles as you can. An effective content marketing strategy for small businesses is one where you slowly chip away at the block instead of trying to smash it in a single hit.
How to Properly Implement a Content Marketing Strategy
Now you have your list of keywords, it’s time to start producing the actual content. You should first make sure that the main pages of the website – all the pages in the navigation menu – are properly optimized with content that reflects the results of your research. Make sure to follow the SEO best practices
too. You can start by working on on-page SEO. Make sure that the titles and H1s of pages reflect the keywords identified by your research. Also ensure that the meta descriptions are appropriately written for the page.
After taking care of on-page SEO, you should make sure that the website has effective copy and a consistent design. Determine if you should add new pages so that you can take better advantage of keywords and under-utilized areas identified by the research. If you don’t have them already, then it helps to create service pages that outline all your main offerings. If you operate an ecommerce business, then managing the content for products will present its own challenge that you’ll have to overcome.
Once your website is packed full of killer content, it won’t take long for your website to achieve better rankings. You’ll start bringing in more traffic and – with it – more conversions. This doesn’t mean you can stop though. This is when you start to create a regular blog. You can use the content marketing strategy and the research done before to create a blog. This blog will serve as an effective and efficient marketing tool in its own right that offers some high returns. You can target the keywords that you didn’t target through static web pages. The blog posts also work as a landing page to drive traffic that may not have found your website before.
For some more ideas on marketing your small business check out this very helpful post: Small Business Marketing Ideas That Can Make A Difference Today
SEO Best Practices
This has been a lot to take in, so let’s turn things into a few key points. In general, Google likes there to be at least 300 words of copy per page. Aiming for 500-600 words has been shown to be effective for our clients. You should ensure that the copy doesn’t hamper the UX or design of the website though. You can get around that issue with the use of “Read More” tags to prevent things from being cluttered. While you want to include the most important targeted keywords, you should avoid keyword stuffing. Just Use the main keywords a handful of times and make sure that they are in alignment with the title tags for the page. Try to include engaging imagery and stick to the SEO best practices when it comes to alt tags and titles for said images.
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If you’re a real estate agent or broker, you’ve probably heard of Go High Level. You may even know it’s “powerful” and “can run your whole business” — but when you log in, it feels like a cockpit. Dozens of features, endless menus, and no clear roadmap for what you actually need to use. The good news: as a real estate professional, you don’t need everything. You just need a few core pieces set up correctly: A simple pipeline that matches how you work Automated follow-up so no lead slips through the cracks Smart tagging and routing so leads go to the right place Appointment reminders that reduce no‑shows Easy open house and offer follow-ups Basic dashboards so you can see what’s working In this guide, we’ll walk through how to set up Go High Level for a real estate business step by step — and how to use it without getting buried in complexity. Why Go High Level Is a Good Fit for Real Estate Go High Level (often written as GoHighLevel or GHL) is an all‑in‑one platform that can: Capture leads from forms, funnels, and ads Store and organize contacts like a CRM Automate follow‑ups via email, SMS, and even ringless voicemail Track deals in pipelines Book and manage appointments Build simple landing pages and funnels For real estate agents and brokers, that means you can: Respond instantly to new leads Keep track of buyers and sellers by stage and property Follow up after open houses Send appointment reminders automatically Stay on top of which leads came from where You don’t have to use every feature. If you focus on a handful of essentials, you’ll get real value quickly — and you can grow from there. Step 1: Start With a Real Estate Sub‑Account and Snapshot Go High Level lets you create sub accounts — essentially separate spaces for each business. If you’re just getting started: Go to your Agency account. Click Sub accounts in the left menu. Click Create sub account . Search for Real Estate snapshots. You’ll see options like: Real Estate Agent Real Estate Broker Pick the one that matches you best. These snapshots come preloaded with: Real estate pipelines Basic automations Landing page templates Then: Add your business information (address, name, etc.). Click Add sub account . Switch into it with Switch to sub account . This gives you a solid starting point tailored to real estate rather than a blank, generic setup. Step 2: Build a Pipeline That Matches Your Real Estate Workflow Your pipeline is where you visually track deals from “new lead” to “closed.” The real estate snapshot usually includes a default pipeline with stages like: New lead Hot lead New booking Visit attended Deal Left a review You can keep this, or you can create your own so it reflects how you actually work. How to Create a Custom Pipeline Go to Opportunities . Click Pipelines . Click Create pipeline . For a buyer pipeline , for example, you might set stages like: New lead Contacted Appointment set Showing Offer made Closed For a seller pipeline , you could have: New listing Photos taken On market Offer received Sold Name the pipeline and click Create . Then, in the top left, switch to your new pipeline to start using it. Tip: If you work with both buyers and sellers, create separate pipelines. It keeps your view clean and makes follow‑up easier. Step 3: Automate Lead Follow‑Up So You Respond Instantly This is where Go High Level really shines. Most agents lose business not because they don’t get leads — but because they don’t follow up quickly or consistently. With Go High Level, you can create workflows that: Trigger when a new lead comes in Send an immediate SMS and/or email Add the lead to a pipeline Assign it to an agent Continue nurturing over days or weeks Start with a Simple New Lead Workflow Go to Automations → Workflows . Click Create workflow → Start from scratch (or use “New Lead Nurture – Fast 5” as a base). Add a trigger , such as: Form submitted (for website or funnel forms) Facebook lead form submitted TikTok form submitted LinkedIn lead form submitted New contact created Appointment booked If you’re using a standard Go High Level form, choose: Trigger: Form submitted Filter: Form is [Your Buyer/Seller Form] Once you’ve set your trigger, add actions like: Create/Update Contact – to ensure the lead is saved properly Add to Pipeline – put them into the “New lead” stage of your buyer or seller pipeline Send SMS – something friendly and immediate, like: “Hi {{contact.first_name}}, thanks for reaching out about homes in {{location}}. Would you like to schedule a quick call to talk about what you’re looking for?” Send Email – a slightly more detailed introduction and next steps Wait steps and If/Else conditions – for follow‑ups based on whether they reply You can also use the prebuilt New Lead Nurture (Fast 5) workflow in Go High Level. It typically: Triggers when someone submits an offer form or Facebook lead form Creates a new opportunity in the New lead stage Sends a conversational email and SMS Waits for replies Moves leads to Hot lead if they reply Triggers call connect actions This is a great starting point if you don’t want to build from scratch. Step 4: Auto‑Tag and Route Your Leads for Better Organization Once leads are flowing in, you want them automatically: Tagged (e.g., buyer, seller, rental, luxury, open house) Routed to the right pipeline and agent This keeps your database clean and makes it easy to run targeted follow‑ups. Tagging Leads Based on Forms and Sources Say you have different forms: Buyer form Seller form Open house form Free home valuation form You can: Use a trigger like Form submitted or Facebook lead form submitted . Filter by specific form. Add an action: Add contact tag . Useful tags might include: Buyer / Seller Rental Luxury listing Came from Facebook Came from Google Open house – 123 Main St Free home valuation With these tags in place, you can quickly filter contacts, build targeted campaigns, or trigger routing automations. Routing Leads to the Right Agent You can also route leads based on tags. Example: all Buyer leads go to your buyer’s agent. Create a new workflow with trigger Contact tag . Filter: Tag added is Buyer. Add action: Assign to user . Choose the agent responsible for buyer leads. You can set up similar workflows for sellers, rentals, or specific property types or locations. This way: Facebook buyer leads go straight into your buyer pipeline Seller leads go to your listing pipeline Agents see only the leads they’re responsible for No manual sorting. Less confusion. Faster response times. Step 5: Set Up Appointment Reminders to Reduce No‑Shows Once you’re booking showings and consultation calls, appointment reminders can dramatically reduce no‑shows. Create a Calendar in Go High Level Go to Calendars → Calendar settings . Click New calendar . Choose the calendar type: Personal booking – for one agent Round robin – for multiple team members Class booking – useful if you want a “group” appointment (e.g., open house time slots) Name the calendar (e.g., “Buyer Consultation,” “Listing Appointment,” “Property Showing”). Add team members if using round robin. Set: Meeting duration Bookable times Buffer times between appointments Then, connect it to your personal calendar: Go to Connections Click Add new Connect Google Calendar, Outlook, iCloud, or Calendly Now, when someone books through this calendar, it automatically shows up in your personal calendar. Use Automated Confirmation and Reminder Workflows Go High Level usually includes a workflow like “Appointment Confirmation and Reminders.” This can: Trigger when an appointment is confirmed Update the opportunity stage to something like Appointment set Send a confirmation email: “Hi {{contact.first_name}}, your appointment has been confirmed for {{appointment.start_date}} at {{appointment.start_time}} {{appointment.time_zone}}.” Send reminder emails: 24 hours before 1 hour before Send SMS reminders (e.g., 1 hour before) If someone doesn’t show, another workflow can trigger on Appointment status: No show and: Send a link to reschedule Follow up again after a day This combination keeps your calendar fuller and minimizes missed opportunities. Step 6: Automate Open House Follow‑Ups Open houses are great for collecting warm leads — but those leads often go cold if you don’t follow up quickly and consistently. Go High Level makes it easy to: Capture visitor info Tag them based on the specific open house Send personalized follow-ups with similar listings or next steps Create a Simple Open House Form Go to Sites → Forms → Form builder . Build a form that collects: Name Email Phone What they’re looking for (beds, baths, budget, area) You can use this: On a tablet at the open house As a QR code link (visitors scan and fill it out on their phone) Embedded on your website As part of your Facebook lead ad form that’s integrated into Go High Level Automate the Follow-Up Use a Form submitted trigger for your open house form. Add an action to Add contact tag , e.g.: Open house – 123 Main St. Add actions to: Send an immediate “Thanks for stopping by” email or SMS Include links to similar listings or next steps Add them to a Warm leads pipeline Set reminders for follow‑up calls or texts Example SMS: “Hi {{contact.first_name}}, thanks for visiting the open house at 123 Main St today. I’ve got a few similar properties you might like — want me to send them over?” This simple automation helps you stay top‑of‑mind and turn casual open house visitors into real opportunities. Step 7: Use Dashboards to See What’s Working (and Fix What Isn’t) Once everything is up and running, you don’t want to guess how it’s performing. Check your Dashboard or Reports in Go High Level regularly (weekly works well). You can see: How many leads are coming in Which sources (Facebook, Google, website, open houses) are performing best How many leads are moving from stage to stage in your pipeline Where deals tend to get stuck From there, make small tweaks like: Adjusting the delay between follow‑up messages Refining your SMS and email templates Changing which tags trigger which workflows Fine‑tuning your pipelines or reminders Often, small improvements in timing or messaging can significantly boost your response rates and conversions. Bonus: Simple Funnels and Offers for Real Estate You don’t need complex funnels to generate leads. Go High Level snapshots for real estate often come with ready‑made pages like: Free home valuation offer Home buying consultation Seller consultation For example, you could: Run Facebook ads to a free home valuation landing page Collect details through a form Tag those leads as Free home valuation Trigger an automation that: Reminds you to prepare the valuation Sends a follow‑up message to schedule a consultation Adds them to a seller pipeline This turns a simple offer into a structured system that consistently feeds your business. Keep It Simple, Then Grow Go High Level has dozens of features — social planners, reputation management, and more — but you don’t need all of them on day one. If you’re a real estate agent or broker, start with: A buyer and/or seller pipeline New lead follow‑up workflows (email + SMS) Tagging and routing rules Appointment calendars and reminders Open house follow‑up Basic dashboard checks Once those are in place and working, you can gradually add: Social media scheduling Review generation (reputation management) More advanced campaigns and funnels The goal isn’t to use every feature — it’s to build a system that quietly saves you hours each week and helps you close more deals. Need Help Setting This Up? If you’d like to use Go High Level (or any CRM/automation system) but don’t have the time or desire to configure it yourself, Blue Swing Media can help. We work with small businesses and local service providers — including real estate professionals — to: Set up practical, easy‑to‑use pipelines Build automated follow‑ups that feel personal, not spammy Connect your website, ads, and forms so every lead is tracked Create landing pages and offers that actually convert If you want a real estate system that runs smoothly in the background while you focus on serving clients, reach out to Blue Swing Media. We’ll help you implement the strategies in this guide and tailor them to your business, your market, and your goals.


