How valuable is non-local organic traffic for local business?

[brooksmanley]

Hey friends!

I work for a local digital marketing agency in Greenville, SC – serving primarily local small businesses. Over the past six months, we've increased our monthly organic traffic by almost 100%. The majority of this traffic is coming to blogs we've written over the past year on industry topics and trends. I love seeing our traffic increase, but it hasn't necessarily translated to more quality leads. Conversion numbers have largely remained the same. I think one reason is that a lot of this traffic isn't local.

Here's my question: as a local business, how valuable is content that ranks well and drives organic traffic, when the traffic isn't local, and from users we would never work with?

A lot of this content has earned links and grown our authority, so I suppose we've seen benefit, but I'm struggling to convince myself that it's really that valuable. I know local content is key, but it feels like what we want to educate on isn't searched locally.

Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!

[NickW816]

If the blog posts have good user metrics on them (time on site, pages per session, etc.), it should, in theory, help your website rankings over time. The agency I work for has run into this as well, where the website traffic will increase, but leads will remain constant or won't increase near as much.

I say there is a positive benefit as your blog posts could get increase brand awareness, and maybe get referenced and linked to, which helps your overall website authority, but it is definitely a long game, and the short-term benefit will be very little.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Brooks,

This is such a good topic. It's one I've encountered previously.

So, the issue is that your particular business model has national applicability. Digital marketing is a topic of national/international interest, vs. if you were creating content for something like your local farmer's market association or something along those lines.

Despite this, as you've realized, the national interest your content is earning (congratulations, by the way) is building your authority relative to its topic. In a RankBrain environment, this is definitely a good thing. Appearing as a result for national searches means you are also appearing as a result for your target clients in South Carolina when they do those same searches. Remember, too, that organic authority underpins local rankings. So, there is no negative here, if Google is more and more associating your domain with expertise on a set of topics.

Basically, you are in an enviable position here to turn a good thing into a better thing! The leads you are getting from non-local clients could actually be a wonderful opportunity for you to create some goodwill, both B2C and B2B. Hopefully, Brooks, as an active member of an industry, you've gotten to know some other good folks at quality agencies. Instead of just turning these leads away, why not refer them to people you trust? And, ask friendly colleagues that if they ever get leads from businesses in SC, they think of you, as your business thrives on serving these particular customers. I have found, over the years, that potential clients sincerely appreciate being referred to a trusted source. It's such a confusing world out there, sadly littered with scammers, and you can help out a business owner in an important way by doing more than just saying "no".

Hope these thoughts are helpful!

[Chris.Menke]

I've engaged with local marketing companies who had big plans for bringing in nationwide leads and had little care for developing their firm's local relevance. Nor did they have an understanding of the difference in difficulty for a small marketing company to convert local leads into new business vs. converting geographically diverse leads (which they struggled to get anyway).

As a small marketing company, the sweet spot is definitely local business and no doubt, in Greenville NC, there is more business than you can handle. There are so many ways to develop content that will put your firm directly in view of local businesses that need you and that will pay for your services. It requires an embrace of your locality and a creative exuberance for content about it and forgoing thoughts of leads coming in from all corners of the country. If you do those things well first, leads will come from other places.

You say you write blog posts about industry topics and trends. As I'm sure you've noticed, so does almost everyone else, right? Why not get creative in combining marketing topics with the life and times of the typical Greenvillian? I guarantee you will enjoy the writing much more and your traffic will start coming in from closer to home.

[MiriamEllis]

Very fine suggestion, Chris!

[brooksmanley]

Thanks Nick, good word: that valuable content and positive site-wide metrics should always benefit the site and brand in the long run.

[brooksmanley]

Thank you so much, Miriam, this is very helpful!

[MiriamEllis]

My pleasure, Brooks. I always enjoy your contributions here very much!

[Chris.Menke]

Hey Miriam! S'been a while : )

[TucsonAZWebDesign]

I recently had some issues with an individual who was actually opening several fraudulent scammy businesses from P.O. Box addresses and UPS Stores for the purpose of getting the SEO benefits received on a local level. for one thing having relevance to be in big directories will gain your site authority (Not all directories do but, white pages, yellows pages, definitely the chamber of commerce)

Additionally, that whole #1 organic 33% of searches statistic definitely get's thrown out the window with the implementation of a map listing. This in combination with the bidding war typically seen above any valued local key term, I'd be impressed to see #1 organic banking 18% of traffic referred from Google. I don't have numbers to back it's just a hypothetical guess. Metaphorically it's like going from a simple game of Texas Holdem to Omaha Hi/Lo split and not knowing how to scoop the pot LOL!

I see only percs from the versatility of benefiting from local and national search results.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Sean,

Hope you reported the fake address listings. Those are the ones that Google will actually remove!

[TucsonAZWebDesign]

Sure did!

15288019690c7b0d20-3099-4e3a-8de4-8290b80a18b3.jpg

[MiriamEllis]

Thumbs up, Sean!