Hyperlocal Blogging Hits Search Engine Land
Nice to see a big, juicy article about hyperlocal blogging on Search Engine Land last week:
A Business Idea For Joe The Plumber: HyperLocal Blogging
David Mihm is the author, and you may recognize him from his occasional appearances in the comments here on Hyperlocal Blogger. In his article, David suggests local blogging as a good marketing strategy for the (literal and figurative) “Joe the Plumber.” Why hyperlocal blogging? Here’s David’s bullet list:
- More content.
- More incoming links from other bloggers.
- More links and citations from other local websites.
- Name recognition among key members of your community.
- Name recognition among key members of your industry.
I think that about sums it up. Good article, David.
Signs of Blogging Life in the Tri-Cities
I spent all day Friday attending (and speaking at) a small business web marketing conference called Learn About Web. There were many things that stand out for me now, 24 hours later, but one is that small/local business owners appeared to be interested in learning about local blogging.
The attendees were mostly small business owners/employees, and in terms of online marketing knowledge/experience, they would mostly have to be considered novices — that’s who the conference was for, and that’s why they were there.
There were sessions on everything ranging from link building to local search, social media to web security, and more.
Mack Collier did a talk on business blogging that had everyone’s attention. Then, during the Q&A session at the end, there were a few more questions from local business owners asking about starting a blog, finding blog topics, and so forth.
As it stands now, my wife and I are a rare breed — there aren’t many other Richland bloggers, Kennewick bloggers, and so forth in the Tri-Cities area.
It would be nice to see a few more local bloggers join us, and maybe after yesterday’s seminar, they will.
Submit Your Blog to EveryBlock.com
EveryBlock is a very interesting player in the hyperlocal space, and one that I’ll be watching in the future. If you blog locally about the cities that EveryBlock covers, it’s also a site that you should submit your content to for possible distribution. (more on that in a bit)
Where many hyperlocal sites focus on town-level or city-level news, EveryBlock focuses on what its name suggests: every block, every street corner in the cities where it’s available. Of course, you begin at a city page, like this one for Seattle:
See that “Explore the City” section in the upper right? You can dig into the site by neighborhood, zip code, or … get this … street. And no matter which path you choose, you might eventually land on this phenomenal content page for the 700 – 798 block of 5th Avenue North. Look at all the hyperlocal content on this page:
- nearby news articles & blog posts
- nearby fire dispatch calls
- nearby building permits
- nearby photos
- nearby liquor license actions
- nearby business reviews (from Yelp and/or Menuism)
- etc.
Amazing, isn’t it? EveryBlock has developed relationships with government agencies to tap into their databases (for restaurant inspection results, building permits, crimes, etc.). They tap into newspaper and blog content that specifically references streets, intersections, and addresses. They get local photos from Flickr’s geo-tagging system, local classifieds from Craigslist, and much more.
I recently traded emails with the founder, Adrian Holovaty, and asked him if he considers local portals like Topix.com or MapQuest as the competition:
I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re competing directly with Topix or the MapQuest Local site — only tangentially. We’re a bit more granular, in that we give news at the *block* level, or the neighborhood level, as opposed to the city level. Our closest competitors, per se, are mashups, such as crime lookups, that display specific information on maps. We’re pulling everything together in one place.
If you’re a hyperlocal blogger, the question you want answered is this:
How To Submit Your Local Blog to EveryBlock
EveryBlock does rely heavily on hyperlocal blogs in the cities the site covers. Here’s a list of EveryBlock’s Seattle news sources, and you’ll see plenty of local blogs included.
Here’s what Adrian said about getting your local blog on their radar:
Local bloggers can just drop us a quick e-mail for inclusion in our indexing process. We look for local blogs that write about specific locations, like neighborhoods, local schools/parks/restaurants/businesses, real estate, etc. Our goal is to point people at anything and everything that’s being written about in their immediate geographic area.
The email address to use is info [at] everyblock [dot] com.
If you’re curious to learn more about EveryBlock, their about page is the best place to start. Fascinating web site, I say — a great example of what hyperlocal is and can become.
Hyperlocal Content Idea: Political Interviews
Quick post to remind folks in the U.S. that right now offers a golden opportunity to get some great hyperlocal content on your blog(s) by interviewing the winning (and maybe even the losing) candidates from this week’s elections. Catch the winners soon while they’re still basking in the glow of winning the election, and anxious to please/reach out to their constituents.
- Ask your new city councilperson about fitting in, about local issues like traffic, crime, or whatever else matters.
- Ask your new school board member about educational funding, standardized testing, etc.
- Ask your returning county commissioner what s/he still hopes to accomplish after so many years in office.
The opportunities are endless. And now’s the time to jump on them. (Actually, local political interviews would have been a great idea pre-election, too, and I would’ve written this sooner, except I’ve been fighting the flu on and off for about two weeks and am just now getting back to full speed.)
Your Turn: Did you do any local election interviews on your hyperlocal blog? Or did you create any political content? How’d it turn out?
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