The standard advice is to blog regularly, and the standard result is a blog full of posts that nobody reads, nothing links to and search engines largely ignore. “Five tips for choosing a plumber” has been written ten thousand times, and the ten thousand and first version adds nothing.
Local content works when it is something only you could produce, about a subject your customers or your area genuinely care about.
What actually earns attention
| Why it works | |
|---|---|
| Answers to questions you are asked constantly | Captures searches and gets quoted by AI assistants |
| Honest cost and pricing guides | The most searched and least answered subject in most sectors |
| Local data you are in a position to gather | Journalists and local sites link to original information |
| Explanations of local rules and constraints | Planning, conservation, licensing — genuinely useful and rarely written |
| Seasonal guides published ahead of the season | Ranks in time to capture the demand |
Write what you are asked
The best source of content ideas is the questions customers already ask on the phone, in the showroom and by email. Each is evidence of a real search, and a clear, complete answer on the site both captures that search and saves time answering it again. These answers are also exactly what AI assistants look for when someone asks them the same question.
Publish before the demand arrives
Content takes time to rank. A guide to preparing a boiler for winter published in November is too late for November; published in August it can be in position when demand arrives. Planning content against the calendar of when your customers search, rather than when someone has time to write, is one of the simplest improvements available.
Fewer, better pieces
One genuinely useful guide that earns links from local sites and gets cited by AI assistants is worth more than a year of weekly posts that do neither. We would rather produce a small number of pieces that do real work than fill a publishing calendar.