If you’ve been following this series on Hyperlocal Blogging, you’ve taken note of these 7 SEO copywriting tips given so far in parts 1, 2 and 3:

1) Tapping into the hometown pride
2) Recognizing community concerns
3) Being an ambassador
4) Getting into local controversy - with care
5) Getting down to business - your business
6) Remembering the good old days
7) Being generous with your expertise

I’ve been excited about the prospect of writing this article for Mendocino County bloggers because I believe this region of the world is one of the grandest on Earth. I love Mendocino so much, I set a novel in it! The place is jewel chest - from sapphire sea to emerald redwood groves to the golden strand of the Anderson Valley, toasting to brass in the late summertime. Culturally, I feel this county deserves international recognition for being the very first in the United States to ban the growing of genetically modified organisms and for their sincere support of the organic farmer. When locals there talk about local sustainability, they really mean it.

Tourists unsurprisingly view this corner of coastal California as idyllic, but Mendocino folks have their problems. Gang violence is increasingly becoming a headline in Fort Bragg news to the point where local law officials are throwing aside political correctness and publicly branding offenders as ‘cowards’. In the valley, locals have a confrontation coming with the increasingly-invasive alcohol industry. If the vineyards get much bigger, water is going to become a hot topic, as is pesticide exposure in a community that prizes healthy living. And then there is the other drug industry in Mendocino County - the marijuana issue that seems to get more local press than any other topic. Issues of legality/illegality, major busts and shoot outs are under constant discussion in this part of the world. And then there are simply the challenges of daily rural living. Apart from Ukiah, the county seat, there are no big cities in this wide, green and blue land, and that brings us to today’s SEO copywriting tip.

Hyperlocal Blogging Tip #8
Help Your New Neighbors

If you’ve taken up the personal challenge to start blogging about your Mendocino County town in hopes of increasing your professional visibility in the community, don’t forget the new neighbors arriving every week of the year. Former city dwellers are going to be especially in need of a welcome-wagon hello as they try to adjust to the fact that everything they want is going to be just a little harder to find because nobody in small towns really shouts about what they are doing. No billboards, no flashing LED displays of big deals. By getting your blog posts ranked well for common questions that will be of concern to Mendocino County greenhorns, your professional brand will appear repeatedly before the eager eyes of any new neighbor who is reaching out for help.

5 Essential Questions To Which Your Hyperlocal Blog Could Provide Best Answers

1) Where Do I Get Internet Service In Rural Mendocino?
You know and I know that it’s not going to be quite as easy or hassle-free as dialing up Comcast. List local resources for Mendocino, Little River, Boonville, Cleone, Westport, Elk, Albion, Philo, Navarro, Comptche and the other small towns and unincorporated regions of the county.

2) What Should I Do About Drinking Water?
Rural living is often well water-dependent and your new neighbors may never have lived on a well before, let alone dealt with the fun of septic systems. List reliable well service and septic companies and give old-hand pointers for keeping drinking water safe and septic tanks functional.

3) What Are My Options For Food Shopping?
Any newcomer will quickly learn about the local Harvest Market chain, but you can be the blogger who tips them off to Corners of the Mouth on Ukiah Street in Mendocino village, the Boontberry Farm Market off the HWY in Boonville and that tiny but life-giving general store up in Westport. Write a post that lists all of the local markets, as well as seasonal data for the fantastic farmers’ markets that will be putting dinner on your new neighbor’s table.

4) Where Can I See A Doctor?
Outline the hospitals and some of the most reputable doctors in different areas of practice in the county. Data on times and dates of public clinic services and latest news on county health plans could be of real service to people who are just moving in.

5) Where Can I Worship?
Mendocino County offers people of many faiths lovely places to satisfy spiritual needs. Write a fantastic post, complete with appealing photos of places of worship, detailing all of the religious resources your community maintains. Your tone can be non-denominational, giving priority to the comfort and happiness of your readers, no matter what their particular creed.

Chances are, you can think of further essential services that new neighbors will be needing to find.

Moving to a new place is, to put it mildly, a big ordeal for most people. By coming through for new residents during this busy time for them, you increase your chances of them remembering your company’s name when they need some work on their car, yard maintenance, legal services, vaccinations for their dog or a place for their in-laws to stay when they come to visit.

By mixing these helping posts in with expert posts about your company’s professional knowledge, you’ll be expanding your target audience beyond the natives to families who are making a life-changing effort to become new locals.

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Please check back soon for part 5 in our Hyperlocal Blogging Series!

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Tourism publications will tell you that when you enter Calaveras County in eastern California, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back into the Gold Rush era, and while there’s some truth in this, this corner of my state has become one of my favorite places because visiting there is like going back some 30 years in time. This relatively large county is very modestly populated, has a very low median income and high unemployment rate. What’s the charm? The lack of crowding and the ‘problem’ economy have relieved Calaveras County of the pretentious Disneyland quality one encounters too often in the majority of tourist destinations along the West Coat. Calaveras County has an honesty you’ll be hard pressed to discover amid the ‘Frisco’ of San Francisco or the la-de-da of the Wine Country. The people of the Gold Country can pride themselves on never stooping to silliness.

Yet, money troubles are no one’s idea of a good time and I see excellent opportunity for a Hyperlocal Blogger to do quite a bit of good in Calaveras County. The locals have made consistent efforts to bill their region as a great place to visit, and the county does depend on the tourism revenues won from skiers in winter and nature lovers in the spring and early summer. They hold festivals honoring Mark Twain and offer the chance to re-enact Gold Rush living in places like Colombia State Park. With incomparable natural wonders like Big Trees State Park and all of the weird and wonderful natural caves at his fingertips, the Hyperlocal Blogger can surely find plenty to write about for the tourist crowd. But how about for the neighbors?

Before moving on with this article, I hope you’ll read the first 2 parts in this series:

Hyperlocal Blogging, Marin County CA

Hyperlocal Blogging, Sonoma County CA

To summarize the SEO copywriting tips we’ve covered so far, here are 6 possible approaches to take to blogging about your hometown:

1) Tapping into the hometown pride
2) Recognizing community concerns
3) Being an ambassador
4) Getting into local controversy - with care
5) Getting down to business - your business
6) Remembering the good old days

Today, we’ll discuss a new approach to hyperlocal blogging that I feel is especially relevant to a locale like Calaveras County.

Hyperlocal Blogging Tip #7:
Be Generous With Your Expertise
Dependence on tourism means an employment scene that swells and contracts with the seasons. It creates instability if there’s not much else going on to get families through the lean times. Last year, my family considered relocating to Calaveras County because we so appreciate the utter lack of urban sensibility present there. Geographically, it’s gorgeous beyond belief and we could really picture ourselves living quite a good life there. But, in getting to know the area, I followed local news and any other local forum-type entities I could find (see idea #2 - recognizing community concerns) and was really saddened to read that money troubles are so significant in the Gold Country that the people are earnestly debating whether bringing in big box stores like Wal-mart can save their communities.

Having grown up in a California town that went from 70’s Charming to 80’s Ugly because of the introduction of chain stores and the death of Mom & Pop, I so wanted to reach out to the Calaveras folks and tell them what they will get if they put their future in the hands of monster stores.

They’ll get low wage jobs from companies infamous for their lack of respect for humanity, they’ll get cheap, imported toxic products, and they’ll watch the businesses that are local traditions close up shop, one-by-one.

I kept following this issue, determined that if we did move to Calaveras, I was going to try to help the people there. As I read interviews with local small business owners, it became apparent that some marketing advice could be a big help. Many of the businesses I read about didn’t even bother to put signs on their stores.

I recall one feed store owner who couldn’t understand why locals didn’t know they could come to her shop to buy blue jeans rather than driving all the way to the big mall in Stockton. The answer was obvious - no one is going to think a feed store sells garments unless the owners invest time and money in making that known. The more I read, the more I felt a powerful urge to share what little I know with these struggling businesses in order to help them create a self-sufficient community that serves all the local needs rather than obliging locals to drive outside the county for basics and luxuries, or, perish the thought, let Wal-mart ruin the landscape of mountain towns like Pioneer or valley gems like Angels Camp.

But we didn’t end up moving to Calaveras County, so this idea of mine was shelved and is just sitting there for the right hyperlocal blogger to come along and take it.

I believe that a skilled hyperlocal blogger could benefit Calaveras’ people not only by helping them serve one another from their brick-and-mortar locations, but from taking this community onto the web. Imagine what a difference it could make to a family where the father has only part-time work during skiing season if his wife was running an e-commerce website, selling something that is specifically local, to the whole rest of the country.

Think Idaho - Think Potatoes
Think Black Hills - Think Gold
Think Wisconsin - Think Cheese
Think Sonoma - Think Wine
Think Louisiana - Think Cajun Food and Music

Regions become known for things that are special about them. A smart hyperlocal blogger could inspire his community to start thinking about what is specifically Calaveras. Mark Twain and the jumping frog can only go so far. Even if small business owners and work-at-home parents enjoyed only modest success on the web, whether selling Calaveras products or something completely different, it could make a meaningful difference in the local economy.

And, in the case where the hyperlocal blogger’s expertise isn’t really web technology, he can still share what he knows to improve the state of business in his community. The realtor can give online tips for home staging in the style of HGTV to help families maximize home sale profits. The organic farmer can make a video about double digging a bed and dealing with all the rocks in the soil in Copperopolis. The contractor can offer do-it-yourself tutorials for small, easy home repair jobs. The accountant can explain new tax laws that affect small businesses. Whatever the blogger’s special skills are, if he shares them, he’s going to achieve two valuable things:

• Credit and appreciation from locals for improving daily life
• An expert reputation that can lead to work in the future when neighbors need help with services they can’t handle themselves

By making your hyperlocal blog your classroom where you teach what you know, your generosity may be handsomely repaid with excellent local visibility, good will and the paid work you’re hoping for.

On a final, personal note, I really would love to see a Calaveras County native take my idea and run with it. It makes me so sad to think that the peaceful, unique atmosphere of places like Arnold, Valley Springs, Moke Hill, Mountain Ranch or Murphy’s might lose their character by letting in the big box stores. These entities do us no favors, and homogenize our communities to the point where one town after another looks identical along our once-scenic highways. By turning to the Internet for extra income, Calaveras County could keep its honest appeal and lessen local worries about making ends meet.

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Please journey back to the SEOigloo Blog soon for Part 4 of our Hyperlocal Blogging series.

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From mountains to valleys to sea coast, cities to suburbs to tiny towns, Sonoma County, California encompasses tremendous variety for the hyperlocal blogger. If you have determined to begin writing about your corner of the world in order to the gain greater visibility for your business on the web, you will not lack for materials if you’re simply paying attention to the place you call home.

Write about the positive, eco-friendly spirit of Sebastopol, the negative draining of the watershed by Sonoma’s endless vineyards or the roller coaster housing prices in Santa Rosa. Write about the hospitals disappearing, one by one, leaving Sonoma County in desperate shape when it comes to medical care. Or write about the wealth and gaiety of the millions of tourists who motor down HWY 12 every fall, and whether or not their spending is really trickling down to the typical local family. Write about the last of the real old-time farmers out in West Petaluma or the struggles of brand-new Americans, arriving here from Mexico and filling the community with new color, commerce, language and life. Write about the fabulous state and regional parks and don’t forget your camera! And, don’t forget to gear your articles in a way that encourages conversation and tempts readers to return to your blog for further great reading and a better acquaintance with you - the hyperlocal blogger.

Before moving on with today’s post, be sure you’ve read the first article in this series, HyperLocal Blogging in Marin County, California. Let’s do a quick summary of the 5 SEO Copywriting Tips contained in that article.

5 excellent approaches you can take to blogging about your hometown include:

1) Tapping into the hometown pride
2) Recognizing community concerns
3) Being an ambassador
4) Getting into local controversy - with care
5) Getting down to business - your business

Today’s special tip for Sonoma County Hyperlocal Bloggers is this:

Do You Remember?
Few other types of conversation set such a natural spark of conviviality in a group as easily as the discussion of happy memories. There is something about humanity that loves to reminisce. All you need to do is ask your audience if they remember something pleasant, and they will want to jump in with their personal recollections. What follows is my list of 10 Do-You-Remember blog post topics, specifically for Sonoma County bloggers.

1. The Glen Oaks Dairy
Do you remember this place on Yulupa Avenue in Santa Rosa? The little drive-through dairy where the boy behind the counter would put a wire crate of dairy products in your trunk for you? If you were a kid back then, chances are, you remember the Push-Ups - those fruit-flavored frozen yogurt bars decorated with vivid pictures of fruit. The Glen Oaks dairy was a neighborhood institution and I know my family was really sad when they closed their doors in the 80s.

2. Thirty-five Cent Ice Cream At Thrifty’s
Remember the ice cream counter at the old, friendly Thrifty’s? Remember looking through the glass at those frosty bins of rainbow sherbet, mint chip and chocolate malted crunch? Sugar cone or plain? Only 35 cents for a single scoop. 65 for a triple! Did you ever eat a triple scoop ice cream cone at Thrifty’s?

3. Hanging out at StarSkate in the 70s
Were you one of the cool kids shooting-the-duck while the DJ spun Funky Town? Remember skating endlessly through the mysteriously dark outer space landscape in the disco ball lights at this roller rink on the west end of Santa Rosa? Did you go up to the snack bar and order a ’suicide’ - a mix of every soda pop on tap - knowing your mother would flip if she knew you were slurping down that much sugar? Did you own your own skates back then, or did you have to rent those stinky ones from the rink?

4. The Vanished Glory of Rosenberg’s
Sonoma County women have never recovered from the loss of this last, gracious department store in the area. Located in downtown Santa Rosa, Rosenberg’s had everything from baby clothes to housewares. It was the place to spend your money and you spent it with pleasure because the store was so elegantly kept and staffed. Remember riding the little elevator up to the mezzanine? Remember the Christmas displays in the windows - just like in a big city? Because, of course, back then, Santa Rosa was anything but big. Don’t you miss that small town feel? We got THE MALL and the dubious gift of Ross when Rosenberg’s closed up shop…few people felt this was a very good trade-off. What do you think?

5. The Big Yellow House
The huge Victorian-esque edifice still stands their like a lost giant amid the freeway sprawl of Northwest Santa Rosa, but who remembers when this structure went up to harbor that family-style restaurant - The Big Yellow House? Yes, it was bright yellow back then, too. Remember the motherly ladies in aprons, coming to your table with kettles of beans and heaps of cornbread? You felt kind of fancy dining there, didn’t you? This was a place for taking grandma out to dinner and trying not to spill your milk. Remember your manners. Why did they go out of business? Does anybody know?

6. The Buttercup Pantry
Another bygone restaurant on the Sonoma County landscape. I believe this was located way out Stony Point Road, near Cotati, wasn’t it? My parents thought the food here was awful, I’m afraid, but we children begged to go back because of one very clever element this restaurant had going for it - the glass counter full of lollipops. Every color of the rainbow, and one for every good kid. Who could care what you’d eaten for dinner, so long as the meal ended with one of those tempting suckers?

7. The Shoestore in Montgomery Village With the Merry-Go-Round in it
You’ve got to remember that! While the whole family got sized up for new school shoes (remember waffle stompers?) or summer Sun-glo sandals, the children could hardly wait to ride on the little merry-go-round built right into the carpet in the middle of this memorable shoe store. What a brilliant gimmick for ensuring that parents didn’t have to cope with whining kids while shopping.

8. Sprouse-Reitz 5-and-10 Store
I know there was one of these in Bennett Valley and another in Sebastopol. Sprouse-Reitz had everything from fabric to tropical fish. And everything was so affordable. Believe it or not, I have a jewelry box that still bears a Sprouse-Reitz price tag - only $1.95! I have the happiest memories of getting paper dolls and Colorforms here, inexpensive treasures. Dish towels, camping lanterns, Easter basket grass…what couldn’t you get at Sprouse-Reitz? Sorry, but those Dollar Store chains that came along later are only cheap imitations of the real thing. Out of curiosity, did your family call stores like this five and tens or five and dimes?

9. Old-time Coddingtown
Remember Hickory Farms with those pretty strawberry candies in the red foil wrap and the huge boxes of processed cheeses and sausages? Remember the brown and white cow statue stationed outside of it? Remember the Emporium? You could even eat lunch there in the palm-frond papered cafeteria. I remember their pretty pink ladies’ restroom. It had carpet in it! Remember the cigar ‘Indian’ in front of the tobacco shop? I felt a little scared of him. And remember the fabulous fabric stores? There was a House of Fabrics on one edge of the Coddingtown mall and all of the Sonoma County was peppered with totally amazing, beautifully-run fabric shops. Oh, how I miss those. Oh, how mad I feel every time I have to go into the dim, disorganized and poorly-stocked Jo-Anns that is all we have left today. Pardon my sighing.

10. Fireworks 3 Times Every Summer
Did you come to Santa Rosa for the annual county fair? My gosh, that was exciting. Do you remember the Pan Puffs and Rosettes stand with those powder sugared bits of deep-fried deliciousness? How about the Mackinac Island fudge counter with that maple walnut fudge in the brown and white rectangular box? Do your remember the booth in the main pavilion where you would give the attendant a dollar and then draw a card from a file telling you which little glass animal you’d won? Did you go on the Super Loop, the Tobaggon or the Zipper? Did you get sick to your stomach? And best of all, summer in Sonoma County back then meant 3 fantastic fireworks displays. One for the opening and closing of the fair and one for the 4th of July. And now, fireworks are illegal in most of the county. Things sure have changed.

My hope is that the above 10 ideas will start you thinking of others. Whether you’re blogging for your real estate firm, your event planning business or your dog grooming shop, writing about the cherished past not only proves your solidity as a real native but it also has the potential to get your readers into a very good mood. And who will have given them that pleasant glow of memory? You. Entertain and engage your neighbors and plan to start doing business with them when they want the goods and services you offer in addition to your good writing.

Tune in again soon for further SEO copywriting tips for your hyperlocal blog from Solas Web Design.

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While doing some research for a real estate client we’re considering taking on, I noticed an interesting trend in Google Maps I felt was worth sharing, in case others haven’t yet been struck by this.

As we have learned, citations appear to be a major factor in Google 10-pack rankings. If this is new territory for you, let me preface my findings by explaining what a citation is in Google Maps. See illustration below:

Number of web pages referencing a business = number of citations for that business, and research has revealed that citations have a big effect on how well you rank in Google Maps.

While doing this search for real estate agents in Santa Rosa, CA., I was seeing some healthy citation numbers. The company coming up at #2 in my search, Century 21 Alliance, has over 100 web pages referencing them. And, the following illustration will show where the majority of those citations are coming from:

As you can see, it is the individual property listings that are referencing back to the main agency again and again. To my knowledge, building individual web pages for each property an agency is representing is a relatively new trend in the industry. In my corner of the world, I’d say I began noticing these less than 2 years ago. Looks like they may be a smart idea in more ways than one.

Of Interest

• Some property listings are on unique domains, but others appear to be coming from a third party service with multiple listings
• I saw expired listings (sold properties) still being cited by Google. I wonder if they ever disappear from the web?
• While the normal SEO protocol is to keep your content on your own website, here is a good reason to diversify and publish your content (in this case, the properties you represent) on unique, multiple domains
• How much value do these unique domain listings have? There’s something tugging at the back of my mind right now regarding Google’s past policies regarding circular linking, link farming etc. If Google realizes that all of these citations for a business are being published by that business, could that be a problem? It’s one of those stupid things where real life dictates that it’s just good business to do things one way, but Google’s algo disagrees. I don’t know if this could actually be a problem, but I do know that, historically, buying a bunch of domains in order to point links to a master domain has been viewed as spam. The real estate agents are absolutely not doing this with such an intent, but Google’s algo can be a bit unrealistic from time to time regarding intent.

We haven’t had many real estate clients, and if you have, likely this source of massive citations in Google Maps is already well known to you. If you’ve got some information to share on this subject, I’d love to hear from you!

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No doubt about it, Hyperlocal Blogging is not only the next big thing, but it’s also one of the most organic approaches small businesses can take to meet goals of increasing local visibility.

How does one do it? That’s what I’m hoping this blog post and others I’ll be writing in future will answer for you. I’m going to illustrate the basic mindset and method of writing for your neighbors, and for these tutorials, I’ll be using places in California that I know something about. After all, your teacher’s advice to write about what you know best is holding very true when it comes to this new facet of SEO copywriting. As a hyperlocal blogger, your knowledge of your hometown and your personal voice are about to make you a local expert.

Hyperlocal Bloggings Tips for Marin County, CA Bloggers

Situated just north of San Francisco, Marin County has the highest per capita income in the U.S. It has extreme wealth, extreme natural beauty and a reputation for a funny mix of political extremes. West Marin is predominantly peopled by earth-loving liberals, but drive down HWY 101 through Marin cities like Novato and San Rafael and you’ll find yourself bumper to bumper with more BMW-driving tycoons than you’ve ever seen anyplace else in the country.

Try finding a pair of pants for less than rent money at Corte Madera’s exclusive Village shopping mall, or try finding a shoreline more intensly beautiful than the Point Reyes National Seashore - whatever Marin County does, it seems to do to the nth degree. But, this really isn’t any more information than you could find at a glance in Wikipedia. As a hyperlocal blogger, you’re going to go much deeper than this, reaching for the heart of your community in hopes of creating buzz, conversation and business. Here are five excellent approaches you can take:

1. Tap Into The Hometown Pride
Feel-good blog posts that praise your town’s best efforts build community feeling and positive energy. Marin County is currently feeling proud of a local boy who just won an international award for model airplane design. The Sun Valley Community Festival is just around the corner - neighbors whose names begin A-M are asked to bring a salad, N-Zs to bring a BBQ item for the potluck. Got photos from last year’s festival? Be sure to include them in your post about this. Mill Valley is currently making headlines by being one of the first towns in Caliornia to replace traditional street lighting with LEDs. Ask your neighbors if they’ve noticed the lights. You could even contact city officials to get stats on the amount of energy that may be saved by this change.

Remember to be generous in your linking out. Link to the church that’s holding the rummage sale, the political candidate who wants better sidewalks, the elementary school that planted trees on arbor day. Endeavors like these are something to be proud of, and by covering them on your hyperlocal blog, you’ll be showing local spirit and giving praise where it’s due.

2. Recognize Community Concerns
No matter how nice your hometown is, chances are, your neighbors have some legitimate fears and concerns about various elements of daily life. The real estate market is experiencing unprecedented challenges in Marin County right now. Write about it and ask your neighbors to share their worries. Are they facing foreclosure? Having to move out of the county to someplace more affordable? Marin is also feeling some fear right now about gang violence following a bizarre attack by three youths on a total stranger who happened to be driving his car in the wrong place at the wrong time. Law officers are pointing out that graffiti is increasingly appearing on walls around the county and that the time to take this seriously is now.

Let the comments field of your ‘local worry’ posts be the place for your readers to express their concerns and offer solutions to local problems. Who knows, your blog could be the place where your community suddenly mobilizes around a helpful action that is suggested by either your readers or you. By affirming the fears of your neighbors, you will be telling them that their voices count and getting one step closer to solutions.

3. Be An Ambassador
Do you know the scenic backroads of Marin County like the back of your hand? Can you give tips for finding the best Chinese dinner, coziest bookstore or prettiest picnic spot in town? Maybe you have a special hobby like stargazing, birdwatching or bikeriding and can create some customized Google Maps to guide both locals and tourists to hot spots for these activities. Make lists of your town’s greatest assets - things that both neighbors and visitors would love to know about - and craft some simple blog posts detailing these good things. You’re basically acting in the capacity of a tour guide here. Try to end posts like this with some questions for your readers.

Do they know of a better way to get to Mount Tamalpais? Have they eaten at the new Italian restaurant in Fairfax yet? Does anyone know who that statue down on Dillon Beach is supposed to represent? Conversation starts when people feel they have something to contribute. While proudly showing off the things you love about living in Marin County, give your neighbors a chance to show off, too!

4. Get Into The Controversy - Carefully!
You need to be cautious when shining a light on the arguments going on within your community, particularly if your hyperlocal blog is acting as a spokesperson for your business. Political battles can win you a slew of comments, but they can also lose you customers, so think carefully about which topics are appropriate fodder for hyperlocal discussion. Let’s investigate this thoroughly by looking at a cool, warm and red hot example of current local controversies in Marin County.

Cool
San Rafael officials have decided to dig up the lovely liquidamber trees in West End Village because their roots are buckling the sidewalks. The city does intend to replant with less vigorous trees like redbuds, but neighbors are having very mixed feelings about the loss of the trees they’ve enjoyed for years. While it’s possible that blogging about this subject could instigate a shouting match, chances are, by writing your piece well, you can start a conversation where each commenter’s feelings on the matter are honored. It’s not a life and death issue, but it is an important one and could make a good, cool-temperature blog post.

Warm
Marin County is currently debating the installation of commuter trains - SMART trains. The tax burden, the potential for noise and pollution, the change in the landscape are all issues about which Marin County residents are expressing strong feelings. Blogging about these types of issues will lead to debate. Be sure your readers know that you are happy to host passionate discussions, but that name calling and personal attacks are totally against your blog’s rules. (Do write up a page of rules that you can point to at that key moment when Neighbor Jones loses his cool and decides to let everyone know what he REALLY thinks of Neighbor Walsh). Intelligent debate makes for great conversation so long as it’s kept intelligent, and by striving to become the place on the web your community comes to when they want to talk about local controversy, you are working towards becoming an essential resource.

Hot
Tourists visiting the Point Reyes National Seashore are likely to come away with an image of an idyllic, serene Eden. They don’t know what you - the hyperlocal blogger knows - about the impassioned struggle between the National Park Service and the people of West Marin, many of whom would like to kick the Park employees off the peninsula. Park Superintendent Don Neubacher has angered everyone from local politicians to your friend’s grandmother by refusing to accept community input regarding the park. Neubacher is regularly described as a dictator, refusing to acknowledge even the requests of national organizations like the Humane Society when it comes to very distressing issues like exterminating whole populations of cherished wildlife or attempting to force local farmers off of their historic lands.

As a hyperlocal blogger, you know that the feelings riding on topics like these are red hot, and if you really want to sling the fat into the fire, all you’ll have to do is start the discussion. But, be especially cautious here. You need to determine if you’re going to take sides on serious issues like these. Will your ‘voice’ be more authentic if you express real opinions, like a real person? Will it win you fans or lose you business you need? The choice is yours. Choose wisely.

5. Get Down To Business
Though a hyperlocal blog can certainly be a hobbyist pursuit, many small business owners are going to author them as a means of increasing their presence in the community. In such cases, it’s perfectly acceptable to mix business with pleasure. Are you a realtor? Mix in some features on exceptional homes you’re representing, complete with great photos and contact information. Are you a restraunteur? Give away a great recipe for a new dish you’re serving, take photos of events held in your dining room, tout a 2-for-1 special you’re going to start having every Friday night. The trick here is to keep self-promotional posts light and pleasant.

The last thing your blog should read like is an endless advertisement for your business. That’s not going to be interesting to anybody - not even you! By offering tips, advice and tutorials in your area of expertise, you can do much to establish your credibility as a professional. By talking about news in your industry and in your company, you’re proving that you keep abreast of trends and changes. Your challenge here will be to find the right balance between blog posts about yourself and blog posts about your community. Practice should help you to find the happy medium.

Getting Great Hyperlocal Ideas in Marin County California
Sure, you can study Google trends, analyze your traffic and do all the other nitty gritty research work that will hone the effectiveness of your blog, but here are a few other quick suggestions to help you find material to blog about.

The Marin IJ - the main local newspaper - is an obvious starting point for current news, but look a little further than the headlines. The Marin IJ has facilitated commenting on the majority of their news articles. Scroll to the bottom of almost any piece and look at the total of comments. If you see that only 3 or 4 people have bothered to comment on a piece, chances are, it’s not going to be a big conversation starter. But when that number reads 40, 50, 60, it’s time to start blogging.

The IJ tends to be a mainstream paper. Look for the alternative view (so dear to the hearts of West Mariners) in the Point Reyes Light, or the grassy green grassroots Coastal Post (hey, I used to write for them and they’ve got that special Bolinas flavor!).

Be sociable and use Placeblogger to find your fellow local bloggers. Anyone else who is writing about Marin County is now part of your ‘industry’. By getting to know these neighbors, you are not only increasing your chances of getting closer to the heart of your hometown, but you are also promoting awareness of your own blog.

I have no link for my last suggestion, because it involves putting your own two feet on the streets of your town. Talk to business owners. Go to community events. March in the 4th of July parade. In my mind, this is the sterling potential of hyperlocal blogging - the potential to build community in parts of the world that may be full of lonely and isolated people, unsung heroes and struggling small businesses.

My parents are both San Francisco natives and they talk in glowing sepia tones of the vibrant neighborhoods of their childhoods. The culture, the fabulous shops and restaurants, the customer service, the children playing safely in the streets, the sense of involvement and pride. What if hyperlocal blogging can help us move forward toward greater local self-sufficiency and a stronger awareness of the uniqueness of our communities? What if it is the tool that says ‘no’ to Wal-Mart values, and ‘yes’ to the accountability and quality of Mom & Pop?

I truly believe that America is a great country, and that our greatness lies in the lives of the
common folk. As a hyperlocal blogger, you can search for that hidden greatness and tell the story of our lives. Does this idea excite you? Do it well and it might just help you earn a living.

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Feeling excited about Hyperlocal Blogging but still at a loss for how to get started? Solas
Web Design can develop your blog, consult with you, coach you and even write copy for you! We’d be happy to hear from you.

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What could be more fun than getting to design a new logo for a respected colleague whose industry happens to be your own professional passion? When Larry Sullivan asked us if we knew of anyone who could design a new logo for his blog, LocalBizBits.com, my response was along the lines of me, me, me!

All of my friends in Local Search are bound to recognize the homage being paid to the 10-pack by this new logo we’ve designed for Larry and it was a tremendous pleasure to work with him on this.

Larry tells us he’s looking forward to making his blog a better and better resource for Local Search information and advice and his site holds a firm place in our feedreader. Augusta, Georgia is very lucky to have Larry Sullivan as their resident Local Search specialist and we felt very lucky to work with him on this. We hope his new logo will make all of you feel right at home!

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