Making Local Online Marketing For Trade Industries More Enjoyable

I always enjoy doing search engine work when there is something fun to promote or a great story behind the content I have. Most SEO professionals help trades companies, like plumbing and HVAC, have to do rather "sterile" work. By this it means in order to improve rankings in search engines, AI LLM platforms, Maps platforms, and video platforms (like YouTube) there usually is:

• Rewritten "how to content" from trade association websites
• Linking to city-specific codes for buildings and homes + local permit information when appropriate
• Lots of link building based on competition analysis
• Press releases which aren't really newsworthy, perhaps something as mundane as hiring two more employees and having an extra truck on the road in order to handle more customers
• Lots of name/address/phone/website small little online directory listings (called "citations") 
• Other "run of the mill" marketing actions

However, occasionally there is some fun content to promote! Getting links from trusted websites, social shares which are naturally-occurring, and image views which get naturally-significant volume sharing happens. This is one such example for Duncan Plumbing in Waxahachie. This photo was given to me and it is part of a larger donation for charity work in the area for an organization which the company supports. The employees wanted to be a part of this photo. 

What makes this different for using later in marketing is the degree of emotion tied to the story.  Once there is genuine emotion, rather than the more sterile online marketing actions mentioned earlier, is that a few things can be done if appropriate.  These include:

• Sharing the image on high-traffic regular social media for branding purposes and actual views
• Sharing the image on new forms of social platforms which help get more links for SEO reasons
• A possible press release can be made around this donation, especially if given to local news outlets & bloggers
• It can be used to help expand into new markets by showing that the company does make donations to charity
• It shows real people who will be answering the phone, showing up at someone's home or building for plumbing, and those who will handle problems
• This justifies a new blog post on the website
• It can be shared on Maps profiles like Google Maps and others
• Even more ways, such as pinning the image in the new web3-based virtual real estate & metaverse platforms