Planing a trip to Baltimore was too hard. Here’s how better SEO content could have helped.

I am a huge Baltimore Orioles fan. I was born in Maryland and teams I grew up cheering for just kind of stuck with me as I moved around the country.

And somehow, I have never made it to Camden Yards to watch the O’s play. Maybe that’s because really for the last 25 years they haven’t been that fun to watch (they have been pretty bad). But after a surprisingly-great season last year, my wife agreed that it was time to make the trek this summer. As I say to her every year “this may be their year.” But I actually sort of believe it this year. And maybe she does too.

So off to Camden Yards we go this summer.

As I’ve started planning for the trip, I was reminded why content is really a hyper-local game. Make that a hyper-hyper-local game.

I want to tell you why featuring very specific locations, neighborhoods and niches is so important when it comes to list-based content.

1. Metro searches are sometimes too big

When you search for something specific (best pizza spots as an example) in a large metro area, chances are the results won’t be right around the corner from you. You’ll have to decide if those places are worth the drive.

As I searched for things like “kid-friendly restaurants near Camden Yards,” I found lots of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. lists but the places took me pretty far away from where we would be staying and going to the game.

A large metro guide for lists is a good anchor to have, but building off of that guide with location guides by city, neighborhood and attraction is so much more helpful. Sometimes there just isn’t enough around specific attractions to build an entire guide, so in those cases you can frame the story to be within 15 minutes of the attraction. That would have been super helpful in the searches I was doing.

2. Build layers for those popular guides

Let’s take my trip to Camden Yards and share what the most useful SEO content would have been:

• Best hotels or Airbnbs for families near Camden Yards
• Family-friendly restaurants near Camden Yards
• Attractions worth visiting for families near Camden Yards
• Best dessert spots for families near Camden Yards
• Best places to find Orioles merchandise near Camden Yards
• What to see 20 minutes around Camden Yards

Could all of that live in an overall guide? Sure. But building the content out in individual stories adds more value all linked up into your overall guide and simply makes it easier for readers to find content they are specifically looking for around a place. It also creates more indexing opportunities with Google.

3. Let’s create itineraries

While we often think that itineraries are for out-of-town travelers, they can be just as useful for someone who lives locally.

Think about a family in Maryland who also wants to go to an Orioles game but has never gone or hasn’t been in a while. An itinerary on how to have a great day at the ballpark would be really useful.

This could include everything from how to get there, an attraction to see, how to make the experience memorable inside the ballpark and what to do after.

There’s really no ending to this idea as you could build this sort of content out for a family, a couple or an out-of-towner.

This all comes down to making our readers’ lives easier and creating content that is usable. It’s an easy mission to get behind.

I’d love to connect. Email me at david@davidarkinconsulting.com today.