With over 1 million social media followers and recognition as a top web influencer by The Wall Street Journal, Neil Patel stands as one of today’s foremost experts in digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).

As the co-founder of companies like Quick Sprout, NP Digital, Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics, Patel has helped Fortune 500 companies and startups alike improve their organic rankings and online visibility. His bestselling books and articles offer data-backed advice on today’s most effective SEO approaches.

For small businesses and startups specifically in North Carolina looking to boost their local SEO, Patel’s innovative perspectives on content freshness, backlink building, and conversion rate optimization provide invaluable direction. By combining Patel’s cutting-edge insights with a deep understanding of issues facing NC businesses, local companies can carve out a strong presence online.

  1. Content Freshness: Vital for Local Engagement
    • In SEO Techniques to Boost Organic Traffic, Neil Patel stresses the importance of content freshness, stating, “The biggest thing that companies should be doing that they’re not doing is updating their content on a quarterly basis for all their money pages.”
    • Search engines prioritize up-to-date content, making regular updates a cornerstone of SEO success. This is especially true for small businesses in North Carolina, where local relevance and community engagement are key.
    • Refresh a variety of content types – from blogs to product pages – to maintain relevance and show search engines that your site is a thriving source of current information.
  2. Backlink Building: Strengthening Your Local Network
    • Backlinks are crucial for building online authority. For North Carolina businesses, acquiring links from local and regional websites can significantly boost local SEO performance.
    • Creating valuable local resources or participating in community events can provide natural backlinking opportunities. Empasize quality backlinks over quantity, partnering with reputable local businesses and organizations.
    • Patel recommends creative approaches to link building, suggesting, “You take tools that people are used to paying for and create them for free.” An example would be a catering company website that creates an interactive calorie and/or carbohyrate calculator for their visitors to use for menu planning.
    • You can find an excellent starter guide to building backlinks for SEO at QuickSprout.com

A Localized Approach to SEO for North Carolina’s Small Businesses

For startups and small businesses in North Carolina trying to rank better locally, search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial yet tricky on a limited budget.

The key is specializing - tailoring efforts around reaching local searchers. This means optimizing for North Carolina keywords, engaging localized content, and building regional signals. Illustration of a local business with a conceptualized storefront illustrating local SEO

Here are 5 economical tactics to improve local visibility:

Hyperlocal Keywords

As Patel stresses, carefully researching the exact terms North Carolinians use to find local businesses, then targeting those organically, can give you an edge over competitors still adhering to broad national keywords.

Optimize Listings

Refreshing and fully completing Google My Business listings establishes relevance. Patel specifically advises using attributes like images, service descriptions and reviews.

Localized Content

As Neil Patel advises, regularly refreshing your site’s content to stay relevant is vital for SEO success. For North Carolina small businesses, this means publishing locally focused articles tailored to serve your community.

Here are some examples:

  1. Restaurant
    • Profile of local farms supplying seasonal ingredients
    • Interview with city health inspectors on changes to codes
    • Lists of local food and wine festivals to experience
    • Best practices for reducing food waste
  2. Retail Store
    • Roundup of emerging fashion trends in the Triangle
    • How retail spaces to conserve energy with air conditioning
    • Highlighting products from local designers and craftspeople
    • Sales tax policy changes affecting Winston-Salem businesses
  3. Landscaping Company
    • Profile of a public garden project beautifying downtown Asheville
    • Interview with arborists on erosion control
    • Native North Carolina plants guide
    • Upcoming home and garden shows to connect with customers
  4. CPA Firm
    • Breakdowns of latest small business tax incentives
    • Profiles of underutilized NC community development grants
    • Changes to state accounting licensure and requirements
    • Roundup of technology simplifying bookkeeping workflows

Geo-tagged Posts

Patel is very active on Instagram and encourages geo-tagging content to increase visibility. This surfaces your brand to nearby searchers.

“.edu” Backlinks

Earn authoritative backlinks from local schools’ websites, which Patel suggests focusing on over quantity. Identify faculty and staff focused on issues relevant to your business and offer useful data and resources in exchange for backlinks from .edu sites.

For example, a landscaping company could provide a local university’s botany department with native plant guides and research on erosion control. In turn, the company links and credentials are referenced in the department’s online soil resources.

Another approach is sponsoring annual scholarships or competitions at regional community colleges related to your field. This earns an ongoing backlink as the recurring programs refer to your business as the founder.

The key is giving academic institutions highly relevant resources aligned with their educational focuses. Whether one-off data or continuous scholarship funds, you become a trusted partner to schools while securing valuable .edu backlinks that bolster local SEO authority.

Building website backlinks for NC businesses

Specialized SEO Drives Local Opportunity

By tailoring online visibility efforts directly around North Carolina customers and searchers using methods like localized content and link building, small businesses can gain an extra edge over competitors still taking a one-size-fits-all national approach.

Investing even small resources into focused, hyperlocal SEO initiatives pays dividends through increased sustainable organic traffic, meaningful customer connections, and long-term local authority.

Our team understands the challenges small business owners face and wants to help. If your business serves customers in North Carolina and you want to carve out a stronger local presence, contact us for a personalized consultation. As Neil Patel has highlighted, even modest but strategic efforts to specialize for NC can make all the difference.

RankPDQ: Tailoring SEO Strategies for North Carolina’s Unique Market

We’re a leader in local SEO services, specializing in elevating the digital presence of startups and small businesses across North Carolina, from Asheville to Wilmington, and especially our hometown, Winston-Salem. Our approach melds Neil Patel’s global insights with a deep understanding of the local North Carolinia markets, offering strategies finely tuned to the state’s unique business landscape. Let’s talk–we want to help make your small business stand out from the crowd!