If you run a local business, you know that visibility in your community is key. It’s no longer enough to just have a great product or service. Getting the word out can sometimes feel like shouting into a void.
This is where learning how to start local link building comes in. Local link building can make your brand more visible to potential customers in your area.
Online, your business exists within a vast network of websites, directories, and platforms. Building connections within this network, or link building, is essential to boosting your local SEO. So how do you get started?
This guide provides a practical, no-nonsense approach to how to start local link building and getting those valuable local links.
Understanding the Power of Local Backlinks
Let’s be clear: a local backlink is simply a link from another website that points to your website. Not all backlinks carry the same weight. Links from websites that are relevant to your business and have authority in your local community carry a heavier punch.
These links act as votes of confidence, boosting your website’s credibility in the eyes of search engines like Google. This can result in higher search rankings and better local visibility.
We know those coveted top spots are super valuable. Research shows that over 67.6% of clicks are claimed by those first five organic search results.
How To Start Local Link Building: 8 Practical Strategies that Work
Knowing how to start local link building starts with choosing the right strategies that bring the highest impact. Below, we’ll cover tactics tailored for local businesses. This will help you create a link-building strategy for your small business.
1. Claiming Your Spot: Local Directories and Citations
The foundation of a good local link building campaign? That’s easy: make sure your business is accurately listed in online business directories. Think of business listings as online yellow pages.
People often turn to these when looking for specific services in their areas. According to research, it’s actually as high as 94%.
Think about it from a consumer perspective. When you’re looking for, say, a bakery in your city, wouldn’t you go straight to Google? Listing your business in relevant local directories does two major things.
It builds credibility and helps increase those all-important local citations.
Don’t spread yourself too thin – focus on quality over quantity. Google My Business is non-negotiable (we’ll talk more about this soon.). You should also be in major platforms like Yelp and industry-specific directories that are relevant to what you do.
2. Tapping Into Your Community: Local Partnerships and Sponsorships
One of the best ways to get noticed locally is through authentic community engagement. Building relationships with other area businesses in your community opens doors to invaluable link building opportunities. Supporting a local cause close to your heart doesn’t just build goodwill.
It could also lead to high-quality backlinks from a respected organization’s website.
It goes beyond charitable causes. Consider local events, workshops, or even sponsoring a little league team. These are all awesome opportunities to embed your business within your local community and get local backlinks.
This shows potential customers that you care about where you do business.
These partnerships will likely link to your website on their “sponsors” or “partners” pages, giving you relevant local backlinks. Fusion Accountants are a great example of how this strategy can work well for building strong local links.
3. Become a Resource: Creating Valuable, Localized Content
Everyone craves content that answers their questions or offers something helpful. Creating engaging, informative content centered around your local community will bring people to your site organically. Hopefully, it will encourage other local websites to link to you as a go-to resource.
Consider blog posts about upcoming events. You could also create guides about hidden gems in your city. Maybe insightful articles on local business trends would be a good idea.
Consider adding internal links to your content, as this is a good way to improve your site’s SEO backlink profile.
To really step it up a notch, consider what kind of resource your ideal customer would find genuinely useful. Maybe it’s a map of dog-friendly parks (for a dog walking business) or a free downloadable template (for a business coach). Getting creative with this can lead to natural, organic backlinks.
4. The Power of Guest Blogging for Local Link Building
Guest blogging is still highly relevant if done strategically. A great piece of content for another local site will, at the very least, drive more traffic to your own website. As I mentioned above, traffic is the most valuable SEO ranking signal.
Look for local bloggers, businesses (with blogs.), and publications that align with your niche but are not direct competitors. This article on the margarita’s origin in a London food magazine is a perfect example of building local links by leveraging your expertise in a related field. Approach them with content ideas, but make sure they have a track record of strong readership.
After all, you are investing your time and effort. You want a decent audience seeing it, right? Make sure that you are only getting quality links when you do guest posts. You want links from sites that have a good domain authority.
5. Engaging Online: The Local SEO Power of Community Forums
I can’t stress this enough: becoming an active, participating member in local Facebook groups, Reddit communities, or forums for your town or city can pay off in unexpected ways. For instance, if there are any questions you can answer within your field, helping others by providing insightful comments positions you as a local expert while providing valuable backlinks back to your website.
Always check the forum rules first to make sure that you can add links.
Local colleges often have online forums. Targeting local colleges is a great way to get backlinks from education sites, which are considered an authority site by search engines. Also, if your business targets local tourists, it’s a great idea to get your business listed on travel sites or local news websites.
6. Optimizing Your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Did you know that more searches are done on Google than anywhere else? With so many potential customers starting their online journeys here, you want your Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) to shine.
Your GBP is like a digital storefront. It shows up in local searches and in Google Maps results.
Google research tells us that 76% of people looking for something in their local area will end up visiting the business within the day. If you are an online business, you don’t need to worry as much about this step. Instead, focus on online business directories.
What makes a strong GBP for local link building? This starts with the basics: complete and updated contact information, accurate business hours, and a captivating description. Here are some tips:
- Choose relevant categories: This helps Google categorize your business accurately.
- Visual Appeal: Use high-quality images of your product, team, or workspace.
- Encourage Customer Reviews: Google reviews significantly affect your search ranking.
- Respond to Reviews (yes, all of them.): Taking the time to acknowledge customer feedback shows you care and goes a long way in building customer trust.
Remember, most potential customers use reviews to guide their purchasing decisions (we all do it.). In fact, it’s reported that 82% read online reviews to get informed about the business.
7. The Power of Scholarships for Building High-Authority Links
This one’s a longer-term strategy, but high reward. It involves creating and offering a scholarship for students in your local area and involves a bit more planning and upfront costs, but it’s a great strategy if done well. The strategy centers on building relationships with colleges and universities. This guide shares everything you need to get started.
You can get featured in relevant listings and educational domains. Imagine you’re getting a backlink from your local university website. You also open up doors to local media coverage. Just imagine how powerful it’ll be to send a press release announcing your scholarship program and having it picked up by a top tier news outlet like The Wall Street Journal.
8. Staying Alert: Don’t Underestimate Brand Monitoring
Being in the loop is important, especially for noticing opportunities as or even before they present themselves. Tools like Google Alerts can be incredibly helpful for tracking online mentions. Head over to this link and set up a free alert to receive an email whenever your business is mentioned or if you find an unlinked brand mention.
This helps you monitor the conversations happening around your brand. More importantly, you can see where your business is being talked about without a backlink back to your website. This gives you an opening to connect with website owners to ask politely for that link.
These outreach efforts not only create new relationships but also strengthen your website’s link profile, boosting its ranking in the process. Use SEO tools to find backlink opportunities on relevant sites.
My Summary
Knowing how to start local link building doesn’t have to be intimidating. The strategies we’ve discussed show you it’s within your reach.
Remember, every link is an opportunity – building strong links will boost your website’s visibility, strengthen your connection within your community, and ultimately, attract more local customers.
Good luck, I’m rooting for you.
FAQs
How much does link building cost?
The cost can really vary. You could focus on building these links organically by yourself, which would require minimal financial investment (more on this in the section about directories). However, this method could be more time-consuming than paying for these services from an experienced professional.
Hiring someone might require a larger investment depending on how experienced the person or agency you choose to work with is. But, it could also be more costly because their processes for getting links are more sophisticated than someone just starting out. Many factors will determine how much to pay someone based on what services they offer.
Some popular methods experienced professionals offer that often get much quicker results include:
Link reclamation from lost link opportunities.
Broken link building.
Relationship building.
Using HARO (Help A Reporter Out).
Competitor analysis.
Content marketing, such as guest blogging or offering free tools on your website.
How can a beginner build backlinks?
Getting started with backlinks as a beginner doesn’t have to be hard. Actually, some simple and highly effective tactics will get you noticed quickly by Google while also keeping your costs to a minimum if you are choosing to bootstrap things instead of paying for these services.
Here’s a few link-building tips for someone just starting out:
Create guest posts or blog content for sites related to your business – You have particular expertise that others might be dying to know. Share that knowledge. By becoming a local subject matter expert in your community, you establish a level of trust with those you connect with. Sharing is caring as the old adage says.
Create or update your Google Business Profile – It’s free, super easy, and is often an overlooked way to get some initial local citations while you focus on other tasks related to running your business.
Join local business groups or networking organizations – Some groups offer free tiers of membership that can cost as little as nothing, and it’s also a great way to expand on your existing networks by leveraging relationships you might not already be utilizing.
Look for opportunities on social media or even Meetup.com . Meetup.com is an amazing (and affordable way.) to network and see what kinds of regular local events are taking place that you might not already be aware of. Some groups allow you to add a link to your website.
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