Local link building is essential for local
search engine optimization (SEO) because it shows Google that your website is trustworthy and relevant to location-based searches.
Local SEO is a powerful digital marketing strategy for businesses that want to attract and retain more local customers.
When customers see your business on the first page of Google search results for geo-targeted keywords, they’re more likely to visit your site, contact your business, and purchase your product or service. Learn more about local link building to boost your local SEO and drive more business!
What is Local Link Building?
Local link building is the process of acquiring backlinks (i.e. links from external sites that point to your site) from local websites to increase your business’s visibility in search engines and around the web. It’s important to note that backlinks should be acquired “naturally” which basically means not buying or selling links — a ‘black hat' SEO practice that goes against search engine guidelines.
Having a local link building strategy offers a variety of benefits like:
- Improving organic search ranking positions
- Increasing referral traffic to your site
- Enhancing perceptions of your brand
- Building relationships with other local sites
- Increasing your content’s visibility
- Promoting your brand to new local customers
Now that you understand what is local link building and its advantages, let’s review some link building tactics you can incorporate into your strategy.
15 Local Link Building Tactics
Acquiring backlinks naturally is all about building relationships and providing value. Other people won’t link to your site if your business has a poor reputation or low-quality content. While there are many link building tactics beyond what’s listed below, here are 15 ideas to help get you started.
- List your business on local business directories
- Build relationships with local media outlets
- Pitch newsworthy ideas to local magazines or newspapers
- Guest blog with local bloggers
- Collaborate with local influencers
- Create local-focused content
- Be a sponsor at local events
- Join local business associations
- Interview a local expert
- Do partnership campaigns with other local businesses
- Participate in local charities
- Enter your business in local awards
- Launch a local contest
- Create your own local meetup group
- Give local discounts
To find more link building tactics, explore other local businesses to see where they’ve acquired local backlinks. This will provide some insights into how other businesses have built backlinks in the same local space. Additionally, find businesses with a lot of traction and run their site through a link analysis tool to reverse engineer their local backlinks.
Gain More Local Customers and Traffic
Local link building is a key component of an effective local SEO strategy because it will drive more customers and referral traffic to your business. Without local SEO, your business will be less competitive online for attracting and retaining local customers because most people don’t go past the first page of Google search results. Take advantage of local SEO's many benefits through a strategy crafted by experts.