It is undisputed that links still have a major impact on rankings in 2019. And while it’s a more well-known fact, many small businesses and business owners still underestimate the power of link building. The fact of the matter is linked to defining the authority of a website or domain – which is what Google takes into account when ranking pages. If you care about your site’s ranking, you should spend time and effort building quality links. Link building is a building block of the overall SEO strategy and is not considered or pursued alone.
In addition to the SEO strategy, the brand building itself and a high-quality website with relevant and good content play an equally important role. But link building is a good way to gain a competitive advantage, especially at a local level. Additionally, every expert in the survey confirmed that link building improves local search rankings, with more experts citing this activity as important this year. So local link building is key. Numerous “normal” link-building tactics can and should be used for local SEO. However, I want to show a slightly different approach here.
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Why Building Local Links Should Be A Little Different
The reason why local SEO, and especially local link building, should be done a little differently can be boiled down to a core. When you enter keyword phrases with “local intent,” like “pet shop near me,” Google uses a separate algorithm to get location-specific to get results. I want to share with you six local link-building tactics to help unlock new backlink opportunities to boost your local business and rankings.
Find Out Your Competitor’s Backlinks
Who doesn’t feel like spying on their competitors a little? In any case, SEO people like it. Identifying your top competitors’ backlink profiles is the best link-building strategy for two reasons as a first step:
It’s a good opportunity to explore the local competition
You can walk this path with others and look for new backlink sources yourself. There are tools for this, such as backlinktest.com.
Anyway, it’s a good way to see how your site is performing compared to the competition and understand what makes a particular competitor stronger than you. At the end of this process, you will clearly understand what aspects of your backlink profile need improvement and what backlinks you have in common.
Submit Guest Posts On Local Websites
So, content marketing is still on the rise in 2019 and is unlikely to change anytime soon. While guest blogging (i.e., guest blogging, meaning a “guest” posts or you as a guest with someone else) takes time and effort, it will pay off with links, visibility, new audiences, and relevant traffic. But first and foremost, quality guest blogging starts with finding relevant opportunities. Since we are talking about local link building here, it is important to look for local blogs. This is usually time-consuming and expensive, depending on where you are. Type a few keyword phrases that describe your niche/industry into the search engine – try combinations with “blog,” etc. Once you have found suitable websites, you “only” have to write a great post with a few links to your website and present it to the people responsible for the site. Don’t worry. A request for good content is always welcome.
Benefit From Unlinked Mentions
Unfortunately, many customers who talk about your product or service online don’t bother to link to your website. Therefore, the chances are high that there are countless unrelated, i.e., the unlinked companies that bring you much less profit than they could. So I suggest finding unlinked mentions and turning them into links. It used to take a lot of work to keep track of unrelated brand mentions. Using a tool like Awario makes tracking, segmenting, and getting more out of your mentions easy. You’ll have to go through them now to find the ones that aren’t linked. The only thing left to do is to get in touch with the authors and ask them to make a small adjustment to the text link that mentions your brand. Of course, to reach these people, you need their email addresses. This is where a tool like hunter.io comes in handy.
Enter (Or Have) Entered In Local Business Directories
Source building is another important strategy for gathering local links. Local testimonials do a very good job of helping users discover local businesses. But most importantly, they can improve your local search engine rankings. For those who need to learn what a reference, byline, or attribution means, it is when your business’s name, address, and phone number are mentioned together. Mentions may appear in local business directories, websites and apps, and social platforms. The easiest way to create something like this is through local business directories. Typically, each city has a few small listings, so finding relevant ones and getting your business listed is easy.
Write About Local Events
Creating “link-worthy” content is another way to improve a backlink profile. Since you know that people are always interested in events happening in their geographic areas, you can add a “blog” section to your website, for example. There you can post information about local events or news. Likely, people interested in local markets, garage sales, and garage sales will link to you. This way, you kill two birds with one stone – more traffic to your site, and you get local links.
Contacting Local Influencers
Influencer marketing is also on the rise. According to BrightLocal, the most valuable strategy for building local backlinks is connecting with other businesses and influencers. If you are looking for local influencers in your niche, consider state/city/”official” websites, local news media, or just bloggers in your area. Their practice is that they are relevant to your niche. If you run a local coffee shop, try reaching some sites that list local restaurants. Speaking of bloggers, you can offer them a collaboration — you can offer them your product or service in exchange for a link.
But there’s another approach: once you know who to reach out to, look for events they might be hosting or attending shortly. Attend the event, meet them in person and see how you can help each other.
Track The Results
Link building is important, but keeping an eye on your links is no less important. So, they need to be followed to know if the links are still active and have yet to be followed. Tools do the job here too.
Conclusion
Finally, link-building is more important and will be around for a while. Links take time to build, but link-building should become a long-term recipe if you want to improve your rankings. Please remember that since you are building local links, it is better to look for links from your area. Also, it would help if you tried to favor high-quality links relevant to your niche, and your rankings will develop faster. I linked one or the other tool in the post. These do not have affiliate links. I don’t use any linked tools. They are meant to be examples only as they abound. Fire up the search engine, and you’ll be bombarded with comparisons, tips, etc.
Also Read: 5 Proven Local SEO Tips To Dominate The SERP And Map Listing
