Link building for local SEO is significant for your business. It is one of the best ways to make your business visible to your clients and increase local traffic.
It is also among the popular methods you can use to stay ahead of your competition. You only need the right link building tips for your business to become authoritative.
Before diving into link building tips, there are facts you need to understand. Local SEO started becoming popular on 24th July 2014 when google introduced the pigeon update.
This is an algorithm that Google uses to provide accurate local search results.
Ever since its introduction, local SEO has become widespread and widely used among local businesses to improve their ranks on local organic results.
Kind of Businesses that should really focus on link building for local SEO
Although all businesses should focus to a level on Local SEO, below are the businesses for whom local SEO is utmost important, we have classified them under 03 heads:
- Professional Services: Dentist, Doctor, Lawyers, Plumbers, Pet Services…
- Local Shops: Boutiques, Restaurants, Bars, Gyms, Grocery Shops…
- Online only stores: Boutiques, Ecommerce stores
By improving their ranks in the local search engine results page, customers start focusing on them. This will end up having an impact on their sales.
The good thing is that, unlike general SEO, the results for local SEO show sooner. You need the right strategy to achieve the required results.
Below are some of the most crucial link building tips for local SEO. These tips have been put to the test and found to be very useful.
By applying them, your business website will rank higher, increase traffic and generate more revenue.
Always make use of NAP citation
Making use of citations is a creative way of link building. When talking of citation, it means providing accurate information about the location of your business.
It is commonly referred to as NAP which stands for Name of the business, Address and Phone number.
There are two types of citations: structured citation and unstructured citation. Structured citation involves mentions of your business included on reputable business listings websites like Yellowpages.com and Yelp, among others.
The unstructured listing, on the other hand, involves mentions on a newspaper website, blogs and government websites.
Getting a mention from any of those sites without a link is not that bad, but you should strive to get both. That the only way you will be able to build your links.
When getting citations, you mustn’t get too much. Getting mentions from quality sites alone is more important.
Ensure that you get listed on at least the top 50 general citation sites in your country. At most top 20 cites in your state that are industry-specific and at least top 2 cites in your country that is city-specific.
With those listings, you will be able to build your links. You should then go ahead and compare your listings with that of your competitors to see which quality sites they have mentions that you don’t.
Make use of location citation finder to get that information. So why is your NAP necessary?
Google tends to crawl through all the quality listing sites looking for your NAP. If it finds that your NAP is listed on most of the quality sites, it becomes assured that your business is legit.
With that assurance, you become highly ranked on the local organic results.
Don’t forget to make sure that your NAP citation is consistent throughout. Any minor inconsistency will send a signal that your business site is not legit.
Take Advantage of your existing relationships
Making use of the current relationships you have is one of the best link building idea that is guaranteed to work. First, you can start with personal relationships.
Who do you know that can give you a link? Think of it as a way of brainstorming. For instance, if you run a hotel. You can get links from your cousin who owns an area guide firm.
You can also get another link from your brother, who owns a travel agency.
Those are two guaranteed links that you can quickly get without straining too much. Once you are done with those people whom you work with regularly.
The grocery store that delivers grocery every morning for you to prepare fresh meals. You can also use the design company that is in charge of branding your business.
There are so many other people you do business with that will give you a link. Remember, 90% of vendors love showcasing their happy existing clients on their websites.
That is so that they can prove to prospect customers that their business is the best in the industry.
In an error where every business has a reputable website, you will find it quite easy to accumulate a couple of links from your existing relationships.
It is a hustle free method, and it is a method that guarantees links.
Testimonials, Give something to get something
There is a phrase that states “nothing comes for free.” You can use it to build your links in a straightforward but creative way.
Try and think of how happy you become whenever a client leaves a positive comment or review on your website? That is precisely how other business owners feel.
So make use of that feeling to get a link. First, you need to go through your list of businesses and see which vendor has been doing great work, and he or she is thrilled working with you.
If they have a website, tell the owner that you will leave a positive comment in exchange for a link.
No one will let that opportunity go to waste because they have a brilliant idea of how a single comment can go a long way in convincing clients.
Once you come up with an agreement, go ahead and drop a testimonial on their review page. You will, in return, get your link.
Do this for two or three businesses and see how many links you end up collecting. You will not only build quality links, but you would have also spend lesser time collecting them.
That is how local business links are created.
Come up with local contests
Sometimes you need to go the extra mile to get what you are looking for. This tip tends to work effectively, but first, you need to make sure that you be creative with the contents of the contest.
After competing, you need to offer giveaways to winners and even runners up. Once you figure out what the competition is all about and what giveaways are alluring enough, take the next step.
Create a buzz around the contest. You can make a guest post about it and also come up with a press release. This is to ensure that the contest is marketed widely.
The beauty of using contests to build links is that they will not only offer you links. They will also create traffic and increase the number of prospect clients.
So how do you get links with this tip? You have to use high rates, local bloggers. Use them to publicize your contest and by doing so, ask for links in the process.
If done right, use of contests and giveaways will end up earning you quite a considerable number of links.
The other positive part of using contests is that they don’t have to relate to your industry.
It is, however, essential that you use industry-related contests for you to get industry-related links as well as traffic that is related to what your local website is offering.
Carry out an event or fundraiser
Creating an event or fundraiser is one of the best ways to gather quality links all at once. Just like using contests to build links, events and fundraisers require you to be very creative.
For instance, if you are a doctor and you run a clinic, you can make use of the position to come up with an event.
For an event, you can go ahead and offer free checkup camp where you provide free checkup for blood pressure, blood sugar levels, HIV/AIDs testing and many others.
Publicize the event by posting about it and creating a press release to inform the masses.
What usually happens is that local newspapers will end up publicizing about the whole event. You may also get mentions on magazines and local online news website.
This will be followed by a link that is quality enough to make you rank high.
For the fundraiser, you can go ahead and select a specific institution that is looking for funds for a particular project. This may be a local shelter, children’s home or hospital.
You can then go ahead and advertise that half of your profits will go towards helping that institution for a particular project.
The first link you will get is one of that institution if at all it has a website. You will then get links from local newspapers and blogs that will be posting about your project.
This is an event that can be carried out by a local firm that owns warehouses and even a boutique.
Offer scholarships to students
When it comes to building links for local SEO, offering scholarship is always an opportunity that you should never ignore.
All you have to do is come up with a list of high schools and colleges that you wish to sponsor.
Using that list go ahead and inform the administration that you wish to offer sponsorship to a student or several students. The trick is to gather as many high schools as possible.
Once you give the information, you will end up on every sponsorship page of that high school you are sponsoring.
This way, you will be able to build quality .edu links that will give your site authority on local SEO. The only problem with this method is that it requires you to spend a lot of money to get a link.
But you can also sponsor them to inform of books, uniforms and many other ways.
Keep in touch with the links you have built
After building links, you should not switch off and forget about them altogether. It is always a good idea to keep in touch.
This step may not only enable you to keep those links active, but it can also add you other links in the process. So go through your links existing links.
To do this, you will need to make use of SEO SpyGlass to come up with the list of your links.
Once you have the list, go ahead and update the backlinks. This will enable you to see which backlinks have been removed and which ones remain.
For every link that remains slide a thank you note as a reward. You can also reward them in other ways that you feel as more effective.
This is a form or keeping in touch that will end up adding you more backlinks.
Guest post
Guest posting has always been the best way to build links both generally and locally. All you have to do is come up with a list of websites that allow guest posting..
You can then contact the webmaster and offer your writing services. With guest posting, you can always link your website whenever you write content that is related to your niche.
So how does guest posting work? This is where someone has a website, but he or she doesn’t have time to post fresh content. They thus look for someone to do that task for them.
It usually provides a very great opportunity to build links.
As seen in the post, link building for local SEO requires both hard work and patience for you to come up with quality links.
This is the only way you will rise above the ranks and become visible on the local organic search results.
Always remember to go for quality links and not just any link you come across. Keep in mind that one quality link is more important than a list of links that have no value.
With these link building tips for local SEO, you will be able to generate traffic, increase sales and get more prospect clients.
