11 Local Link Building Strategies for Businesses

Finding the right local link-building strategies for your business can be hard, but it doesn't have to be.

With our local link building guide and list of implementable local link-building strategies you will find it much easier to get local backlinks.

Local link building with the right local SEO strategy is the perfect way to bring your business to the next level.

Building links to get high-quality local search results is a piece of cake with the right local link-building tactics.

What Is Local Link Building?

Link building is the process of getting links to a website. Local link building refers to the organic rankings of words related to search results in local Google searches and also helps target a wider local audience. Building locally relevant links involve gaining links from websites near your business.

A company with a small operation located within New York with excellent local links is likely to be popular in the local community.

Local linking has lots of benefits because you improve your local SEO results, leading to higher traffic from your local community. Bright local found that 100% of local SEO experts think local link building is effective at boosting a business's local search rankings. Local linking is the way to go if you want better search results locally for your own website.

Using local linking can differentiate between your local company failing or succeeding.

The best way to get local links is to have a clear-cut link-building strategy. You will find a straightforward way to get local links below:

  1. Check the domain authority and relevance of websites you are interested in to see if getting local backlinks from their website will be worth it.
  2. Build a spreadsheet of the nearby websites you would like to acquire local backlinks from.
  3. Use one of the strategies mentioned below to get a backlink from that local business.'

There are two challenges with local links: Knowing who to reach out to and knowing how to get them to link to your own website. A robust link-building strategy makes getting those local links for your company's website a breeze. Below you will find local link-building strategies that will bring your local link-building endeavors to the next level.

Find Sponsorships

Finding opportunities for sponsorships is a great way to strengthen your link-building strategy. Make sure any sponsorships are relevant to your business. Good entities to sponsor are local charities, suppliers, and events. Sponsoring a local event is a great way to get noticed in your community. Sponsoring local entities is a great way to get your business's name into the community. You will get relevant referral traffic and land your business in the conversations of potential local users.

With sponsorships, a big deal is which entity you are associating with. Are you associating with a company everyone in your town loves? If so, that association will look very good for your business. You want to be careful beforehand and avoid associating with a business with a bad reputation.

Make sure the sponsorship is fair for both sides, and you get valuable backlinks from the arrangement.

Discover Broken Links

Most local businesses aren't monitoring their links closely. Broken links are links on their site that no longer work; thus, the link is "broken." Finding broken backlinks will need the help of a link building tool like SEMRush or Ahrefs.

Once you find broken links on their website, contact them and share a link of similar content to what they originally had linked. Building local links by helping nearby businesses fix their broken links is a great way to get more referring domains and help other businesses.

When looking for broken links to replace, ideally, you already have content that makes a suitable replacement. If you lack the content to replace a link you want to grab, make it. Getting links isn't easy. Chances are, if your competition is talking about a topic, you should also consider writing about the subject.

Finding broken links and carefully looking over what your competition is linking to will give you an edge over other local companies.

Work With Local Bloggers and Influencers

An incredible strategy for acquiring local backlinks is working with local blogs and influencers. You may offer them cool perks in exchange for featuring you. Excellent perks to give are your product or service. Working with local influencers and bloggers gives you more links and increases your website's traffic.

Get started finding local link-building opportunities with influencers and bloggers by compiling a list of who you would like to work with. Then contact them and discuss the terms of your agreement.

Creating strong relationships with local influencers and bloggers in your niche can single-handedly bring your business to prominence in your city. Leave them with a favorable first impression. Treat them well, perhaps even give them more than they give you. Having those with influence in your local area like you will prove helpful long-term.

These influential figures will more likely want to talk about you more in the future if they like what you are doing and what you stand for. They may even talk about you in a positive light without you even asking.

You want influential figures in your local community to love your business because it will make you look good and bring you more opportunities to acquire links.

Make Social Media Profiles

Social media platforms are practically waiting for you to use them to acquire backlinks.

  1. Create your social media profile on a popular social media platform such as Instagram.
  2. Link your own website in your bio.
  3. You now have a backlink from one of the highest domain rating sites on Google.

Making a social media profile is a great way to get a backlink from a high-quality website, but don't stop there. Continue posting on your social media platform and linking to your website. You will bring traffic and be making more links to your website.

Social media should be a key part of your local SEO strategy and is a terrific method for acquiring high-value backlinks.

Use Local Business Directories

What's so great about local business directories? They are a long list of businesses in your area. Getting into local business directories is a great way to get yourself in the forefront of the eyes of many. Typically there is a fee for joining one, but the traffic and opportunities are well worth it. There are extensive business directories, such as the Better Business Bureau, but you won't find these too helpful for improving local search engine rankings.

Finding local directories isn't a walk in the park. The search process on Google for finding these directories may seem daunting, but with the right tactic, it's a breeze. Use Google's advanced search to see a particular phrase or keyword in your results.

Advanced Google Search helps you find local business directories in your area.
Find nearby business directories with Advanced Google Search.

A local phrase you may search is "Local Business Directory New York." Local directories are a great way to get your business out there and find other businesses in your area.

Find Directories for Your Industry

Online business directories in your area only do half the job. Finding industry-specific directories is a great way to build connections and get high-value backlinks. Getting these high-value backlinks will make your website more reputable due to the higher number of high-level referring domains. Getting individuals already interested in the same industry as yours to come to your site will get local leads closer to being ready to buy.

Finding industry-specific directories is much the same as finding local directories, and advanced search is your friend and is excellent for finding directories. In advanced search, your target phrase for finding niche directories in your industry may be: "directory for doctors."

Taking advantage of industry-specific directories is the perfect way to bring your business into the eyes of many.

Work With Local Newspapers, Communities & Forums

Local newspapers, communities, and forums are a great way to get into the heart of your local area. Getting on a local newspaper or into a local community or forum takes some work. It's worth the work because you may potentially get beneficial backlinks in the process. Getting backlinks on local news sites is a great way to get in front of your local audience. Google's advanced tool for search is perfect for finding local newspapers, forums, and communities. You may use target phrases such as:

  • business feature
  • local business feature
  • small business feature
  • business spotlight
  • local business spotlight
  • small business spotlight

Do your best to reach out to them with a proposition that also genuinely helps them. Such as your business being something their audience would like and encouraging more people to look at the local news or participate in communities and forums.

Keep in mind that unlinked brand mentions are also valuable. An unlinked brand mention is when your brand is mentioned but not linked to. The more people see your brand and see the reasons why they should get involved with it; the more people will talk about your brand and buy from your brand. If the newspaper, community, or forum isn't willing to do a link, getting an unlinked brand mention is a valuable option.

Get into contact by finding their point of contact online or submitting a press release; you can then see if they will feature your content on their website. You will get a backlink if your content is featured on their website.

Working with local newspapers, communities, and forums is a great way to acquire valuable backlinks in your local area and get your business more attention.

Monitor Backlinks of Competitors for Relevant Opportunities

Your competitors are the perfect way to find your next backlink. By monitoring the backlinks of similar businesses, you can see their backlinks, and you don't. Then you can go for the backlinks you don't have yet, filling gaps in your backlink profile and becoming fiercer competition for your competitors.

Ahrefs and SEMRush are fantastic tools for monitoring your competitor's backlinks. SEMrush lets you see the backlink profiles of your competitors' websites, which will show their backlinks totals, page, the domain's authority, and any shared backlinks or referring domains between your competitors and your site.

You will easily find places where you overlap and where there's a disconnect. You may fill in the holes of backlinks and domains you are missing compared to your competitors to strengthen your backlink profile.

Monitoring your competitors' backlinks will ensure you have the same high-value links as your competitors. You will gain an advantage as you will have all the high-value links you have, and they don't, along with their high-quality backlinks.

Find Local Businesses to Write Guest Posts For

A good technique for a local business is to write guest posts for nearby businesses. The benefit of guest posting is getting local links to improve your domain's authority and local search rankings.

The process of how to guest post is straightforward.

Start by compiling a list of local blogs and websites for which you want to make articles into a spreadsheet. Then reach out to them to see if they would be interested in having your business write a guest post. The more authority the local blog or website has, the better the quality of the link will be.

It's also better to pick local blogs and websites relevant to your business. So, if you have a photography business, you want to reach out to other local photographers or blogs about photography. You would not want to reach out to a fitness blog or a website that does tech reviews. Your sites don't have similar audiences, so there will be a low conversion rate from their site to yours, and the link won't be very high quality.

Once you have a list of local businesses you want to write for, you may either write yourself or find professional SEO writers or local bloggers.

Create Local Resources and High-Quality Content

Being a source of information to nearby websites is a great way to get local citations, bringing you links and traffic. A local resource page is a great way to create high-quality content that others will cite. Don't compile every local resource you can find; gather local resources which help a person looking for specific information.

Another great way to get local citations is to create high-quality content. A study or survey in your local area is a great way to great content that sites in your area will find helpful and cite. Acquiring local citations is all about creating content that deserves to be cited.

Write About Local Events

Writing about local events is a great way to provide high-quality content for locals. Create a local event page that helps them find information about the event. Include resources and valuable insights about what the event is like and how to participate. By writing about local events, businesses in your area will link to your content as the go-to resource for learning about the local event.

Discover Listings of Local Businesses

You can find local business listings using Google search. You may search for relevant local websites based on the niche you are looking for. You may find businesses based on location, which is helpful for local link building. Below you will find a combination of queries for finding local businesses:

  • [location] business listings
  • [location] local businesses
  • [location] business directory
  • [business niche keyword] business listings [location]
  • [business niche keyword] local businesses [location]
  • [business niche keyword] business directory [location]

SEO Tools for Local Businesses Doing Link Building

Tools out there will help you gain an advantage over other local businesses. Building links needs to be an efficient process to maximize the payoff from the time investment and any money invested in efforts to acquire links such as guest posts. Getting an edge over local organizations takes using a local link-building tactic they aren't using.

Using high-quality tools is the perfect way to make your business website grow in traffic and surpass your competition.

Build Links With Authoritative Websites

It's essential to know how prominent a website is and if working with them will be worth it before you reach out to them.

A website's domain authority is an influential factor in how getting a backlink from them will impact your own website's domain authority. Another significant factor is relevance; Google likes it when you build relevant referral traffic from referring domains with links that feel natural.

Checking a site's backlinks is handy as it can tell you their domain authority. Figure out website domain authority and total backlinks using the free Ahrefs' Backlink Checker. Once you know the site's prominence, you may decide if it's worth working with them.

Monitor Backlinks Like a Pro

Majestic SEO is the way to go if you want to monitor your website's backlinks.

Majestic SEO has two indexes: Historical Index and Fresh Index.

The Historic Index is a database spanning the last five years that contains trillions of unique URLs.

Fresh Index has pages and links from the last 120 days. Fresh Index is useful for finding any links you may have lost recently. Fresh Index is useful for seeing how your rankings are affected in the short term by link campaigns.

Use Majestic SEO to level up your SEO strategy.

The Solution to Competitors Attacking Your Rankings

Be careful of competition in your local community trying to tear you down with bad backlinks. Disavow links let you command Google to disavow certain links directed towards your site.

The Penguin algorithm update released in 2012 penalizes sites that spam their pages with backlinks. The algorithm helps cut down on pages trying to exploit backlinks, but it also allows dirty competitors to spam links to your pages to bring you down.

Suppose you and a business located in your area are in a close competition where the success of one of you means the failure of the other (or they don't like your business). In that case, they may resort to spamming links to your pages to ruin your rankings and reduce your local traffic.

You may combat low-quality links by disavowing them with Google's Disavow links tool, and Google will ignore the links you disavow when assessing your site.

Make a text file full of low-quality backlinks and submit it.

Disavow harmful links to your site to protect your domain.

Frequently Asked Questions

Local link building has many exciting intricacies and knowing the complete picture helps you take advantage of local SEO to its fullest extent for your business. You will find answers to questions you might have below and valuable pointers.

What’s a Local Backlink?

Local backlinks are a crucial part of improving your local search results. You may acquire local backlinks by getting links from local sites. Local backlinks improve your rankings in local search and, in turn, lead to more local traffic and potentially more local customers. Local backlinks help you make your website more known locally and can increase your popularity in your local market.

How Much Does Link Building Cost?

Paid link-building costs a lot and is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

Instead of risking your website getting penalized, organically build links by engaging in organic link building. Organic link building includes the strategies mentioned prior in this guide.

How Do I Learn More About Local SEO?

The easiest way to learn about local SEO is to take a course or read an article about it. SEMrush has a brilliant local SEO course for free, designed to give you a good overview of the inner workings of local SEO.

Neil Patel is a local SEO expert; he has built a successful blog on his own and learned everything there is to know about SEO in the process. His local SEO guide will help you understand the advanced parts of local SEO.

Why Do I Need a Local Link Building Strategy?

Using a local link-building strategy makes sure you stick to what works. Having a clear-cut strategy saves you time and money. Those without a clear local link-building strategy may flounder and waste valuable resources. With many local businesses, you may only get one shot to reach out to them, so make it count using one of the high-quality local link-building strategies mentioned in this guide.

It would be best if you had an established local link-building strategy in case you expand your team and they're unsure of what to do regarding link building.

Does My Local Business Need to Build Local Links?

Whether or not your business needs local links depends on your business specifically. A restaurant or store benefits from having local links to nearby sites as it will bring more people to their establishment. If your business is less about the local area and more about selling products globally, local link building may not be as important for you.

Even for those who don't sell most of their products locally, local links can help strengthen your business at its center point (where it's located), such as bringing more local attention from people looking for jobs.

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is SEO on a local scale, and it's how you rank high for local search results. Building links from your local area, such as inbound links from local schools, local communities, and nearby websites, makes it easier for you to rank on local search queries.

Are you wondering how to have your location appear in a local search? Showing up in local search is easy using Google's tools for ranking on local search. Create your GoogleMyBusiness page and fully complete it. Then, you will show up when people search 'near me' after their search.

Example of how local SEO can help restaurants get more customers.

Make sure to leverage your pre-existing site to strengthen your best local pages. Point your internal links towards the pages you want locals to see most; this will direct backlink juice to your priority pages.

How to Create Locally Relevant Content?

Content development in local businesses is generally less crucial. Local content may not generate much and should not be your primary focus. Combined with other strategies mentioned previously, local content may help attract your desired target audience. Consider the type of content the locals seek.

If you want to beat your competition, it is good to look over the reviews of companies you regard as competition. See what the locals think and prefer from those businesses. Looking over a local company's reviews will help you understand what the locals enjoy and how you can improve your business for the locals.

Armed with the knowledge of where your competition is missing out and where they are hitting the spot, you can create more relevant content for the audience you are competing for. As you create better content and deliver better services, their audience will start choosing your company as their favorite.

How Many Local Links Should I Aim for in My Local Link Building Plan?

Your link building plan based on your goals. If you want to bring as much traffic to your website or doors as possible, the more local links you get, the more traffic you will get, so go for many local links on local websites that get many visits each month.

If you are instead focused on a niche target audience locally, such as wanting to have your site seen by business people who like golf in your area, you will only need to get local links from the sites they visit. Sites people in business who enjoy golf may visit include golf websites with high-end products.

If you are building local links to reach a target audience, research them and put yourself in their shoes. What are their goals? What would they search on the web? Why would they search that on the web? Asking yourself the right questions and knowing your target audience helps you reach them by getting local backlinks on suitable sites.

The amount of local links and which local links you should get depends entirely on your business goals.

How Can I Supercharge My Local Link Building Efforts?

If you want to supercharge your local link-building efforts, it takes starting local link-building with the right resources. Local link building will be much easier for a business with a strong reputation, connections with members of companies in your area, and a team knowledgeable about local SEO. Getting local SEO visibility is all about finding something to leverage to get local links.

Connections with other local businesses and companies will help you majorly in the long run. Those connections mean they can recommend you to other websites to get you more links and contacts. The more you have to leverage to get local links, the better. Maybe for you, it's all your local SEO knowledge.

What Does the Perfect Local Link Look Like for My Website?

The perfect local link for your website is a mix of being local and relevant and the site having high authority. A site with high authority linking to your website will improve your local SEO significantly. The link becomes even more valuable if the site has high authority and is relevant to your website. The power of the link in local SEO rankings depends on where the high authority site's activities are.

You want to find the perfect balance between being local and valuable; that is where you will find the ideal local link for your website.

Conclusion

Winning in the search results of your local area is as simple as using the proper local link-building strategies. With the methods and techniques in this guide, you will be well on your way to surpassing your competition with your brilliant local SEO.

Don't worry if this process takes a little while. Links are precious, and many site owners know that. If it takes you a little time to get the first few, that's ok because eventually, you will get the hang of it and expand your site and the team even more. Once you've expanded, getting local links with a link-building team will be much easier.

Building links in your local area is all about building connections, so keep reaching out and creating high-quality content. After you've contacted some sites in your area and done good work, you should try to form a good connection with them. It'll be likely that they will be open to doing more work with you in the future and can always recommend you to other local sites that you can work with.

Be the local business everyone wants to work with by providing equal value in return for backlinks. If you're interested in getting better SEO results, but don't have the time to manage out - check out our link building service.

Ajay Paghdal
Outreach Labs Founder
🕒 14 mins read
Last updated on
Nov 01, 2022

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Article by
Ajay Paghdal
Outreach Labs Founder
Ajay enjoys tinkering with new link building strategies, building teams and processes around it and in general, has enjoyed being a part of the industry for the past decade.

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