In this article, you will discover actionable link-building tips to improve local SEO for your business.
By the end of this article, you will know how to build local SEO-focused quality links to improve visibility and traffic for your business.
Simply put, link-building for local SEO is the process of building high-quality links to a local business page, listing or website. This improves a local business’s reputation on search engines for quality traffic generation from searches within the business location.
What is Local SEO?
Local search engine optimization (SEO) involves the SEO activities that improve a local business’s appearance on search results like Google local map, Google My Business, local business listing sites etc.
The essence of this is to make sure your business is quickly visible to people searching for it near your location.
When someone searches for something on Google, Google quickly determines the intention of the search query, whether the person needs something around a physical location or wants to read an article on a webpage.
For example, I visited a new city in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to work with a Chinese co-worker who didn’t know where to find a Chinese restaurant.
To discover a closeby Chinese restaurant, I did a quick Google search and the top search result revealed the available Chinese restaurants near us, and we located the place to buy food.
The restaurants that appeared on the top search result have better Local SEO strategies than others.
These are the strategies that will be discussed in this article.
What is Link-Building?
Link building is a popular strategy used to increase a website’s domain authority or a web page’s authority and eventually generate high-quality traffic.
This is how it works.
When you create valuable content on your website or blog, other content creators can link to it (as a resource) when writing a related article on their blog.
The link to your website placed on the referring website indicates that you have useful content on your website.
If the referring website has a good domain authority, it will impact positively your website’s domain authority as well.
When you increasingly receive these types of links from different decent websites, Google then ranks your website pages on its search results, thereby, sending quality organic traffic to your website when people search for related information on Google.
Link building has huge SEO benefits to websites, which is why local businesses need to adopt this strategy to rank their businesses on local search results and generate quality traffic from real people looking for related products or services near their location.
The difference with link building for local SEO is that, it focuses on actionable link-building strategies to attract traffic from people near the location of your business (not necessarily around the web)
Does link building help Local SEO?
Yes, link-building is generally considered a critical ranking factor (among other Google ranking factors).
Benefits of link building for Local SEO
- Improves your business’ reputation on search engines
- Helps to attract traffic from people near your business location
- Brings in new qualified customers to your business
- Improves your business website’s domain authority
- Creates long-term profitability for your local business
Is link building the same as backlinks?
Link building is the process of building quality links from other websites, the links gotten from other websites become the backlinks, technically called hyperlinks.
The key differences between link building and a backlink
| Link Building | Backlink |
| Link building is the strategy | A backlink is an outcome or the actual results gotten from the strategy |
| Link building involves a process/practice. | Backlinks are simply hyperlinks created through link-building practice. |
| Link building is a deliberate practice done by the website or business owner | Backlinks can either be the result of the effort by the website owner or natural referral links created by other people who use your website content as a resource for curating or creating their content. |
What are the 3 types of links?
Before we dive into link building for local SEO, it is wise to talk about the different types of links, and how to carefully apply each (or the most important one) in your local SEO link-building strategy.
There are three basic types of links in SEO.
- Internal links
- Outbound links
- Inbound links
Internal links:
These are links that connect your readers to other pages within the same website.
Content Writers link from their current article to other pages on the same website for on-page SEO reasons.
This is used to keep readers from leaving the website for other websites – It helps to reduce the bounce rate and increase traffic retention.
Outbound links:
These are “external links” that connect your readers from your website to other pages outside your website.
Content Writers link from their current article/content to pages on a different website. This is an on-page SEO strategy as well.
Linking to other websites/web pages with quality articles implies that your website uses quality resources to curate content, which impacts your on-page SEO positively.
Inbound links:
These are links connecting from another web page to your website.
Any link from another website to your website is a backlink.
Whereas, any link from your website to another website is a backlink to the receiving website.
A backlink is a link (technically called a hyperlink) from one web page (the sender’s page) to another web page (the receiver’s page).
Let’s use the table below to recap the key difference between an internal link, an outbound link, an inbound link and a backlink
| Internal link | Outbound link | Inbound link |
| When you link between different pages/articles on your website | When you send readers to another website (external link) | When another website sends readers to your website. (backlink) |
Which link-building strategy is important for Local Businesses?
It depends. Generally, every link-building strategy (mentioned in this article) impacts a website’s SEO positively.
However, if you have a business website with the desire to attract organic traffic to it, you should create quality content and apply on-page SEO strategies.
But the most page ranking and traffic generation factor for a business website (and any other website) is Inbound link building or getting backlinks – this is an off-page SEO strategy.
How to Build Backlinks for Local SEO
There are three strategies to build backlinks to your local business website
Self-influenced backlinks:
When you reach out to other website owners to link to your website, it is influenced by you, this is why I call it self-influenced.
This link-building method may involve paying other content creators to write articles and include outbound links to your web pages.
Another way to do this is to contact other bloggers to publish an article you have written (with some backlinks to your website) on their website or blog.
When I first started link building, I would send out emails to website owners in my niche and ask for permission to write them a guest post. If they agree, I would craft highly valuable articles with “at most” three backlinks to my website.
This strategy works well but requires extra effort, patience and emotional intelligence to accept rejection.
Before emailing a website owner, be sure to evaluate the website and know its domain authority. Don’t aim for websites with very high DA as they may reject or totally disregard your email. Any website between 35 to 60 DA is fine.
Self-Created Backlinks:
These are contents you deliberately create on other guests posting/microblogging sites, forums, Q&A websites and social media with links to your blog, website or business page.
Examples of platforms to self-create links include
- Youtube video descriptions
- Quora
- LinkedIn posts/articles
- Facebook and
- Medium
These platforms already have high DA, so backlinks from these sites can help boost your link-building strategy.
WARNING: Do not build links from crappy content or spammy forums or low DA sites.
Natural Backlinks:
As the name implies, natural backlinks are links you don’t influence, create, or have control over how and when they are created.
A natural link is a link received from other websites without your permission.
If you have great and discoverable content on your website, other website owners will naturally link from their content to yours as a reference point for their content.
This link-building method is gold as it takes no effort from your end.
But you can only get these kinds of backlinks when your website begins to gain traction or receive organic traffic.
Which link-building method should I use?
The three link-building methods are good, with some exceptions to self-created backlinks. Some people try to play smart on Google by posting spammy links on other forums or blog comments.
Lol, don’t do it, these are bad backlinks and Google is smart enough to know. It only helps to hurt your website’s reputation.
How to run a link-building strategy for Local SEO
These strategies can help you build links for Local SEO and improve business search ranking.
Create location-focused website content
The most basic and very effective keyword research strategy (that is always ignored) is the use of Google search queries.
Enter your niche/business keywords on the Google search bar and notice the auto-suggested keywords. These are the keywords that real people are using to search for things related to your business.
Also, scroll down and look at the “people also asked” snipped on the Google search result.
For instance, if you own a Local Delivery and Logistics Business in Texas, USA and a website for bookings.
Write articles that answer frequently asked questions about Delivery businesses in your Location.
E.g How Much do dispatch Riders Charge in (enter your location).
Consistently write detailed articles and answer all the frequently asked questions about your business, including the local location names in your article.
If you do this effectively and publish many high-quality articles on your business website’s blog, your website will rank on Google and become the resource and go-to place for potential customers.
Apply the three link-building methods discussed above to build links to your local business website.
Be patient and consistent. Organic link-building takes time and effort.
I have published a detailed article on how to Write quality SEO-optimised Content, go and check it out here.
Pro Tip: Also update your website’s “Contact Page” and include the physical address and phone number of your business.
Include Your Business on Business Listing Directories
There is plenty of local business listing websites that allow you to claim your business “as they would call it”.
Don’t ignore them, do a google search for Business Listing Directory in {your country) and you will find a lot of them.
Sign up and fill in your business name, phone number and address.
Most of them allow you to create a brief post about your business with the option to include a link to your business website.
In 2008, I started a local phone accessory shop in Ikom, Cross River Nigeria, and as a novice in the marketing world, I was looking for the best ways to increase visibility for my budding business online.
A close University classmate had once mentioned Vconnect to me (a business listing website), and out of curiosity, I signed up and listed my business.
It’s over 10 years today, and I still receive calls from people who found me through Vconnect, asking to pay for my products (sadly the business does not exist anymore).
But, you can imagine the power of this local SEO strategy.
List your business in many listing and directory websites as possible. Include links to your website (if they have the option)
Some popular listing websites include
- Thomasnet
- Yelp
- BingPlaces
- Yellow Pages and
- FourSquare
Note: These are global business listing directories, they may be local to people living in the US. Find listing websites in your country if you live outside the USA.
Create Google Business Profile
Google has 93.37% of the Search Engine Market Share.
What does this mean?
This simply means 93.37% out of 100% of the people using search engines prefer to use Google instead of Bing or Yahoo.
This is insanely huge, but wait, Isn’t this an opportunity for you?
Is your business listed on Google yet?
If not, you are missing a local SEO opportunity.
Listing your business on Google provides the opportunity to get noticed when someone “looking for location-specific information” searches for a company like yours on Google.
You can link to your website from your Google business (formerly known as Google My Business) profile.
Search Engine Journal has a very detailed article on how to claim your Google Business profile.
Boost Your Local SEO with Online Reviews
Reviews work like magic.
Any local business needs reviews to stand out.
When people search for local businesses on Google, they look out for what other people are saying about the company or brand.
This is proof that the business has been performing well and is worth dealing with.
This is undoubtedly a Local SEO strategy that most people ignore.
It may not be directly a link-building strategy, but it is an SEO booster.
Ask your customers to write reviews for you on local review websites.
Search for review websites in your location or country. Focus on local review websites in your location or Country.
Some Business Listing and Directory websites (mentioned earlier) also allow reviews.
Google Business Profile allows your business to get listed on Google and get reviews as well.
Point your customers there.
What if you are just starting with no customers?
Begin to provide services or products to people (free of charge if possible) and ask for reviews in return.
Redistribute Your Existing Content
Did you know that Medium, Quora and LinkedIn can allow you to create and publish free articles about your business?
You don’t need to write new articles, use the already published articles on your website and republish them on these microblogging platforms.
Will Google penalise me for republishing content on other websites ?, at the moment, No.
But don’t publish a newly written article on other websites before publishing it on your main website – you will be penalised for plagiarism.
Here’s the trick. Quora, Medium and LinkedIn already have a high Domain Authority.
You may be lucky to get republished content to rank faster on these sites than the originally published version on your budding website with low DA.
Neatly link from these sites back to other relevant articles on your blog.
This method has worked for other people.
This is the “Self-Created Backlinks” Strategy mentioned earlier. Don’t misuse it. Use it reasonably.
What’s Next?
Launch Your Link Building Strategy for Local SEO
I am sure you found value in this article.
But you can only get results if you put in the hard work to apply the actionable steps in this article.
People say action speaks louder than words. This is absolutely true.
If you need support to implement these strategies and more, Contact me and book a free consultation. I am available to help you to get results.