SEO is a lot easier if you’re in a major city. You get more traffic, more links, better rankings etc. But if you’re not based in NY or London, it can be very tricky to break into the top search results.
That’s why local link building is so important: it helps small businesses rank for local searches and attract new customers who are searching for their products or services in their area.
Donate to local charities and get a link on their website.
Donating to a charity is one of the best link building tactics out there. Charities are always looking for donations, so they’ll be happy to give you a link on their website in exchange for your donation. To make this tactic work well, you need to donate to a charity that’s relevant to your business, has a good website and is an appropriate fit for your business.
If you’re not sure where to start with local charities, use Google or another search engine like Bing or Yahoo! and perform an advanced search by asking it: “charity + city name” (e.g., “charity + New York City”). This will bring up all kinds of local charities and nonprofit organizations that might be interested in receiving your money.
Sponsor a local sporting team.
Sponsor a local sporting team.
This tactic is great as it allows you to get your brand in front of a whole new audience, but also helps build trust with your existing customers. If you are looking for a sponsorship opportunity, then look no further than local sports teams and clubs. Sporting clubs are an easy way to get links from high-quality websites because they already have an established following online and have the ability to reach out directly to their fans with great content that can be shared on social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter
A good example is [COUNTRY] Football Club which has more than 1 million likes on its Facebook page, so if you’re looking for an affordable link building strategy then sponsoring them could be right up your street!
Attend local events, expos and fairs to network and build links.
Attending local events, expos and fairs is an excellent way to network with other business owners and build links. While you may have a link building strategy in place, these types of events are an ideal opportunity to meet people face-to-face.
By developing relationships with your peers, you’re more likely to get a foot through the door when they receive requests for content creation or link outreach. In addition, while at the event, take care not just to hand out business cards – ask them directly if they would be willing to provide any editorial coverage on their site/blog/social media page (or whatever platform is relevant). Most importantly: don’t expect this person to simply hand over their website link; instead be ready with something of value for them in return!
Get some press coverage in local media outlets.
It’s not easy to get press coverage. In fact, it can be downright challenging. But here are a few tips on how you can increase your chances of getting some coverage:
- Before you pitch, make sure that you have an up-to-date and optimized press kit. Your kit should include a professional logo in both vector format and PNG file format so that editors can easily use it as needed. Also include images of your team members and their bios; the editor will want to know who is writing the article.
- If possible, keep things simple by pitching one story at a time instead of sending out multiple pitches at once (which could come across as spammy). You don’t want to overwhelm busy journalists with information overload or confuse them with overlapping ideas.
- Make sure that all relevant info is included in each pitch—you don’t want any questions left unanswered! “What do I wear?” might seem like a silly question but if there’s nothing else provided besides “Hey there! Here’s my blog post about X…I’d love if you could write about me :),” then it becomes clear why this person may not hear back from anyone right away!”
Send your products to bloggers for review, with the expectation that they will link back to you.
- Send your products to bloggers for review, with the expectation that they will link back to you.
Blogging is a great way to get local links. As a blogger myself, I know how much we love free stuff! In fact, we often go out of our way to find new products that are interesting and useful—and then write about them on our blogs.
Sending products for review isn’t as easy as it sounds though. You can’t just email any random blogger and say: “Hey, do you want this?” You need to build relationships first before pitching your product or service.
I know from personal experience that bloggers are always looking for new products to review. The key is finding a blog that covers your area and contacting the blogger about reviewing your product.
List your business on relevant directories, including Google My Business, OpenTable, Yelp and TripAdvisor.
Google My Business is one of the most important local listings, because it’s where Google will show your business on its search results. It’s also linked to from other sites like OpenTable, Yelp and TripAdvisor. The best part about getting listed on these directories is that they are free!
If you haven’t set up a Google listing yet, go here: https://www.google.com/business/. Once you’ve created an account, you can add all other relevant directories in one fell swoop. They’ll ask for various information including address, phone number and website URL so make sure those are correct before submitting your request to be listed.
It’s also important to keep all of this information up-to-date as often as possible so if anything has changed since last time (like address or phone number) just go back into each directory and update it accordingly with accurate information
Offer advice and insight on forums and opinion sites like Quora, Reddit (or even LinkedIn!).
Offering advice and insight is a great way to build links, but it’s also an excellent way to build your brand. You get to know what people want from you (and what they don’t), and you can use this information for future content creation efforts. Plus, the forums where users ask questions or post comments are often well-trafficked sites in their own right.
This strategy works best if you’re not just writing lengthy answers—you should try incorporating links into those answers whenever possible! Also remember that these aren’t necessarily generic “I like ice cream” type of opinions; they should be more like “How do I build my email list?” or “What’s the best way to create high-converting landing pages?” This will help make them more useful for the audience in question.
Invite bloggers to write about your brand on their websites.
A great way to get links from other websites is to ask bloggers who are interested in writing about your business for free. Bloggers often write about topics that are relevant to their readers, so if your brand offers services that could interest a blogger’s readers, this tactic can be successful.
If you’re hoping to get the most out of this strategy, offer to pay the blogger for his or her time and effort (or offer another incentive). In some cases, promoting a local business may not be worth it for an influencer—but they might be willing to write an article or post if they receive compensation. If you want more control over what kind of content is published on other people’s websites, consider hiring an SEO agency instead of reaching out directly yourself!
Link out to other local businesses, organisations and people as much as possible.
As the name suggests, local link building is all about building links from local websites. To build these types of links, it’s important to remember that your target audience isn’t just people in your city or town – it includes anyone who lives nearby and could potentially be interested in what you have to offer.
So how do you go about finding these people? There are two ways: either by using a tool like GoogleMaps or MapQuest (formerly Mapquest), which will show you where people live around an area; or by searching for websites that cover smaller areas within larger ones. For example, if I was looking for sites based out Ontario – which could include Toronto and its suburbs as well as other cities – I would type something like this into Google: “ontario website directory”.
Once you’ve found some potential sites, here’s how to use them as sources of backlinks:
SEO is not just about what you do on your site; it’s also about what you do offsite too.
- Link Building is a Long Term Strategy
Though you can buy links, link building really needs to be a long term strategy. This means focusing on building quality links over time rather than just buying some cheap ones and hoping they work out in the end.
- What You Do Offsite Matters Too
Your website isn’t the only place that needs to have a lot of backlinks pointing at it—you need other sites linking back to your site too!
Conclusion
By now, you should have a good idea of how to get started with local link building. Remember, the first step is always to identify your target audience and what they want from your business. Then, focus on building relationships with them through social media and email marketing campaigns. If you’re lucky enough to live in an area that has a community full of bloggers and online influencers who are interested in writing about local businesses like yours (or if there are some nearby), then reaching out directly may be worth considering as well. Finally but not leastly – do some research on how other local businesses are approaching their digital strategy so that you can learn from them too!