One of the most important parts of an SEO campaign is building backlinks, as they play an essential role in improving a website’s rankings. However, when you’re optimizing for a local business, the process is a bit different…
Generally speaking, link building consists in obtaining backlinks from high authoritative domains. As many as possible, that is! However, this way of thinking might not always be that relevant for a local business.
A local backlink is created with the intention of building relevance for a website towards its locality. Besides this, online marketers also focus on correcting N.A.P (name, address, phone number information), as well as building up a list of citations and creating hyperlocal content, as part of a local SEO campaign.
Completing all these…tasks will establish a presence within the SERPs for local terms and the organic search results for geotargeted keywords.
Ok, now that we’re all aware of the importance of local SEO, let’s see which are the first steps we should follow in order to build some valuable backlinks for a local business.
Citations are essential
Building citations, alongside finding general directories and checking you are currently in are some great starting points. You’re basically placing your name, address and phone number – NAP information – on various websites and put down a link as well, without looking like you’re a spammer. And these various websites can actually be seen as relevant results for specific searches, as long as the query is low enough in competition.
Basically, by building citations you’re putting your business’ name in as many sources as possible.
Start finding link opportunities
Some people say that local SEO is not that beneficial, as the links might not look natural. Let’s say that, in some way or another, this is actually true. But this is where creativity comes in, as link opportunities are much more limited since you’re trying to rank well for hyperlocal keywords which usually get a lot of search volume. And you’re trying to do something with websites with low authority…
In this case, you need to start looking for link building opportunities where you usually wouldn’t for a regular, not-that-local website.
Start with local newspapers or media outlets, reach out to local bloggers or event pages focusing on what’s happening in your area. Local businesses with a partners/businesses we love page can lead to some great backlinks as well. Finally, don’t forget about charities or foundations, as they will always be happy to link back to you in exchange for a small sponsorship. Again, it’s all about creativity.
Analyze your competitors
There are several backlink analyzing tools which can give you valuable insights on how your competitors managed to obtain some valuable local backlinks.
The idea is simple: make a list of competitors and see what backlinks they have acquired in the past. Compare their backlinks with your current link profile, remove all the backlinks you have in common with them and go after those you don’t have but your competition does.
If all these tips sound great, but a bit hard to implement, you can leave it to ISEOU, as building local links and taking your website to the top of the first page is just one of the things they’re great at. Make sure you contact them and see how you can conquer local SERPs together!