Building local links to a business website involves creating contextually and locally relevant links. The website must drive traffic and users to the site to rank better in local searches and on suitable map packs. This article consists of seven strategies for link building for local SEO.
1. Get links from other ranking sites
A Barnacle SEO method involves simply searching some relevant terms in Google and then getting links from top-ranking sites that appear.
Most likely, your competitors won’t link to you but will instead look for aggregators and directories. Typically, these types of sites are used by people when they are shopping for a company. Therefore, you will usually be listed there if you sign up and add your business.
2. Get links from your competitor’s websites
You probably have a lot of contextually and locally relevant link opportunities if you look at the overlap of links between your competitors’ websites. You’ll see which sites link to your competitors (but not to yours) when you add your site and your competitors to the tool.
Several links specific to your niche can be found here, as well as many directories. Name, address, and phone number are often included in these directories, called local citations.
3. Reclaim lost links
Many websites have replaced their pages over time, so links to them may no longer work. You avoid losing links by redirecting outdated versions of your sites to the latest versions.
4. Create locally relevant content
Creating content is to determine what topics will attract your target audience and then plan, create, and publish content on those topics that interest them. Regarding local content, think about what’s valuable to your business and relevant to your audience.
5. Get local citations
Citation services abound, but for us, these are the ones you may want to consider in addition to sites that rank in your market. Furthermore, these are the most critical citations since they feed their data to other websites.
Main US aggregators:
- Data Axle
- Localeze
- Foursquare
Other major players:
- Google My Business
- Bing
- Apple Maps
6. Add internal links
Internal links are a powerful link-building tactic. Your site is also a local site, and you control it.
7. Claim unlinked mentions
Brand mentions without a link to your website are when other sites mention your company or your employees without linking to you. To succeed with this strategy, you need to be involved in a niche covered in the media, such as lawyers or your company, or if you already have an active community.
Conclusion
Building links is a crucial part of local SEO as it increases the visibility of your website and brings in targeted traffic. You can dramatically raise your local search rankings by implementing the following seven techniques into practice: securing links from other ranking sites; examining and utilizing competitors’ backlinks; recovering lost links; producing locally relevant content; maintaining local citations; adding internal links; and arguing unlinked mentions. These techniques ensure that your company ranks higher in results for local searches and is easier for prospective clients to find.
FAQs
Why does my business need local SEO?
Local SEO is essential because it makes your company more visible in results from local searches, which facilitates local clients finding you. More traffic, more leads, and eventually more revenues can result from this matter.
How can I locate the websites that link to my rivals but not to me?
Utilizing SEO tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush, you may examine the backlink profiles of your rivals. With the help of these tools, you can see which connections your rivals have, which will help you find chances to obtain links comparable to your website.
Why are local references important, and what are they?
Online references to your company’s name, location, and phone number are known as local references (NAP). They are crucial to local SEO since they support search engines in verifying the legitimacy and applicability of your company in a particular area, which raises your local search results.
How do I reclaim lost links?
Use resources like Ahrefs or Google Search Console to find inactive or out-of-date links that address your website to recover lost links. To be sure that users and search engines are led to the proper pages, create 301 changes from the old URLs to the new ones.
What type of locally relevant content should I create?
Produce content that speaks to your local audience. Some ideas include case studies of nearby customers, city or area guides, blog entries about local events, and customer testimonials. Making your website a useful source of nearby data does two things: it engages your community and boosts your local SEO.