With the rise of online shopping and easy access to information about businesses, there has been a significant shift in how we market our companies. This is especially true for small businesses that rely on local customers.
Local link building is an effective way to generate website traffic that’s specific to your location. This ensures that you rank better for those who search for your business near you. However, it can be a tedious process. It takes a lot of time and effort, so you want to make sure you have a system in place to maintain it over time. Here are some tips on how to do just that.
Research Your Competition’s Top Links
Before you start your link building campaign, it’s important to research how well your competitors are performing. You can use a tool like Ahrefs to check how many backlinks your competitors have, and for what keywords they’re ranking.
Your strategy going forward will depend on whether it’s worth targeting the same keywords as your competitors, and you feel confident you’re able to outrank them, or if you need to target some alternative keywords.
For example, your competitor might be ranking well for “exterior painting service in Minneapolis“, but they aren’t targeting other search queries like “best house painting company in Minneapolis“. This is one of the strategies that the best link building services would recommend, and perform for you if you decided to hire such services.
That’s just an off-the-head example, but you get the idea. Looking at your competitor and deciding whether you’ll be able to outperform their link building efforts for the same keywords, or you need to target alternatives, is the bread and butter of your link building.
Guest Blogging in the Local Space
Guest blogging is one of the best link building strategies, but it’s a different ballgame for local businesses. You won’t be targeting high authority, international websites for your guest blogging opportunities – ideally, you’ll be reaching out to smaller regional publications.
Not only does this give you access to a local audience, but it provides a good link profile on the back of your guest blogging. This will help to increase your online visibility in the area, and help you to link out to other local sites that are relevant to your target market.
Craft Content for Local Search Results
When searching for local businesses, people will generally phrase their Google queries differently compared to when they’re searching on a broader spectrum. As we mentioned above, people will be entering queries like “exterior painting service in <location>”.
With that in mind, creating on-site blog content that targets local SEO is the best way to achieve results in local SEO. This is why it’s important to have a well thought out blog strategy that focuses on the local area.
This could include things like:
- Highlight local landmarks
- Create a directory of local resources
- Highlight local events
The more local content you publish, the more you’ll have to work with when it comes to creating an engaging blog that hits on these keywords.
Have the Patience to See Results
It generally takes around 11 months to see peak traffic results from a link building campaign, according to SEO experts LinkBuilder.io – and that means you’ll need to go into a link builder campaign with an open mind. You’re going to need to have faith in the process and not give up on it during that 11 month period, or you’ll risk losing your momentum and falling off the map.
The good news is that a link building campaign for local SEO shouldn’t be as competitive as a campaign for a national company. The key is to be persistent, set a realistic timeline, and, most importantly, just be patient.
It’s important to acknowledge the little milestones of success, rather than constantly focusing on the end goal. A campaign can’t be instant or successful if it’s not comprehensive enough to be worthwhile.