Backlinks, also known as inbound links, play a crucial role in most types of search engine optimization (SEO), including local SEO. They are essential for improving a website's visibility and credibility, and can help improve its position in local search results.
What Are Backlinks?
In the simplest of terms, backlinks are links from another website to yours. They are like votes of confidence from other sites, indicating to search engines that your website is a valuable resource worth linking back to.
Backlinks are a key ranking factor for search engines like Google, as they help search engine crawlers determine the relevance, authority, and credibility of a website in order to rank it accordingly.
Building high-quality local backlinks can give you a competitive advantage over other local businesses in your area. By outranking competitors in local search results, you can attract more local customers to your business.
The Role of Backlinks in Local SEO
In the context of local SEO, backlinks are particularly important for establishing your website's authority and relevance in a specific geographic area.
Backlinks from other authoritative websites can boost your website's authority in the eyes of search engines.
Local news sites, community organizations, local blogs, and other local business sites are some examples of sources that can provide valuable local backlinks.
Backlinks from websites in the same geographic area or industry as your business can also further improve the relevance of your website for local searches.
For example, if you run a bakery in New York City, a backlink from a local food blog can help improve your website's relevance for local searches related to bakeries in NYC.
How To Build Local Backlinks
Now that we understand the importance of backlinks in local SEO, let's explore some strategies for building them:
- List Your Business on Local Directories
- Form Local Partnerships
- Offer Local Sponsorships
- Create Local Content
- Do Guest Blogging
List Your Business on Local Directories
Submit your business to local online business listing directories, including the big ones like Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, and Yellow Pages, as well as any smaller local or niche directories you have access to.
Online directories often allow you to link back to your website in your listings, providing valuable SEO-boosting backlinks.
Not only that, but listing your business on locally relevant directories also serves the additional purpose of creating local citations (online mentions of key business information) for your business, aiding your local SEO efforts even further.
Form Local Partnerships
Partner with other local businesses and organizations to throw joint events, participate in community initiatives, or collaborate on content. Such partnerships are mutually beneficial because they can lead to backlinks for both of you.
For example, let's say you're building backlinks for a restaurant, and you partner with a local clothing company to throw a pop-up brunch and clothing sale at your location. The clothing company might then write about the event on their blog and link back to your site, creating a backlink for you, and you might write about it on your blog, creating a backlink for them.
Offer Local Sponsorships
Another way to get backlinks from other local organizations is to sponsor local events, sports teams, or community projects. For instance, you might sponsor a local charity basketball game, a children's baseball team, or a community garden.
Many organizations offer backlinks as part of their sponsorship packages and will write about sponsors on their own sites, providing you with a local SEO boost — not to mention you'll be spreading more roots in the community!
Create Local Content
Produce content that is highly relevant to your local audience and publish it on a blog within your site. High-quality, locally relevant content is more likely to attract organic backlinks from local websites, as it is very referenceable and "linkable."
For example, you might write a guide to your favorite local businesses or a news story about something going on in your community. Then, local influencers or other businesses might naturally reference your article and link back to it from their own sites.
When writing content for your site, make sure to also take the opportunity to make it super local SEO friendly by including a good mix of locally relevant keywords, which will increase the chances of different pages on your site showing up in local search results.
Do Guest Blogging
Last, but certainly not least, on our list of ways to build backlinks for local SEO is to do guest blogging, which involves writing guest posts for other local blogs or publications in exchange for a link back to your site.
For example, if you're doing local SEO for a coffee shop, you might write a guest post for a local influencer's blog about the most trendy coffee beverages of the season. Or, if you're doing local SEO for an auto mechanic shop, you could write a guest blog on the top ways to prepare your car for winter.
Guest blogging not only earns backlinks to your website, but also provides opportunities to showcase your expertise and reach a new audience, potentially boosting your business even further!
Key Takeaways
Building backlinks is a fundamental aspect of doing local SEO, as backlinks play a critical role in enhancing a website's visibility, credibility, and ranking in local search results.
Search engines essentially see backlinks as votes of confidence from other sites, signaling to their algorithms that your website is a valuable resource worth linking to.
Strategies such as listing your business on local directories, forming partnerships with local businesses, offering local sponsorships, creating local content, and engaging in guest blogging can all contribute to building a strong backlink profile for your website.
By implementing these strategies and focusing on building relevant, high-quality backlinks, you can improve your website's authority, relevance, and visibility in local search results, ultimately driving more traffic and customers to your business.
Plus, many of the strategies for building local backlinks we've gone over provide additional benefits, such as helping you establish a stronger presence in the community and reach a wider audience.