Earning links for your local business starts with evaluating your organization’s values and making a genuine impact in your community.
Getting backlinks is like getting regular exercise. It’s time-consuming, and the results aren’t immediate, but a daily workout contributes to your long-term health.
In local SEO, getting backlinks is particularly challenging. Small businesses often don’t have the same resources as an enterprise organization for links. There’s not enough time, money, and energy to build a local backlink profile.
However, limited resources don’t have to limit local link building opportunities.
Often, local businesses do more to support local link growth than they realize. By defining the types of local links, we can reflect on an organization’s values.
Typically, local links are less about developing stellar PageRank and more about building relationships in the community.
4 common types of local links
These are the most common types of local links:
Citations and data aggregators.
Community engagement.
National and local awards.
Relevant local content, campaigns, tools, reports, and studies.
Each type of local link requires a slightly different approach, but they all contribute value to the local community.
Citations and aggregators help customers find phone numbers and addresses, while local awards help customers trust the business.
Achieving local links that will truly impact growth requires a shift in mindset.
Instead of thinking about links as an SEO “to-do” item, think about them as an opportunity to connect with your neighbors.
The best local businesses are known less for their SEO and more for their community involvement.
A company that raises funds for a local charity or sports team can receive more local recognition than a business with great title tags.
A company that does both of these things can win at local SEO.
Let’s dive more into each type of local link below.
1. Citations and data aggregators
Local business citations, also known as online directories, are a well-known local link building tactic. Here, a business’s basic information is listed across websites that resemble a phone book.
The SEO theory behind citations: by submitting location information across a network of online profiles, a local business establishes online consistency for its name, address, and phone number (also known as “NAP consistency”).
Google’s Knowledge Graph uses this directory information to confirm the business information and accurately share it with users.
Common examples of online directories include:
Online phone books (i.e., Whitepages)
GPS submissions (i.e., Garmin)
Voice search (i.e., Siri)
Secondary search engines (i.e., Microsoft Bing, Yahoo)
Travel websites (i.e., Airbnb, TripAdvisor)
As a search engine, Google attempts to provide accurate, credible information for every single search query.
Listing your business information with local citations helps Google and other search engines achieve this goal.
Data aggregators
Rather than spending hours submitting to online directories and updating them, an organization can pay for data aggregators that automate most of the process.
Three companies offer a “bulk submission” service, placing business citations across a specific network of online directories.