Local Link Building: 11 Simple Strategies That Drive Traffic

Did you know?

According to a recent survey, around 98% of online consumers looked for local business information in the year 2023. 

Moreover, local industry owners convert approximately 78% of mobile users/traffic searching on Google with local intent. Also, Google’s report says that the searches for ‘near me’ results increase by around 500% each year. 

Well, you must be thinking, “What do all these mean?”

The thing is, to boost your business online, you must reach your local consumers with an improved online visibility of your business website in the local search engine results. 

One of the best strategies that would work for this is local link building. 

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to today’s blog, where we will be discussing the strategies, benefits, pros and cons, importance, mistakes to avoid, and the best practices for local link-building. 

So, stay hooked with us to start building a diverse yet healthy local backlink profile for your business website. 

What is Local Link Building?

This is the process of getting backlinks to your business website from external websites, ranking higher in the local search engine results. The websites should be geographically or regionally relevant so that acquiring backlinks from those resources helps your site get featured in the local SERPs.

The best types of websites to acquire backlinks from include local business sites, e-commerce sites, local news/media publications, and local community blogs/forums. 

When these local sites link to your website, it earns the trust of the search engine, signaling its credibility and authority, which results in improved online visibility of your website in the local Search Engine Result Pages. 

Is Link Building Beneficial for Local SEO?

Yes!

Local link building is not just beneficial, it’s crucial for your site’s local SEO health.

Backlinks from local, relevant, and reputable industry resources establish trust with Google because they signal the authority and credibility of your website. Gradually, the search engine starts featuring your site at the top of the local SERPs, resulting in:

✔️Boosts local search engine rankings

✔️Helps you reach the local audience faster

✔️Improves niche credibility

✔️Boosts brand authority

✔️Increased local online visibility

However, make sure that the resources are trusted, highly authoritative, and rank well in the local search engine results. Also, to ensure the most effective backlink acquisition without any risk of search engine penalties, make sure you practice ethical link-building techniques.

The Importance of Link Building for Local Businesses

Boosting your local business online is only possible when your business website ranks higher in the local search engine results. 

But that might not always be easy. 

You need some solid strategies that can make your site/business details visible in Google Maps and local packs. 

Here comes the role of local link building, which helps you attract your local consumers, who are actively searching for local services/products.

Strategic local link-building improves your:

👉Brand awareness/exposure

👉Location-specific traffic

👉Targeted lead conversion

👉Local network (B2B)

👉Sales

👉Return on Investment

Local businesses mostly rely on foot traffic, and for that, they need to reach out to the most qualified traffic in the local area.  Local link-building helps your business website get featured in the local search engine results, resulting in increased online visibility, targeted lead generation, and conversion.

Acquiring backlinks from the local resources ensures greater exposure for your website. 

This, in turn, not only strengthens your local network but also increases the possibilities of lead conversion, sales, and business ROIs, due to improved site authority, niche credibility, and trust with the search engine.  

How to Check Your Local Citations?

Checking the local citations for your business site itself is a powerful local link building strategy. It refers to the online mention of your business details, site’s URL, link, address/phone number on various industry-relevant platforms.

These platforms may include online business directories, social media forums, or niche-specific websites. Brand mentions like this can help you secure effective backlinks by asking for a link back to your site for all those unlinked local citations. 

The key to success is to ensure that your business details are accurate. You can use popular SEO tools to look for local business citations in blog posts, articles, news publications, and social media posts. 

Most importantly, maintain consistent business information and profile details of your website across all platforms and directories. Authentic business information not only boosts your business authority/credibility but also boosts your local SEO. 

Finding Local Link Building Opportunities

Identifying local link-building strategies in advance is crucial for effective local backlink acquisition. 

There are several ways/methods to find the best link-building opportunities.

Here is a diagram that shows the key ways/processes:

Let’s focus on the most popular methods you can try for finding the best backlink building opportunities.

👉 Competitors’ Profile Analysis

✔️Use SEO tools such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Moz

✔️Identify resources linking to your competitors’ websites

👉 Find Local Directories

✔️Type [your target country + business directory] on Google

✔️Or you can search for [your target country + business niche] on the search engine

✔️Get your site listed on the local online community directories

✔️Join local business associations 

✔️Get your business listed on the alumni pages

👉Leverage Digital PR/ Useful Content 

✔️Start drafting useful content for your website

✔️Make sure that the content provides your users with real value

✔️Guest post your content on relevant local guide posts

✔️Publish your content on local resource pages, research findings

👉Grow Your Local Network

✔️Sponsor local charity events

✔️Participate in community events

✔️Attend local sports events 

✔️Join non-profit organizations

✔️Support local business teams

✔️Provide honest testimonials for local businesses

All these strategies will help you build a stronger relationship with reputable industry website owners, leaders, webmasters, and thought leaders, resulting in improved brand/website reputation. 

Also, getting your site listed on the local business directories ensures a wider brand/website exposure, resulting in improved online visibility and target audience reach.

An in-depth competitors’ backlink profile analysis will help you identify the missed link opportunities that you can leverage for the best quality backlink acquisition.

How Do You Build A Local Link?

There are many ways to build local backlinks for your website. 

However, most of the strategies involve:

👉Crafting useful content

👉Addressing the common queries of the local audience

👉Getting your site listed in the local directories

👉Partnering with local sponsors

👉Collaborating with local bloggers

👉Leveraging the local news publications

And most importantly….

👉Building a stronger network with the local business owners

Engaging with your local business community not only helps you boost your website’s awareness but also ensures improved trust with your local audience. 

The best way to improve your business website’s rankings on the local Search Engine Result Pages and increase inbound local traffic is to establish your business as an authoritative and credible resource in your industry niche. 

Strategic local link building helps you to boost your site’s online visibility, resulting in more qualified lead generation and conversion.  

So far, you must have got a clear idea of local link building and the most popular techniques. In fact, you already know the key to success with local link-building.

Now, it is time to implement the best strategies to acquire local backlinks for your website. 

But before that, you must know them really well so that you can decide upon them—each strategy has its own importance and is effective for individual purposes/business needs. 

So, let’s focus on the strategies now!

Unbeatable Local Link Building Strategies

There are endless ways to build local backlinks.

However, we are here to share the 11 most popular and proven local link building strategies with you to acquire backlinks faster. 

So, without any more delay, let’s get straight into the strategies and their implementation. 

🎯Local Business Directories & Citations

One of the most effective ways to build local backlinks is to leverage the local business directories/citations. Getting your site listed on relevant platforms and claiming unlinked brand mentions is considered a great way to secure local backlinks for your website. 

✔️Improved rankings on local SERPs

✔️Enhanced website visibility online

✔️Improved site credibility/authority

Let’s discuss the steps now:

📌Start off by optimizing your Google My Business profile

📌Make sure that your business details are accurate and updated

📌Create your business profiles across major online e-commerce directories

📌Look for relevant online business directories 

📌Keep a check on your brand citations by external resources

Whenever you find any local citations for your business website, ask the site owners for a link back to your website. Also, keep a check on local news sites, business directories, and community blogs for backlink acquisition.

However, make sure you use tools such as Moz Local to identify your existing business citations and new link-building opportunities. Chances are higher that approaching the local business site owners strategically, mentioning your website, will result in high-quality backlink acquisition. 

🎯Links from Local Review Websites

This is comparatively an easier strategy to acquire backlinks.

All you need to do is encourage your target audience/customers/consumers to review your website/services/products on local directories, community platforms, and forums. Also, ask them to provide testimonials for your services to ensure credibility. 

✔️Improves the website’s authority

✔️Builds trust with your audience

✔️Boosts your site’s rankings in the local SERPs

Here are the things you can do to earn backlinks from local review websites:

However, make sure that the online platforms, community forums, and directories you join are high-authority, reliable, and trustworthy. Also, focus on offering your services first because providing your target leads with real value will earn you positive customer feedback.

🎯Partnerships with Local Businesses

The best backlinks are those that are acquired naturally. 

And connecting with the local business owners and earning their trust will not only help you acquire backlinks naturally, but also establish your website as an authoritative, credible, trustworthy, and reputable resource in your industry. 

✔️Natural link acquisition

✔️Improved brand credibility

✔️Enhanced trust with target leads

✔️Increased local visibility

✔️Increased inbound traffic

✔️Strengthened local network

Remember, it’s all about growing together. 

So, share your industry resources with each other to leverage the best opportunities for link acquisition. Also, always focus on offering real value to your industry partners instead of securing backlinks. 

This is not only a convenient way to showcase your industry expertise, but it will also help you immensely to establish a good service/brand reputation. So, make sure you stand by your commitments and participate in the community initiatives in your local area for improved business exposure and backlink acquisition experience.  

🎯Arrange for Local Events for PR Backlinks

Building local backlinks is easier with organizing events.

This strategy is all about arranging local events and promoting them strategically by creating linkworthy content. The key to success is demonstrating your expertise and offering real value to your local community so that your website gets mentioned on popular blogs and articles naturally. 

Here are the things you can do to draw the attention of the local media/reporters:

Now, you are already the talk of the town!

Planning and arranging these local events strategically helps people in your locality know about your efforts, leading to maximum audience engagement. 

Here comes the next crucial thing—promoting it for maximum exposure.

For that, you need to collaborate with reputable industry bloggers and grab the attention of the right audience. A multi-channel promotion of your event will definitely create the buzz in your town.

Now, here you can leverage the power of digital media and your business website/industry network.

✔️Create a dedicated landing page on your site with all the details of these events. 

✔️Get it listed in the relevant local directories, news/media publications

✔️Announce your events to all the accessible digital platforms for maximum news coverage

✔️Spread the news across all your social media platforms 

To make it more engaging and authentic, share your behind-the-scenes moments, photos, and videos. Reach out to the participants, show hosts, local partners, and speakers with personalized emails, thank them, and politely ask them to link to your content.

***Bonus tip***

Use Google Alerts to find sites mentioning your event without a link. If you find one, ask the site owner via email to link back to your website/event. 

🎯Sponsorships and Community Involvement

The best way to secure local backlinks for your site is to collaborate with the local business owners, organizations, and industry partners. This way, you will be able to build a stronger industry network, securing the potential link-building opportunities. 

👉Start off by looking for potential partners first, and then ask about any upcoming celebrations/community activities in the near future. 

👉Make sure that the event aligns with your industry or business interests and offer your support (collaborative efforts/fund). 

Promote the event on your social media platforms while highlighting your efforts and contributions. This is the best way to get noticed by reputable industry owners, target leads, and influential bloggers who will link back to your website for added credibility, earning you valuable backlinks.

🎯Create Linkworthy Blogs on Your Site

If you want natural backlink acquisition, this strategy is definitely for you!

As easy as it sounds, the strategy involves crafting content of unmatched quality that others will find valuable and helpful. 

However, you need to know the right strategies/steps to craft the best content for your website and get it promoted on the right platforms so that it reaches your target audience, industry leaders, and influential bloggers/site owners. 

Check out the diagram below for the steps to perform:

Here are some tips to make it more engaging:

✔️Add charts, tables, diagrams, graphs

✔️Include resources for added credibility

✔️Add pictures, videos, and other visuals

✔️Adopt a storytelling approach

✔️Add statistics/numerics to support your statement

✔️Arrange for local surveys to collect authentic data

For the best backlink acquisition experience, consider guest posting your articles on popular social media platforms, channels, community forums, local directories, etc. Also, offer testimonials to your local industry partners to secure link-building opportunities in the future. 

🎯Collaborate with Local Influencers & Bloggers

Collaborating with the local bloggers might help you ensure a wider website/service exposure. This, in turn, will earn you valuable backlinks from reputable industry resources. 

Here are the steps to follow:

But, the question is…

👉How to make sure that the audience of your target influencers is your target leads?

👉Or how to craft the most compelling email pitch to secure collaboration opportunities?

Check out these tips for that:

✔️Make sure you reach out to niche-specific bloggers 

✔️Understand their audience well

✔️Identify their priorities, needs, and queries

✔️Ensure their interests align with your brand values

✔️Highlight the mutual benefits in the email pitches

✔️Make the pitch as personalized as you can

The process is simple after this!

Propose your ideas and create engaging content on relevant topics. For the best experience, you can draft an agreement clearly mentioning your expectations, deliverables, estimated timeline, and compensation for added transparency. 

Also, ask the industry experts/bloggers/influencers to link back to your site as a form of credit and focus on maintaining your industry relationship through ongoing partnerships and collaboration for future opportunities.

🎯Leverage Local Guest Posting Opportunities

Probably, you already know about the right guest posting techniques.

Simply identify the most relevant guest posting platforms, craft quality content that aligns with the specific target website’s values, and get it posted on those platforms. 

To find the best guest posting platforms, type “your target country/region: write for us” or “your target keyword: guest posting” on Google. You will find the best guest posting platforms listed on the SERPs. 

Make sure you follow the website’s editorial guidelines, draft relevant content, showcase your niche expertise efficiently, and offer real value to the users through it. Also, interact frequently with the site owners/readers to boost your site’s audience engagement, authority, credibility, and traffic. 

🎯Purchase Industry Domains

This is more of a hack!

Look for expired domains in your industry and leverage their existing authority to boost your website’s online presence. 

It differs from traditional link-building because this strategy does not rely on acquiring backlinks from external websites; instead focuses on using the existing website authority of the purchased domains to your own benefit. 

Things to consider before you purchase an aged industry domain:

✔️Geographic area

✔️Topical relevance

✔️Online visibility

✔️Authority score

✔️Domain Rating

✔️Organic traffic

✔️Content quality

Once you purchase these domains, make sure you focus on relationship building with the local blogging sites, news outlets, media publications, and guest post publication platforms. Try to offer value to the site owners/bloggers/readers by mentioning them in your local content or by informing them about a recent phenomenon/niche topic. 

This way, your website will earn backlinks naturally from the local websites/forums/publications, resulting in improved local SEO and search engine visibility. 

🎯Leverage Chambers Of Commerce & Associations

Did you know?

The local Chambers of Commerce and Associations can be immensely functional when it comes to promoting your business website, its digital growth, and ROIs. 

Want to know how?

Well, just get your site listed in their directories, and it will get authoritative backlinks and local citations.

Get it done in just 3 simple steps:

✔️Research and identify the best business associations

✔️Offer value to the other business owners/users

✔️Build relationships and extend your industry network

Still not clear what to do?

Refer to the diagram below to know exactly how you can acquire backlinks.

Apart from all these techniques, you can also try out some old-school hacks to strengthen your industry network. For example, sponsor local charity/sports events and join online forums/directories to showcase your niche expertise and to ensure business awareness.

Though often considered a black-hat link building technique, you can still participate in a healthy link exchange scheme that would prove to be beneficial for you as well as the other business leaders.

Also, being a member of your local business associations will help you network with other local business owners. Most importantly, make sure that your business details mentioned in the directories are accurate and updated, and do not forget to keep your site’s local search engine rankings in track for evaluating your link building efforts. 

Best Practices for Local SEO Link Building

If you want the best results out of your local link building efforts, make sure your approach is area/location-specific. So far, we have discussed several times which steps and link-building techniques can scale up your efforts and backlink acquisition process.

Below is the diagram that quickly recaps the best link-building practices:

Remember, your goal is to gain significant business exposure that can earn you quality backlinks for your website. 

And, there is no better way to secure such opportunities than relationship building, blogger outreach, directory listings, and content creation. 

However, make sure you track your website’s SEO metrics regularly to assess the quality of the backlinks you acquired. 

Dos and Don’ts for Local SEO Link Building

Local link building is undoubtedly the best way to boost the online visibility of your business website on the local search engines. However, the process will provide you with the desired outcomes only if you follow the right strategies. 

Here are the things you should and shouldn’t do for local link building:

Always focus on securing backlinks for your website from authoritative industry resources. And try to craft content of unmatched quality for natural backlink acquisition.  

By optimizing your Google Business Profile, you can connect with the best industry leaders, influential bloggers, and website owners, resulting in increased brand exposure and trust building. 

Most importantly, do not rely on a single link acquisition strategy as it can drastically limit your potential and opportunities.

The best way to build local backlinks is to leverage the power of digital media and promotional platforms.

Also, do not leave a stone unturned to utilize your social media platforms to strengthen your network and welcome unexpected link-building opportunities. 

Tools & Resources for Local Link Building

Link-building is a time-consuming process. 

To ensure the desired outcome, you might need to utilize a number of the latest tools and technologies. 

But, first of all, let’s make one thing clear.

To make a local link building campaign successful, you need multiple tools for different purposes, for example, competitors’ backlink profile analysis, identifying the right guest post platforms or unlinked brand mentions, analyzing target websites’ SEO  metrics, local keywords research, outreach, and tracking progress. 

Below are some of the most common tools used by professional link-building experts:

All the above-mentioned tools are functional in their own ways. 

Since local link building involves a collaborative implementation of different software and service-based tools, you need to master the right technique to use these tools. 

Identify the backlink gaps in your competitors’ backlink profiles first and plan your outreach strategies accordingly. Consider the popular community sites and directories as your potential prospects. 

Starting from identifying link-building opportunities, competitor analysis, outreach to value proposition, and implementing the best link-building strategies, these tools and technologies will help you secure the best local backlinks for your website. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid While Link Building for Local SEO

There are some common mistakes that most business owners often make while building local backlinks. However, these might cost you serious search engine penalties. 

So, avoid these mistakes at all costs:

✔️Neglecting niche directories will deprive you of highly relevant and authoritative resources to build quality backlinks.

✔️Targeting websites with a high Domain Authority score only might result in missed opportunities for building relevant and local backlinks.

✔️Backlinks from low-quality directories might harm your site’s reputation and search engine rankings.

✔️Backlinks built with automated tools often seem unnatural to the search engine and trigger severe Google penalties.  

✔️If you drop links back to your site aggressively in the comment sections of irrelevant blogs, it might lead to a poor brand reputation.     

✔️If you fail to track your website’s metrics after securing backlinks, you might miss the opportunity to refine your strategies.

✔️Relying on one single link-building strategy would not help you much to create a diversified and natural backlink profile.  

Hire The Best Local SEO Link Building Company

1. Fastlinky

We have been building local backlinks for the past 6 years. What makes us stand out among the crowd is our result-driven and tested strategies. From analyzing your website and niche competitors and developing winning link-building strategies to reaching out to the best influencers for collaboration and delivering long-term SEO benefits to your online business website, our experts handle everything.

We offer: 

👉Backlinks from websites with mid/high authority scores (20-70)

👉Guaranteed organic traffic from 1K to 3K

👉2 do-follow backlinks per post

👉Turn Around Time of 2 weeks

👉Content creation and upgradation (if needed)

👉Outreach to the targeted websites/resources 

👉Anchor text optimization

👉Three different pricing packages at $399, $599, $799

Trusted by 750+ global clients, we have acquired premium backlinks for them from niche-relevant websites with a high Domain Authority score. This improved the online visibility of their business sites, leading to global brand reputation, authority, and credibility. 

Connect with us for faster link building and boosting your site’s visibility in the Local Search Engine Result Pages. We have a dedicated team of experts, skilled in using the latest tools and technologies for website analysis, identifying niche-relevant link-building patterns, and securing local backlinks from reliable resources.  

2. LinkBuilder.io

More than 300+ global clients, this link-building agency is a team of 43 dedicated experts who have a total of 250 years of experience in building backlinks. Founded in 2016, this agency alone has built over 20K backlinks for businesses across the world. However, the budget should be high if you want to hire this agency for your link-building tasks. 

✔️Starting at $2999, the startup plan includes 8 backlinks per month

✔️The pro plan pricing at $5999 includes 16+ backlinks per month

✔️The growth plan at $9999 gets you 26+ backlinks in a month

✔️The enterprise plan gets you 53+ backlinks per month and is priced at $19999

3. Editorial.Link

The agency is a trusted one with 14 years of experience in link-building. With a team of 28 professionals, the agency was founded in 2016. They have built quality backlinks for 500+ clients and delivered 18K+ backlinks on average. 

The agency charges $375 for each backlink and offers two packages. The startup one is priced at $1750, which will get you 5 backlinks from sites with mid to high Domain Rating, and the growth package will cost you $6000 and get you 20 backlinks from sites with DR of 50 to 90. 

However, they also offer a custom package in which you will get personalized link-building strategies for 3 months. Your personal strategist will help you secure backlinks from high-authority resources with an average Domain Rating of 60-95. Your website will be visible in the AI search, and you will also get your site featured in reputable media publications, but the price is negotiable. 

4. LinkBuildingHQ

Trusted by 2600+ trusted agencies, this link-building agency has built more than 11000 backlinks for global clients. With 70,000+ live links, the company has boosted the Domain Authority of 6500+ websites. 

With strategic outreach, expert content creation, and link placement options, this agency’s experts will handle your link-building campaign. They offer 3 link-building programs: White label link building, enterprise link-building, and digital PR. 

Here are the pricing plans for each white-label backlink you want to acquire:

Now, if you want to secure local backlinks for your site through digital PR campaigns, here are the prices you need to pay.

5. Outreach Monks

One of the top-rated link-building agencies, this one is trusted by 2000+ global businesses across the world. Established in 2017, Outreach Monks has been delivering premium link-building solutions to businesses for the past 8 years. With a team of 45+ dedicated link-building MONKS, the agency is renowned for its structured backlink acquisition process.  

Dominate Your Local Search Engine Rankings NOW!

If you’re ready to dominate your local search engine rankings now, local link building is the key that sets you apart from the competition. 

By earning high-quality, regionally relevant backlinks, your business gains trust, authority, and visibility where it matters most—right in front of your local audience. 

It does not just make your website rank higher on the search engine and results in increased organic traffic, but also provides your business with long-term SEO benefits. Improved local online website visibility and audience engagement result in increased conversions. 

So, don’t let competitors outrank you in your own market—partner with our link-building agency and turn search traffic into real customers today.

Also, if you have any queries regarding the practice of local link building, do let us know in the comments section below. 

Frequently Asked Questions: