Local Link Building help!
-
Hi All,
Looking for some help with where to begin link building for local small businesses. If the website is leading to a lawyer, doctor, or any type of professional service, I'm at a loss on where to start.
I've tried looking into local directories, and I also know that if one of the clients has a reason for being linked in an online news article, those links should be pursued. Additionally, I've gone and helped to claim all local listings, and submitted to DMOZ and a few other directories.
So if the website is just leading to a business that isn't running any events or specials worth writing about, what is the best way to acquire links?
Thank you!
Tyler
-
Glad I could help!
Check out the Whitespark Local Citation Finder, if you haven't already - it's pretty awesome...
Another few non-link related things that will be a big help for local search optimization:
Also, make sure you get their Google+ Local pages claimed and optimized. Work hard on a review strategy so they can start acquiring positive reviews.
If you're brave, you can try merging their G+ Local page with their G+ Business page - then you've got an integrated maps/social presence, which can lead to some cool things...
also, you can set up Google Authorship, so that the business owner's photo shows up next to their listings, which can help click-throughs.
-
Hi Greg,
Thank you for taking the time to help me out! I'm encouraging more clients to integrate blogs with the websites that we build for them, but the tricky part is getting the client to provide content.
In some instances my company will write and manage these postings (we work in specific niches so we have solid content writers), but this is at an extra cost to the clients. Most of my clients see themselves as too busy to write a blog post, but I'm trying to emphasize the importance.
The guest blog posting is a great idea too, as I'm thinking that getting content for a guest blog post would actually be easier than having them run their own blog.
Local citations are pretty big for the niche we're working in, so this may be where I'm directing most of my energy.
Thanks for the helping out a local SEO greenhorn, I'm always working to get better at this
-
Oops, accidentally duplicated my response!
-
I think that an obvious place to start would be local professional organization websites. Many of them have a member’s area that will have a small blurb about the member and hopefully a link. Another idea is business organizations like the chamber of commerce, etc. Hopefully if your clients are creating good content and are able to push that content out (using social and email marketing) those links will happen organically. Just remember…if they build good content…the links will come!
-
You've still got several options. First and foremost, use Open Site Explorer to check out the links that your client's competitors have. You'll get lots of ideas, assuming that there are local competitors in the area. If not, check competitors in other cities, see what they're doing and do something similar locally.
Next - add some useful content to your client's site. Become an educator about that niche and post regular, unique content. Use that client's expertise to your advantage and share it with the local community. Build social connections to share that content.
Seek out local bloggers and build relationships with them. Once you're introduced and they know who you are, share some of that expertise with them - you could either get a guest post on their blog, have them guest post on yours, or have them write about your client's business.
Ask customers what they want to see on the site - not really crowd-sourcing, but just finding out what customers in that niche would find useful. Then do it.
And don't forget about citations - depending on the niche, local citations can sometimes be just as powerful as links (or even more powerful) when it comes to local ranking.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do three way links still help in moderation?
do three way links still help in moderation? Have some friends with websites in the same genre as mine and was told three way links were better than reciprocal links. Thanks mozzers!
Link Building | | Ron100 -
Link Building Paralysis
I have been hesitant to build links with all these penalties and need a few good tips for building good quality links. I have a wedding and photography business and we produce tons of photo content which we: blog - 1-5 times per week Facebook Social bookmark Get our work featured on other sites 1-2 times per month Any other ideas I'm missing? I know their is a ton. Just need some fresh, clean link building ideas.
Link Building | | photoseo10 -
Got a link building question here
I've been doing a lot of back link analysis on my competitors and noticed that a lot of links are coming from wordpress.com, blog.com, blogspot.com, etc blogs. These are free blogs in the format of http://www.username.blogplatform.com. These individual blogs seem to have product reviews and mentions for many different products (we are an e-commerce website). I would like to know if anyone has done any outreach to the owners of the third party blogs. This looks very different from guest blogging and I want to know if there is a way to reach out to these blog owners in order for them to write something about our products. Please let me know if anyone had any success with this, Thank you
Link Building | | BryanCroft0 -
Do you have PA and DA minimums for link building outreach?
Hi all! I'm putting together a list of sites I want to attack for link building. I'm looking at my competitors while also seeking specific sites I know would work well to link to us. My question is, since this is very time-consuming, do you have a minimum PA and/or DA that you require in order to perform manual link-building outreach. For example, if a site has a DA below X and PA below X, what would X have to be for you to not consider it worth your time. I'm just trying to gauge where my efforts will be best spent and trying to get some benchmarks. Thanks!
Link Building | | Kibin0 -
Links Building from contractors on eLance.com
Hi, I never hire somebody to create link building to point to our sites. On eLance.com you can hire a SEO contractor to build link our your domaine. New to SEO, is worth it to do so? Is there things I should should be careful about? Things I need to clarify before hiring somebody? Things I need to confirm or ask before hiring such contractors? Most of those ''SEO Expert'' are from India and some have perfect ratings on this site. I have 2 eCommerce sites and we only have a average of 3 sales a day. I can't afford price companies are asking in North America. For a lot less, eLance maybe the solution for our home base business. What is your advice on this? Thank you BigBlaze
Link Building | | BigBlaze2051 -
How much is a fair amount to pay for link building services?
It would be useful to get some feedback from those paying for SME/SMB website link building services re how much is a fair amount to pay and what you are getting for this.
Link Building | | Luia0 -
Link building without using trademarked names
If a particular brand's terms & conditions stated that you cannot use their trademarked names in your backlinking strategy, what are some good ways to rank higher for those names?
Link Building | | aidin30000 -
Link building timescale and results in serps
From starting an ongoing monthly link building campaign how long is it before you should start seeing results in serps
Link Building | | shauny350