Looking for some link bait ideas for local businesses?
-
I own an agency and have several local clients. Particularly clients in the service areas - Window replacement company, Roofing company, Foreign Car repair company, and an Asphalt paving company. I really want to run some link bait campaigns, and would love any input you guys might have. Thanks in advance for your ideas:)
-
The ROI just isn't there. Not unless you stumble into a Chuck Testa video. I don't envy you, don't take this as criticism, but rather a rambling from someone who has been there. In fact, I'm interested to hear what you come up with .
I tried:
-
Linkbait
-
Consistent content (mainly educational resources targeting 'local + kw' strings)
-
PPC
-
All local directories
-
Videos
Rankings, sure. No problem. However, the traffic just wasn't there to make it FUN. You know? Whatever you do, don't forget to promote your own brand and work towards non-regional clients.
You're best bet is to think about offline resources and find ones you can leverage online. Most of it, it's going through competitor contacts/network, vendors, partners, distributors and lean on those contacts for content & links. Don't spend too much time on viral/linkbait, because it's expensive to create & I'm guessing these companies won't pay you for your time.. or appreciate it.
The other thing we did that worked well, harvested all local blogs. From there, we identified non-direct competitor blogs and leveraged guest posting that way. It cut down on the cost of new content and earned us a few links. Not to mention, got me a couple of free lunches.
-
-
Thanks Mcarle. Great info!!
-
Get to now your:
Local news outlets.
Local community groups.
Local business associations.
Nearly all cities these days have dozens of hyperlocal blogs, get to know all of them.
As for the bait its self...
Get the companies to hold events, open houses, join communitie fairs...
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
-
Google Plus - Using Personal Account or Google Apps Business Account?
Hey Everyone, I've been wondering for the longest time if I should use my Google Apps business account google plus profile or just continue to use my personal google plus profile. MY personal account is what I am currently using. Does it really matter? Thank you for your input!
Social Media | | TShak0 -
Setting Up Business Google+
Is it possible to set up a business Google+ account without linking it to a personal account? I have already done this but would like a stand alone account for the business...
Social Media | | jj34340 -
Question on RyanKent's Identifying Link Penalties 2012 Article
I have a question about this article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/identifying-link-penalties-in-2012 Specifically the Section Titled: Other Google Link Penalties _"Google often manually penalizes sites and does not inform site owners of the penalty. Furthermore, Google makes many algorithm changes each year. Most people are aware of the major algorithm changes, but you should also know Google makes about 50 algorithmic changes each month which could lead to ranking changes or an "algorithmic penalty". With the Penguin update specifically, we are unsure if there will be further refinements and rollouts as has happened with Panda. On May 25th Google rolled out what Search Engine Land calls Penguin 1.1. _ What advice is available for a site owner who wants to know if they have received a link penalty or at risk in the future? Check your anchor text distribution to see if it appears natural. You can perform a fast check in Open Site Explorer of your top 20 links as follows: Go to http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ Enter in the URL of your site and press <enter>or the SEARCH button</enter> Change your drop down box settings as follows: Show [followed + 301] links from [only external] pages to [pages on this root domain]…..then press the FILTER button. These settings will remove the “nofollow” and internal links which are not evaluated by Google as part of link penalties. You will now see a list of all links to your site which may cause you to incur a penalty. For now, focus only on the Link Anchor Text column. If 50%+ of your top 10 links show the same or very similar anchor text, that is a warning sign of a very unnatural link profile. Of course, a deeper analysis is desirable but this method offers you some idea of the problem in just a few seconds. Hopefully your anchor text distribution looks more natural than the below example. Notice how all the links show anchor text? A natural distribution would show a high percentage of links with simply the site URL. When anchor text is naturally used, it is often far less than ideal." Anyway, with anchor text looking the same - would this have a negative impact if i was syndicating content to 10-15 blogs, or if i used onlyshare and did it to 50 or something. Would this impact me eventaully in a long term sense. I tend to write articles at least weekly for these sites so that i make sure i have fresh content, if me syndicating them/sharing the excerpt to my blog pages w/ anchor pages back to my main article is hurting me by having multiple pages linking back w/ the same exact anchor text, that would be a good thing to know. Any input on this would be much appreciated. Keep in mind i'm not creating 10k blogs and having one blog post on them. They are actively posted to. With my established site they seem to work great- but with a new site, would popping 10-15 links real quick like that set off any alarms? thank you, -Travis Gross
Social Media | | choiceenergy0 -
Are links from Pinterest 'do follow'/do they have any SEO benefit?
Afternoon all, I know there is a question about Pinterest that was asked in February but I guess it was a fairly new beast then and people were still unsure about its use for marketing/SEO etc. I run an events business and on our Pinterest profile I tend to pin random stuff I find on the net, themes we are running (directly from our website) and other Pinterest users. I have received several 're-pins' and people are really starting to follow us now. What I am keen to know is whether or not having lots of followers/re-pins on Pinterest has the same effectiveness from an SEO perspective as having lots of Facebook/Twitter/Google+ followers and whether or not these re-pins are 'do follow' links or have any SEO benefit whatsoever? Many thanks Rob ps: Pinterest page is http://pinterest.com/eventa/ , if anyone has any tips on how to better utilize this then that would also be greatly appreciated 🙂
Social Media | | RobertHill0 -
Multiple Links from One Site. Does it hurt Your SEO?
Multiple Links from One Site. Does it hurt Your SEO? I have multiple links coming from BlogTalkRadio I show I do 5 times week and my blog. Does it help or hurt your SEO when the a lot of links coming from one location.
Social Media | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
Google Plus Business Page
I'm curious to see if anyone has come up against this same thing and how Google will respond to it. I work with a franchise company that has hundreds of locations. The company has unique sub pages set up for each location and a Google Places listing for each location. My question is can I set up a Google Plus business pages for each location, with the same name (different address), and all within one gmail address. My concerns are that when you select "Local Business" as the category for the Plus page it asks for a phone number. Well, after I insert the phone number it accurately pulls up our Place listing. However, my concern is having multiple Plus pages with the same Name in the "basic info" section. Will Google Plus reject multiple pages with the same name? I also don't want to change the name on the plus page and then cause a duplicate listing created in Google Places, due to the same address different name connection. I suspect a merge between Pages and Places so I don't want to negatively impact my Place listings. Any thoughts on this or Franchise Plus Pages?
Social Media | | OrangeSoda0 -
Is there anyway for redirected links to still provide SEO value?
I help a site that helps spread word by getting links on peoples social media pages. These links are truncated ie website.com/XyUE for the purposes of tracking clicks, referrals and so forth. I have heard that when a link is in a redirect form like that it loses close to all, if not completely all of its link value. The links themselves are technically 301's. Do these still maintain value? For example, the stopped.at links on this person's twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/Melewis18 Is there any way to make links of this type maintain SEO value? Is there a workaround to truncating for tracking purposes?
Social Media | | MarloSchneider0 -
How to Position Yourself When Doing Link Building & Outreach on behalf of Clients?
One of the things we struggle with is how to position ourselves when doing outreach such as link building on behalf of a client. We know many times it is best for outreach to come directly from the client themselves so that it comes across as more genuine. However, some clients prefer to outsource the entire process. When doing outreach on behalf of clients, how do you position yourself? Are you typically transparent about being a marketer working for an agency, or do you spin it more as being someone 'with' the company? Does it ever make sense to use aliases?
Social Media | | Jeff-Hahn0