Published by Daclaud Lee at January 5, 2023

How To Get Local Backlinks

Building local backlinks is one of the most important parts of local website optimization. This is an off page SEO strategy that every business should implement for their digital marketing strategy. Local search engines have become increasingly important, and with them local backlinks will play a vital part in your local search engine ranking strategy.

When it comes to local SEO, there is one factor that plays a huge role in your success: Local backlinks. There are many ways to acquire them — and one of the best ways is with local directories. But how do you get these other websites to link back to yours? The answer is below!

Local Media Companies

Local media linking is a great way to get backlinks and local links are known for their power in the search engines. These sources are often overlooked and forgotten because people think there is something wrong with getting a link from an un-reputable local source. That could not be further from the truth. Even though these sources may not get as much traffic as big name blogs, these sites often do have quite a bit of traffic and can affect your website's rankings.

You can often get backlinks from local media companies such as radio stations, news channels, bloggers and pod casters. Sometimes you can have the local news do a press release for free or you can pay a radio station for advertising time to not only shout out your business in between songs, but they may also give you a local backlink on their website.

Local Non Profit Organizations

Have you ever considered seeking local backlinks from your local non profit organizations? Sponsoring a non profit organization is an excellent way to gain backlinks to your website. Networking and discovering the right person within the non profit's organization who is in charge of their marketing and websites could mean receiving a free backlink (and potentially a tax write off, depending on the amount you donated to them).

Local Citations and Directory Listings

Citations are a local SEO's secret weapon. One tried and true way to get a backlink to your website is through a local citation. Often times you can manually create a profile at one of these websites (such as Yelp, Expertise, Angi and many others) and you will have an instant backlink and NAP + W citation to your website. This is by far the easiest way to get a local backlink. Congratulations, you just created your first backlink portfolio!

Examples of popular local citations include:

Google Business Profile
Expertise
Yelp
Angi
Bing
Apple Maps
Facebook
Yelp
Yellowpages
TomTom

Classified Advertising Sites

You can easily get a backlink from a free advertising website to promote your business. A lot of them are free, but you may come across some that are paid. If you take a few minutes, then you can obtain a free backlink from a classified advertising site.

Social Media

Every business should have a social media profile regardless of whether or not you are active on it. Setting up social media profiles for your business is actually pretty a easy task and almost everyone has social media. It's not hard to get started, and the number of profiles you set up depends on your niche. Some businesses may prefer Instagram as their main social media marketing source, while others may prefer Linkedin. Regardless of your choice, it should be mandatory to claim a social media profile on as many sites as you can.

Technically the only backlink you can get on social media is through your own company profile. The social media post that contains a link to your website in the user's feed actually does not count as a backlink, but instead as "social traffic" according to Google Analytics. However, having as many social media profiles as you can will help out with your backlink portfolio.

Partnerships with Other Local Businesses

Let's say for example, you are an Heating and Cooling repair company and you have reached out to a local restaurant to do HVAC maintenance for their business. Maybe you could offer them a discount on labor if they choose you as their go-to service provider. In return, you can ask that they add your business on their website as a partner or sponsor. That way you can get new customers from their customers.

Or if you are a restaurant and one of your regular customers is a business owner, then you could also ask them to include your restaurant on their website. You could also allow them to place their business card on your front desk so you exchange business leads. There you go, now you are not only developing a relationship with your customers, but also turning them into marketing partners and obtaining local backlinks!

Local Schools and Colleges

Did you know that many local schools and colleges also accept sponsorships from local business? A sponsorship can be a great way to build your brand awareness. And, even better, if the school's website is active, then you could possibly get a valuable backlink from a .edu site! When most think of sponsorships, they usually think about the negative aspect of it. What they don't realize is that there could be more value than disadvantage when deciding to sponsor an organization.

In today's world, sponsorship options are easier than ever to obtain. You can find school and college sponsorships by simply exploring your local area for schools that are accepting sponsors. They will get the funds that they need and you can get an extremely valuable .edu local backlink!

Community Events and Festivals

Another great way to get a local backlink is to either become a monetary sponsor or purchase a booth at a local community festival or event. If you have the time to do some marketing, then you can not only get valuable leads right away from the festival attendees, but you should also be able to get a local backlink on the festival's website.

Business Organizations and Networking Groups

Being a solo-preneur or small business, working with other businesses and networking groups can increase your marketing strategy, customer base as well as generate more leads and sales. However, it's not always that you find working with businesses or networking groups in your local area — or if you do, they might charge too much for you to be able to afford their services. So before shelling out the money, try getting backlinks from business organizations and networking groups by networking with them face to face first.

Here's how it works: you join a business networking group and you pay a yearly fee. The organization's website will provide you with a profile as well as a backlink on their website in exchange for your membership. Not only that, but membership also allows you to directly network with other business owners in non-competing industries so you can exchange business leads.

Daclaud Lee Dublin Ohio

By Daclaud Lee, Project Manager and SEO Consultant at Archmore Business Web.

Daclaud is an award winning SEO and digital marketing consultant. He has a Bachelor of Science in Digital Marketing and has been practicing SEO, web development and social media advertising since 2009. On top of that, he used to own a restaurant, so he knows the industry very well.