Search engine optimization (SEO) has become a staple with the rise of competitive digital marketing. One of the important aspects of SEO is link building. And that holds especially true when it comes to local SEOs. Google states that year-on-year searches with “near me” in them have been increasing by a whopping 500 %. And understandably so, since we often look up things like restaurants, cafes, shops, or medicine stores near our location. Data also states that almost 78 % of consumers seek local business information online once a week, at the very least. In order to drive more customers toward your physical store, local search engine optimization is paramount. Link building for local SEO can be an effective strategy for this.
What are Local SEOs?
The idea of a local SEO is simple. We understand that search engine optimization is a practice that helps websites organically drive traffic toward them. When it comes to local searches, businesses with physical stores also benefit from putting proper SEO practices in place to improve their visibility online. Searches conducted from phones often automatically track the users’ locations and suggest businesses that are close to them. When consumers search for products and services locally, having good local SEO redirects them to the websites of your store or directly to your physical store, thus increasing your revenue.
Search engines like Google rely on parameters like local content, and the presence of phone numbers and addresses, among others to produce user-relevant search results. People typically use local keywords and create locally relevant content, such as blogs like “The Best Pizzas in New York ” to strategize their local SEO rankings. Backlinks, however, are just as important.
Three important parameters Google takes into account when it comes to local SEO, include:
Relevance: How relevant your business is to a user’s search term. For example, if a user searches for Indian food in New York, you have a good chance of showing up in search results. Staying relevant involves updating correct information on the web, getting good reviews and optimizing content for SEO.
Distance: Again, Google will judge the distance of your business from a user to show relevant, nearby options.
Prominence: It simply means how popular a place is. There might be more than one way Google assesses the popularity of a business. According to Google, “More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’s local ranking.”
What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are an inextricable part of SEO strategies. They help search engines like Google verify a website’s credibility. Backlinks, therefore, are hyperlinks that redirect users toward your website or your business from other websites. The strategies and processes involved in generating backlinks are termed link building.
How Your Local SEO Can Benefit from Backlinks
There are 3 major benefits to link building. Let us take a brief look at the benefits within the framework of local SEO:
- Boosts local rankings: SERP ranking is an essential factor in determining your brand’s success. The first organic result has 10 times the chance to receive a view. The average click-through rate (CTR) of the top search results is around 27.6 %. The first result usually gets a whopping 34 % of the organic traffic, which is double the amount of traffic that the number 2 result receives. Appropriate backlinks from relevant local businesses can help you rank higher and earn more organic visitors.
- Helps build better connections: Getting backlinks from local businesses can be a great opportunity to build local connections, and establish your brand presence.
You can personally reach out to people and establish both personal and professional connections as part of your local SEO strategy.
- Boosts brand awareness: The Rule of 7 in brand marketing propounds that a consumer needs to come into contact with your brand name and/or image at least 7 times before they take any steps toward initiating a purchase. The better quality backlinks you have, the more organic visibility you produce. And the easier it becomes for you to expose your local customers to your brand, products, or services.
Strategies to Generate Backlinks for Local SEO
There are various ways in which you can generate backlinks for your website without indulging in malpractices, or what is popularly known as black hat SEO. Here are a few:
- Focus on Acquiring Consumer Reviews: Customers and Google value positive reviews by consumers and local guides. According to a local consumer review survey by Brightlocal in 2023, a staggering 98 % of people like to read online reviews before getting into any sort of business with a brand. And when it comes to local businesses, almost 85 % of consumers demand a high star rating. Unfortunately, only 37 % of consumers tend to leave positive reviews. But you, as a business can take certain steps to encourage your consumers:
- Provide incentives like discounts to customers who leave reviews. This also helps build trust and boost returning customers.
- Make reviewing more accessible to users through better software and UI.
- Put emphasis on customer testimonials on your brand website. Testimonials are especially important as you look to expand your online presence.
These customer reviews can be posted on your local blogs generating backlinks for you.
- Managing NAP Citations: NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. As a local business, being accessible to your local community is paramount. Google uses NAP citations to verify that the information that you have given is valid. Thus, the more NAP citations you have, the more trust Google places on you as a business and in turn, improves your visibility, giving you more organic backlinks.
Make sure your name, contact details, and address are correctly and consistently updated everywhere, including your website and your Google My Business profile.
- Hold Promotional Events: You can attract the local crowd directly by holding promotional events even on a small scale.
Invite local bloggers or arrange niche-relevant events that can help you generate more backlinks.
- Check for Unlinked References: Numerous blogs talk about businesses without actually linking to them.
Actively look for references to your brand online and request backlinks to your website from individuals or institutions that have referenced you without linking you.
- Business Directories: Surveys have stated that 94 % of consumers browse through business directories like Yelp and Google Business Profile in the past year, to gather info on their local businesses. Getting your brand listed on one or all of the popular and relevant directories will improve your visibility and your chances of generating backlinks.
- Keep an Eye On Competitors: You and your local competitors will be vying for backlinks from similar websites that have a certain trust value among local clients. Try to contact these reputable sources and get your material referenced by providing quality content.
- Involve Your Local Media Outlets: Local blogs, newspapers, Facebook, and other social media event pages often advertise and link back to local businesses. Get in touch with your community to tap into these connections and generate reliable backlinks for your local SEO.
Conclusion
Building backlinks for your local SEO is one of the most crucial activities for a local business. In recent years, due to unethical practices by businesses such as paying to generate backlinks, Google has pushed back on making them a big player in determining your SERP ranking. Google gives more preference to user-relevant metrics giving precedence to quality content that has generated some value for the users. Keywords, backlinks, and other SEO tools have taken a back seat since they can be manipulated to create inorganic readings and draw traffic in an unethical fashion while not actually being helpful to the users.
But on the bright side, all is not in vain. Quality backlinks still play a major role when it comes to determining SERP rankings. We must not, what matters here is the quality and not the quantity. A Google Search official, John Muller has made it clear that “the total number of links doesn’t matter at all…there could be [that] one really good link from one website” and that’s enough to make a difference.
Since your brand is based on the idea of trust, creating an ecosystem of faith and loyalty will exponentially boost your sales and customer retention. In the competitive digital world, businesses are struggling to just be seen or discovered. Having quality backlinks increases your chances of being exposed to your target consumers. While results won’t show immediately, such practices will help your business in the long run.