Local Linkbuilding - How to Get on the Radar Within Your Community

1. What is Local Link Building?
2. What do local search results show?
3. What challenges does Local Link Building face?
4. Why is Local Link Building important?
5. 9 efficient strategies for Local Link Building
6. What tools are particularly efficient for Local-Linkbuilding?
7. Conclusion

You are masters at cutting hair, create wonderful fish sandwiches or have just opened your law firm? Wonderful - now all you need to do is inform your customers about it. Virtually, this can offer certain challenges, as the learned craft does not automatically include knowledge in online marketing and SEO. In this article, we therefore want to show you which locally oriented link building measures you can use to influence visibility in the immediate vicinity. And that without any detours.

What is Local Link Building?

Many companies operate in the local environment. Whether it's a burger shop, a physiotherapist or an electronics store - they all gather the majority of their customers on site and want to be perceived virtually as a store within a stone's throw.

However, their strategy to appear in the top ranks of the search engine differs from that of international players and purely virtual labels. We have already talked about what is important for search engine optimization for local businesses in an overall view, in the article Local SEO Tips & Tricks, we described in detail. This time we are going to talk about a crucial sub-discipline of Local SEO, the Local Link Building.

Source: venngage.com

Backlinks, which refer from other websites to your domain, are a proven effective strategy to improve a site's traffic. Generatinf backlinks purposefully is called Linkbuilding and It is an Offpage measure in the repertoire of SEO. Links for local stores and service providers work especially when they show a clear relevance to the catchment area. Building these backlinks strategically is accordingly called Local Link Building.

Who is Local Link Building suitable for?

Local SEO and focused link building is important for all businesses where location is crucial for first contact with customers. Normally, these are businesses with a physical store (restaurant, car dealership, travel agencies, doctors' offices) or local service providers (craftsmen, delivery services, mobile home nursing care).

What sets local results apart from regular search results?

For example: a vet is being searched for. Ideally, a practice that is open at this moment and is in the immediate vicinity. Just like that, or something similar, countless search queries per day are defined.

Source: thinkwithgoogle.com

Here it would be absolutely wrong to ignore the local relevance, but rather give regular backlinks and other ranking factors priority. In this case, perhaps through the website of a practice that ranks well due to strong backlinks from pet food brands.

Much more effective, however, is the display of relevant Google business profiles (formerly: Google My Business). In this case, business profiles of veterinarians who are in the local environment of the user, equipped with essential information and clickable references for contacting, including localization.

What do local search results show?

On Google, local search results are represented by the Local Pack and the local organic search results.

Local Pack

If Google recognizes a local interest in a search query, the Local Pack is played, namely before the traditional organic search results.

For example, following search query:

Source: google.com

Google assumes local interest in it and shows the search result in the following way:

Source: google.com

The Local Pack provides three results that best match the search query or have been optimized accordingly. As a rule, the results are equipped with the NAP data of the companies (name, address, phone number, links to the website and route view, and the address in the map shown by Google Maps.

As can be seen in the example, the Local Pack also plays out other details. This can be ratings, information about opening hours and more useful hints for the searchers. With a click, users can also show more addresses, or pick up an entry to see the full landing page of the business profile.

Source: google.com

Google retrieves the information for the Local Pack from the Google Business Profile. Exactly this has a high ranking significance, as you can see in the following pie charts from the Whitespark study.

Source: whitespark.ca

When it comes to the Local Pack, the Google Business Profile (named GMB for Google My Business in the diagram), with 33%, has the largest ranking factor.

The strength of the Local Pack becomes even more clear when you consider that it pushes other local organic search results further down and also from the user's point of view is a particularly pleasant way to get practical information without any detours.

Uncomplicated and precise information - exactly this also helps your business and increases the web-to-store traffic.

Local Organic Search Results

To stay with our example, following the Local Pack, Google gives the following results:

Source: google.com

These results again rank according to the main factors: Onpage optimization and link building. See again the second pie chart Local Organic Ranking Factors.

How does Google recognize a search with local interest?

For Google to assign both the Local Pack and local organic entries, the search query must be correctly identified. Google uses both clear signals of search formulation:

• Entries in combination with the text 'nearby', 'in my area' and similar,
• Search queries that contain a specific city, district or street,
• as well as imprecise search information like 'pharmacy' or 'workshop'.

And also data and distances of localizable IP addresses and Google accounts, to assign requests regionally.

You can read more about the Google Business Profile and what measures you should take to improve your local ranking there, in our article Google My Business.

What challenges does Local Link Building face?

Backlinks are not lying on the street. You can't randomly ask other webmasters to link to your domain. Linkbuilding and Local Link Building work different. At least today.

And then there is another problem: As a craftsman, doctor or tax consultant, you may not have the necessary resources for regular content creation. And without powerful content, you lack a certain linkable basis.

But let's take a step back. Few paragraphs before we have pointed out that users with local search queries prefer especially following informations: Results from the immediate vicinity, for a specific problem.

If the four-legged friend urgently needs to go to a veterinary practice, then you are not interested in the latest findings of veterinary medicine, or the Wikipedia entry for the term. All you need is contact data for veterinary staff for your fur friend.

Therefore, the focus of Local Link Building is on the two factors: local and thematic relevance.

With the help of local relevance, Google excludes that in addition to veterinarians in Bremen, results from Budapest are also displayed, because this would be very nonsense.

The topic relevance, on the other hand, is a little more complex. This is not always exactly hit. On the one hand, search queries are often not equipped with all essential details and therefore some user needs remain hidden. On the other hand, a website must be exactly optimized for it, in order to be played as an answer.

Therefore, in order to successfully build links with a local focus, you should consider both focuses.

Why is Local Link Building important?

The significance of local link building is shown by the following basic principle: Every mention and every link gives Google to understand where a website belongs and helps to perform their 'task' - delivering optimal and personalized search results. When it comes to local search, Google & Co must therefore look very carefully in order to meet the local research. You should hold exactly these indicators ready.

In a study from 2015,Google was already able to demonstrate how much the function of local search is linked with buying behavior. 18% of search queries (via smartphone) led to a purchase, in contrast it's only 7% in non-local queries, and this on a daily basis.

Source: thinkwithgoogle.com

If a store is in the immediate vicinity of interested parties, the chance is very high that they prefer to buy there rather than online. According to the study, the time advantage, to have the product in hand sooner, draws here.

Source: thinkwithgoogle.com

Based on these facts, Google states as follows:

Local searchers are ready to act. Many visit a nearby location within a day and complete purchases at a higher rate than consumers who conduct non-local searches.

But now we write the year 2022 and due to the Covid pandemic, our world and also our business has increasingly oriented virtually. Google has therefore not let go of the accelerator pedal for the function range of local search queries.

The already mentioned Whitespark study also confirms the same, which considers the Google Business Profile as highly relevant, but also shows the value of backlinks:

Source: whitespark.ca

Another starting point is also provided by Statista. Specifically with the survey from 2019 on the topic of restaurant search, in which millennials were asked which technologies they use for their research. Just the statement that 70% of all millennials read reviews before they make up for consumption, is already an indicator for the importance of your backlinks.

Even if you are in another industry, you will realize that the behavior of the not more so young generation needs little imagination for future development.

Source: Restaurant search: Use of websites/technologies in Germany 2019 | Statista

9 efficient strategies for Local Link Building

Are you now ready for the strategic facts for link building? Then we don't want to keep you on the hooks longer and bring the matter to the point. Following strategies help you to successfully run local link building:

Win links from other sites that already rank well

Finding performant websites that are willing to link to your domain is of course one of the best variants to do link building also in local segment. At the same time, it's not always easy, depending on the industry and niche, to build a suitable link cooperation. Working on your own brand can help you here. Link building is then usually a natural side effect.

Analyze your competition and do it better

Link exchange with your competitor is usually not an option. However, you can simply check with SEO tools (we name further below) which link strategies a theme-relevant website shows and thus equip your own profile. Especially locally relevant links, you can uncover and take care of the adaptation very targeted.

Check your existing links

For Local Link Building it is also important to keep an eye on your sites and fix possible errors. 404 errors are definitely an issue that you should tackle. Surely there are also references in the net from your domain, which no longer arrive where they originally should. By redirecting these links to new content, you are providing more vitality and new value.

Generate content with local relevance

Are there topics that are relevant for both your business and your regional environment? Find them and make them your business. In finding the topic, you can take up seasonal challenges, trends, regional customs or simply current events. Provide clarification, problem solving or comfort and you will be heard.

Seek local citations on platforms and networks

Citations - mentions of your website through NAP data or URL - are another clever SEO strategy and part of your relevance. The Google Business Profile is a must-have here, Bing, Yelp and Golocal can also be suitable networks. But also industry directories are used by your customers. Other possible networks are therefore:

• Map services
• Company register
• Rating platforms
• Professional associations
• Chambers of commerce
• Regional directories in municipalities and communities

In addition to digital registers, there are other websites that are frequented by your customers. These can be local newspapers and magazines, podcasts, websites of clubs, sports clubs or educational institutions.

Optimize your internal link structures to a maximum

In the course of local link building, you should take care of the internal link structures and optimize them specifically. Here you can link relevant keywords internally, to guide the search engine, but also your users specifically through the sites. Even if your website is rather small and doesn't show much content, there is enough linkable material. This also includes navigation areas in the header, footer as well as in the breadcrumb.

Create a local platform yourself

If your community is relatively small and there are few relevant platforms, then you can create one yourself. This also works in larger cities by focusing on a district or your specific niche.

Networking is equal to link building

Basically, any form of networking that you operate for your business is a factor for link building. Therefore present yourself regularly in network sessions, meet like-minded people virtually or on site and look around who could complement your craft or services. Spread your influence and your links will grow with it.

Do local sponsoring

Another practical way to build citations and backlinks is sponsorship or the granting of scholarships and grants. This can already start very small, by supporting the sports club of your children or even providing scholarships for a nearby university. As a rule, this will also be reported on the net and linked to your domain in the course.

What tools are particularly efficient for Local-Linkbuilding?

Link building is painstaking and time-consuming. Locally oriented backlink build-up just as much. The fact that the local community is manageable or well to stake out can be both a curse and a blessing at the same time.

To support you as busy entrepreneurs, we definitely recommend you to use suitable link building tools. When it comes to scrutinizing the competition, indicating optimization strategies and giving a meaningful status report with a click, they provide high-quality support, which goes far beyond the topic of backlink build-up.

Ahrefs

With Ahrefs you will find not only a competent assistant for competitive analysis, but rather a complete SEO toolbox. Specifically, you can use the Keyword Explorer to learn about local search queries:

Source: ahrefs.com

Furthermore, with the Link Intersect feature, you can find out what your link competitors have under the hood and which niche sites and registers you can also pick up. We also have following demo: Link Intersect by Ahrefs: Find More Backlink Opportunities.

Source: ahrefs.com

You can see more tips on our topic Local Link Building and how to best approach this challenge with Ahrefs in the following step-by-step video on YouTube:

LinkResearchTools

A professional for your link machine is also the software with the promising name LinkResearchTools. The system provides you with 21 individual tools that evaluate the quality of your backlinks or check out the backlink profile of your competitors.

Source: linkresearchtools.com

With the help of the Backlink Profiler for example, you can crawl all backlinks of your website to clean them afterwards or equip them with SEO metrics. You can identify link intersections from up to 50 domains using the Common Backlinks Tools.

Source: linkresearchtools.com

Majestic

To get you started with Majestic Majestic suggests you the Site Explorer, which includes a complete SEO Suite. Effortlessly, you go to analysis and reporting of anchor texts, backlink profiles, referring domains, new, removed and Broken Links.

Source: majestic.com

Directly connected, you will also find the Link Graph, which displays your immediate network of a domain:

Source: majestic.com

Every red dot represents a URL or domain and every black line a link. Lighter dots or lines, on the other hand, describe references with indirect connection. The size of a red dot shows you the Trust Flow of the linking domain. In the center of the graph is your website, which is shown outlined in yellow. You will find other interpretations of this interactive map in the Majestic Blog.

Semrush

Who are your strongest competitors, with which keywords and references? You can answer these questions through the use of Semrush.

Source: Semrush.com

In this respect, especially the Semrush link building tool wants to support you, which provides a basis for backlink building in just three steps: Enter domain - Define keywords - Submit competition. After a short thinking pause, the tool provides status quo and perspectives for your link profile:

Source: Semrush.com

Also for Top Directories, Semrush offers a separate feature, helps you in the NAP management and allows to integrate the Google Business Profile.

Source: Semrush.com

Yext Search Experience Cloud

For your local shop, directory entries are essential. This is what Yext knows and says that these entries are 2.7 times more called than the website itself. Therefore, you find in the software comprehensive support to manage and upgrading these directories for you.

Source: yext.com

In addition to name, address and telephone number, Yext shows you which content (photos, service informations, logos) you can also supplement.

Source: yext.com

With these and many other tools, you can deal more deeply in the OMR Reviews. In addition to the detailed descriptions, you will find there more screenshots, current price informations and evaluations. For a time-saving research we recommend you to use the following software categories:

• Software & Tools for Linkbuilding
• Local SEO Software

Conclusion

With local link building, you become visible in your community. Even if the SEO discipline not always easy to integrate into everyday life, the measures shown are essential to reach your walk-in customers. At the same time, you are maintaining your brand and participating in the advanced digital transformation.

Local link building also grows best if it grows slowly and prioritizes the aspect of quality. In this sense, these are not rash actions, but well thought-out long-term strategies that you integrate step by step and week by week in your planning. This way, you achieve a link profile that would also like Matt Cutts, the former head of the Web Spam team at Google:

You should always have a well-rounded portfolio of ways to get leads