Let's start off the Pt 2 on Local SEO: Off-Page. Find out how you can boost your startup's SEO. If you haven't read our last blogs on 'What is Local SEO' and '6 Top Tips to Boost your On-Page SEO' we definitely recommend you read them before this article.
Off-page SEO has many facets, but the most important is building links that matter.
Link building unlike most other SEO tactics is an art.
Here's a quick exercise just Google something like "SEO link building" or "building backlinks."
You'll be amazed at how many conflicting advice, suggestions and tips spring up. Needless to say most of these don't work. Worse yet, a bad day at link building hurts your website and domain at a fundamental level. Getting Google mad at you sucks!
Let's take ourselves back to this handy stat-studded study Moz published for 2018 (I don't expect any sweeping changes for 2019).
The two main takeaways in regard to backlinks are:
The link profile is the most powerful localized organic ranking factor.
It is also the second most powerful ranking factor for Google's Local 3-Packs and expanded results (aka Local Finder).
Query-based, intent-driven traffic is the bread and butter for local SEO. Ideally, if you run a Chinese takeaway in Manchester, you want to show up in the 3-pack every single time a hungry person in Manchester turns to Google for some Kung Pao. Moreover, showing up at the top in SERPs makes sure that whoever didn't care about the 3-pack will anyway find you. Forget domain rating/authority and referral traffic for a minute if you need your local SEO strategy to really pack a punch, these two reasons are what make local link building an absolute must-have for your website!
There are dozens of link analysis tools out there that let you analyse your link profile in qualitative and quantitative ways.
Start with something that is reliable and preferably free like Moz Link Explorer.
If you want more insights, move up to something more premium, like Ahrefs, a tool that I have relied on for many years.
For a more local touch, you can try out dedicated local SEO tools like BrightLocal (I don't see the upside to these if you already have Ahrefs).
Local link building is, in a nutshell, the traditional link building with a local flavour. So, the preferred referring domains here will be those that cater to your location and are at least loosely related to what your business does.
Inbound Link Building For Your Startup's Local SEO:
How can you use inbound linking building?
Local Directories, Resource Pages and Citations:
Most of these will be nofollow links but they are not totally worthless. These are essentially free links that you can claim and move on to other tactics. Start with the usual suspects: Yelp, BBB, Foursquare, Trustpilot, Glassdoor and then progress towards industry-specific directories.
Last but not least find and get featured in as many local directories as you can.
Google Links:
Same as above. Get links from as many Google assets as you can. This won't really have a massive impact on local SEO it's just a basic procedure that you need to get out of your way.
Scholarships:
A powerful way to build links from high-authority university, college and school websites. Not to mention, it is a great way of giving back to your local society.
Charities:
Donate to local charities to feature on their websites. Again, you'll be giving back to the local community in a meaningful way.
Sponsorships:
Find local teams: football, rugby, lacrosse, baseball, cricket or whatever your local thing is and strike sponsorship deals with them.
Start smaller (school/junior levels) and build on to it as your budget allows. You can also sponsor/co-sponsor events (think marathons, book launches, keynotes), stadiums and even tournaments – if your budget allows for it.
Remember – as the spending goes up, you will need to consider other marketing angles (brand awareness, chiefly) along with link building.
Local Blogs:
Important! Find local blogs that are related to your business and negotiate guest posting deals with them.
Local Influencers:
You don't really need to restrict your efforts to local influencers, but it helps if they have a local audience.
Online press releases, sponsored articles, news and much more. It is much, much easier to feature on a local daily website than say the Washington Post. So, make the most of this.
Local Events:
Awards, seminars, workshops, competitions, conclaves, gatherings, roundtables attend them all and hopefully end up on relevant websites.
This approach won't really be optimizable, but it's incredibly effective.
Reverse Engineering:
If you can actually reverse engineer link targets and leverage your competitors’ investments for your own gains, there’s nothing like it.
It’s a rather complicated process that is best trusted with experienced, proven link building agencies.
Unlinked Mentions:
This isn't a typical link-building strategy it takes a bit of creativity, and you need to be a link-building ninja who knows their way around multiple SEO tools.
HQ SEO is one of the handful of SEO experts out there who have developed a result-centric link-building process around this that guarantees some of the best ROIs and fastest results.
Link building local or global is a delicate affair. Despite all the technicalities, it is eventually all about being creative – as I have discussed at length in this post dedicated to creative local link-building strategies.
Internal Linking For Local SEO
Internal linking is a criminally underrated tactic especially when it comes to local search engine optimization. These links aren't just meh, because they eventually contribute to the UX: the master that all-SEO-ever has aimed to serve.
I will go so far as to say that no local SEO guide (or any SEO guide, for that matter!) is complete without a quick word about internal linking something that boasts of massive benefits for little effort. Here's why:
Ease of navigation : It's 2024, and maze websites are dead for real. UX shouldn't ever be an afterthought.
On-Page Signals: Internals links are an important on-page SEO factor.
Helping Google: When you create an elaborate internal link profile, you help the Googlebot decide with more precision which page is about what. It also helps put all your link juice in a funnel that will help you rank important pages for profitable keywords.
You will always have 100% control over your internal links. So, if you haven't been doing this for your website, take a day off other things and start linking.
Note: Our good friends and partners at HQSEO wrote this piece. You can find the original version of the post linked here.
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