Host an Event

You can host a community event taking place in your area. Obviously, you’ll need to allocate some time for preparation and arrangements.

However, with this simple strategy, your business will get the highlight in local media and as a result; you can get backlinks from them.

Apart from that, your business will also get valuable mentions, citations and exposure to the local audience. Your event could be related to anything such as New Year or Valentine’s.

Sponsor the Local Team

There are numerous sports taking place. And along with that, there are multiple sports teams in different regions. Find a sports team in your area and if your budget allows it, sponsor them.

It’s a combination of traditional marketing and digital marketing but it’ll do wonders. Similar to hosting an event, it’ll get you exposure and backlinks from local news sites as well as sports blogs.

You’ll be able to get traffic from social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram as well, because of your sports team and their presence. This is an effective strategy for getting quality backlinks from multiple sources.

Leverage Local Meetups

Heard of meetup.com? It is a place where you can find groups of people who meet up regularly. It is a great platform and a gold mine for your local business website. You can go there, join a few groups and start organizing meetups for them.

Make sure that you join the groups that are directly related to your business. For example, if you own a restaurant, then you should aim at joining a foodie’s group or cutlery group.

Like hosting an event, it gets you solid backlinks along with traffic and potential customers.

Create Local Resource Pages

This is one of the most effective ways to get many high-quality backlinks to your site. Create a resource page for helping your audience. It should be detailed, valuable and relevant. Your resources page could be about the local attractions or best service providers.

For example, if you own a furniture store, you can create a list of the best interior designers present in your area. Another example is if you own a restaurant, you can create a list of the best attractions in your area. Such lists are a great way to attract local traffic.

Not only that, you can share this page with the professionals in that industry and get valuable backlinks. Local websites and media might share your resources page and get you links too.

A smart thing you can do is to reach out to the people or businesses you have mentioned in your page. Ask them to mention your resources page. This way, you’ll get high-quality backlinks from multiple local sites.

Participate in Awards

Participate in the nominations of local awards. These websites are reliable platforms and when your business is listed there, you get backlinks as well.

Moreover, you might win the award too, which will greatly improve your brand’s popularity. You will get mentions on social media and media too (just like hosting an event).

Perform Interviews

There are two ways you can use interviews for local link-building:

Interview a local celebrity

If you can get in touch with a local public figure or celebrity, then you should get an interview with them. It’s a little tricky but worth the effort.

When the interview gets published in local media, you’ll surely get multiple backlinks and brand mentions, both of which are necessary for local SEO.

Give an interview

You can give an interview to a local blogger or niche website as well. It can be a video-interview, podcast episode, or a simple blog article.

This method will not only help you get backlinks from the interviewer’s site but will also position you as a brand authority.

Guest Blogging

Guest posts are a great way to get backlinks from the leading websites in your locality and niche.

What’s a guest post?

When someone writes a post on another website as a guest, it’s called a guest post. Find the most reputed local websites which operate in your industry. Once you’ve created the list, reach out to them and pitch them a good guest post idea.

Make sure that your guest post idea is original and worth their time. This will increase the chances of them accepting your post.

Provide a valuable post and try to insert a link to your business (if their guideline allows) in the article. You would want to write a great post to make sure that you get the chance to write a post again.

With regular guest posts on different websites, you will easily increase your site’s authority, traffic and credibility while increasing the number of good backlinks.

List your Business in Local Directories

The local business directories are not only a great place to get citations but also backlinks. Ensure that you’re using a reliable directory.

It will give you exposure as well as a free backlink.

Publish Great Content

Content marketing is undeniably an effective method to get backlinks. Good content gets links automatically and continues to yield great results.

Anna Crowe mentions content marketing as one of the most important link building strategies. When experts recommend something, you ought to try it.

It’s simple, you have to create and publish great and valuable content on your site. Share it on social media and reach out to those who might need it. Valuable and evergreen content gets a lot of links and traffic. Moreover, if you keep updating your posts, they’ll keep attracting more and more traffic.

For example, Neil Patel’s Content Marketing Guide has garnered 100+ backlinks. You don’t have to be a niche expert but you can get multiple backlinks through content marketing.

Create Infographics

Infographics are visually appealing and provide a lot of information quickly. They get a lot of shares on social media, particularly on Instagram and Pinterest.

You can create a number of infographics and share them on social media. You can also reach out to relevant websites and blogs, asking them to share your infographic.

Infographics provide many backlinks along with brand exposure.

Summary

Building backlinks take time and efforts. But after a while, you’ll gain momentum and the task will become easier. Your goal should be getting a high number of quality backlinks from reliable websites. Make sure that you get rid of any broken links and low-quality backlinks.

While good links promote your site’s ranking, the bad ones will do the opposite.

Now that we’ve cleared backlinks, let’s discuss another technical aspect of local SEO, in the next chapter.