When it comes to driving visibility for both your client’s optimized website and Google My Business listings, local backlinking is arguably the single most effective method for moving the needle. A recent study by SEO local Guide showed a distinct correlation between high-quality links and local businesses ranked in the top 3 positions in search both for maps and organic. The problem is, especially in local, that it’s very rarely done properly by business owners and even by SEO agencies.
Many business owners and SEO agencies are still using techniques that instead of helping a business gain traction online are actually harming them. This is usually due to the ignorance of the business owner of the best current techniques or the SEO agencies trying to create a competitive edge over their client’s competitors with say a private blog network. This can still be very effective, but putting your client’s entire web presence at risk to increase rankings is exactly what you don’t want.
White Hat Local Backlinking
You`ve heard of white hat backlinking before and it’s the only type of backlink we do, based on genuine custom human research and analysis, submission and outreach. We don’t have an already prepared list of link backlink sources; we want your client’s backlink profile to be as unique as possible.
Our custom researched but systematic approach allows us to develop a tailored local SEO backlink solution based on your customer’s needs, budget and existing relationships within the local community. We start with:
- Internal Linking
- A full backlink analysis of your client’s current backlink profile against the competition
- Industry and city specific citations ( With backlinks)
- Backlink spam check and cleaning up if necessary
- Submission of backlink relationships questionnaire to business owner for possible further local backlinks through outreach See Here
- Reverse engineering of competitor backlinks
The first part of this process is cleaning up any potential negative backlinks and bringing your client on to a level standing with their competitors by reverse engineering their competitor’s backlinks. Once we have a foundation to work from we look to push your clients ahead with anything up to 40+ different white label local backlink techniques to choose from enabling a truly custom backlink profile based on your client’s specific needs and budget.
The backlink profile Types range from
Low hanging fruit: These are the easier backlinks to get and tend to be done first
Paid: Backlinks that are very useful but would require an extra budget. Examples of these might be BBB.org, sponsorships or industry association memberships.
Require outreach: These are valuable link sources but are more labor intensive requiring us to reach out directly a business or webmaster. An example of this might be local blogger outreach or offering a testimonial to a local business your client has used before in return for a backlink.
Combination: Some techniques require even more resources, for instance, a scholarship campaign to gain good EDU backlinks requires the business owner earmarks enough to pay for the scholarship and requires a significant amount of outreach via email and phone calls to get the scholarship backlink from the websites of local colleges and universities.
You can see a quick spreadsheet on the current list of local backlink techniques we use Here. We are always looking for feedback, ideas or resources relating to new innovative local backlink techniques to always keep your clients one step ahead of the competition.