Local Link Building help!

[kbaltzell]

Hi All,

Looking for some help with where to begin link building for local small businesses. If the website is leading to a lawyer, doctor, or any type of professional service, I'm at a loss on where to start.

I've tried looking into local directories, and I also know that if one of the clients has a reason for being linked in an online news article, those links should be pursued. Additionally, I've gone and helped to claim all local listings, and submitted to DMOZ and a few other directories.

So if the website is just leading to a business that isn't running any events or specials worth writing about, what is the best way to acquire links?

Thank you!

Tyler

[Greg_Gifford]

You've still got several options.  First and foremost, use Open Site Explorer to check out the links that your client's competitors have. You'll get lots of ideas, assuming that there are local competitors in the area. If not, check competitors in other cities, see what they're doing and do something similar locally.

Next - add some useful content to your client's site. Become an educator about that niche and post regular, unique content. Use that client's expertise to your advantage and share it with the local community. Build social connections to share that content.

Seek out local bloggers and build relationships with them. Once you're introduced and they know who you are, share some of that expertise with them - you could either get a guest post on their blog, have them guest post on yours, or have them write about your client's business.

Ask customers what they want to see on the site - not really crowd-sourcing, but just finding out what customers in that niche would find useful. Then do it.

And don't forget about citations - depending on the niche, local citations can sometimes be just as powerful as links (or even more powerful) when it comes to local ranking.

[Mike_Davis]

I think that an obvious place to start would be local professional organization websites.  Many of them have a member’s area that will have a small blurb about the member and hopefully a link.  Another idea is business organizations like the chamber of commerce, etc.  Hopefully if your clients are creating good content and are able to push that content out (using social and email marketing) those links will happen organically.  Just remember…if they build good content…the links will come!

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[kbaltzell]

Oops, accidentally duplicated my response!

[kbaltzell]

Hi Greg,

Thank you for taking the time to help me out! I'm encouraging more clients to integrate blogs with the websites that we build for them, but the tricky part is getting the client to provide content.

In some instances my company will write and manage these postings (we work in specific niches so we have solid content writers), but this is at an extra cost to the clients. Most of my clients see themselves as too busy to write a blog post, but I'm trying to emphasize the importance.

The guest blog posting is a great idea too, as I'm thinking that getting content for a guest blog post would actually be easier than having them run their own blog.

Local citations are pretty big for the niche we're working in, so this may be where I'm directing most of my energy.

Thanks for the helping out a local SEO greenhorn, I'm always working to get better at this

[Greg_Gifford]

Glad I could help!

Check out the Whitespark Local Citation Finder, if you haven't already - it's pretty awesome...

Another few non-link related things that will be a big help for local search optimization:

Also, make sure you get their Google+ Local pages claimed and optimized. Work hard on a review strategy so they can start acquiring positive reviews.

If you're brave, you can try merging their G+ Local page with their G+ Business page - then you've got an integrated maps/social presence, which can lead to some cool things...

also, you can set up Google Authorship, so that the business owner's photo shows up next to their listings, which can help click-throughs.