As a local business, you likely want to stand out in your area and establish your brand among the locals. Studies have shown that one of the best ways to do this is by engaging in digital marketing and improving your local SEO. However, to improve your local SEO, you’re going to have to put a heavy focus on link building. Link building can be a hard topic to grasp for businesses that don’t outsource link building services, which often results in it being overlooked. However, local link building is an extremely important part of local SEO, and you definitely should put a heavy focus on it. So exactly how important is local link building for local SEO? Let’s take a look.
Increased Traffic
One of the biggest benefits of link building for local SEO is the increased amount of traffic your business will experience. The whole purpose of SEO is to improve the search engine ranking of your business. There are obvious benefits to ranking higher on search engine results, as most users will simply look at the first few results of a search query. When your business’s search engine ranking is improved, you’ll get more web traffic and generate more leads.
In addition, when you focus on improving your SEO in a certain area, it can also improve foot traffic as well. People may find your local business through a search and then decide to visit you in person. As a small local business, you’ll likely want to grow as much as possible quickly. Thankfully, the increased traffic from your local SEO efforts can help with this.
Brand Recognition
Another huge positive of link building for local SEO is the increased brand recognition and visibility you’ll receive. As mentioned before, most people never look past the first few search results, so if you don’t rank high, you’ll likely never be seen by some consumers.
However, ranking highly for specific searches in your area can allow a lot more people to be exposed to your brand and business. Even if these people don’t visit your website and do business with you right away, increased exposure to your brand may entice some consumers to do business with you down the road.
Relevant Content for Readers
When you attempt to link building for local SEO, you’re going to have to create locally relevant content for consumers. This content can cover various topics relating to your industry and usually is location-specific to really help with local SEO efforts. Although these content pieces are fantastic at improving your company’s SEO and generating leads, there are also other benefits to this content as well. Consumers can get great value out of these content pieces, as it costs them nothing and can educate them about various topics.
When consumers read your content, they are getting value out of it, something that will make them look at your brand in a more positive and credible light. As a result, the content you create for your efforts in local SEO can result in you helping out various consumers and establishing connections with them.
Established Professional Relationships
An underrated aspect of using link building for local SEO is the established professional relationships that you can get out of it. When trying to boost your local SEO, you’re likely going to have to work with other companies in your area. Linking to websites in other areas of the country simply won’t give your website the local authority you’re looking for, meaning you’re going to have to work with other local businesses. To do so, you have to reach out to them and establish connections. You and your partnered brands will likely have reciprocal links to each other’s websites, boosting the local authority of both of your websites.
Reaching out and establishing connections and relationships like this can be very beneficial down the line, as a strong network can always come in handy when you need something.