35 Local Link Opportunities You Missed
With local results a solid part of most regular SERPs, it’s necessary for most businesses to continue to build more local link opportunities. Below are 35 you can go after, many through connections you’ve already made.
1. Sponsor a local animal shelter. Many of these are very city themed and link out to donors (I’ve seen as low as $10).
2. Sponsor a local meetup group.
A site:meetup.com plus city should let you see the most valuable pages Google has indexed that relate to that city. Most have a link to click to provide them with an offer. Paid links shmaid links, whatever, if you offer them your office space for their meetings, I don’t see a problem with them putting your link under sponsors to identify that meetings are held at your business.
3. Have anyone in the company running a marathon or race that is city specific and they have a “help me raise money” page? If the fundraising domain has the city name in it and the page is able to have links, why not drop one in? But then there’s the whole racing thing…..good luck with that.
4. Go speak at a local college.
Whether it’s an intro to marketing course or a senior leadership class, a night class speaking engagement that takes 30 minutes give you some goodwill from the college community, gets your name out there, and most likely a link from either the course syllabus, teacher’s page, school events page, etc. All of which are probably city or state themed.
5. Is your business in a corporate park, strip mall, actual mall? Many of these places have websites that could link out to your business like www.kingofprussiamall.com linking out to Gertrude Hawk Chocolates.
6. Your local community development center probably has a business directory. It’s very likely to have the name of the city or community in the title. It’s extremely likely it’ll link out to you, like FairmountCDC.org links out to Ali’s Wagon.
7. There are plenty of local forums with city name in title where you can post legit dofollow forum signature links. Is there value? Minimal. Are you getting a free city themed link from a site like http://www.philadelphiaspeaks.com/forum/south-philadelphia/17387-i-95-history-lession.html while you’re able to talk about the history of i-95? You betcha.
8. Have you purchased anything from a local artist for the business? If so, take a picture of it, shoot it over and see if they’ll link to you. Artists enjoy seeing their work hanging up. You’ll probably get a link, and if not, ask for one.
From here down, it’s all about who you’ve worked with and what has physically been done to your business. The main idea here is testimonials.
9. Have you recently had your business remodeled? What company did you use and if you provide a glowing testimonial, will they link back to you from their site? They should.
10. Did you hire a local SEO firm? Ask for that link under clients or ask if you can provide a testimonial in exchange for a link.
11. Do you use a local janitorial service for the office? Do they have a site and can you provide that testimonial for a link?
12. Had an event catered recently? Find their site, be willing to say nice things for a link.
13. Have you rented a limo or party bus? Site, request link in exchange for testimonial.
14. Hired a junk removal service? Get the link.
15. Hired a local photographer, graffiti artist? Find site, request.
16. Used a real estate agency to buy or find a rental? Use a title company? Find site, request.
17. Have donuts, bagels, or coffee delivered? Find site, testimonial for a link.
18. Have water or groceries delivered to your business? Find site, testimonial for a link.
19. Had a plumber, electrician, painting or window installation company service your business? Find sites, testimonial for a link.
20. Book a trip through a local travel agency? Get the link.
21. Leased computer, construction, furniture, or any other equipment? Get the link with a testimonial.
22. Hired a local copywriter? Provide a testimonial, or if you’re a big company, just ask them to put you in a Clients tab linked up if you’re not already there.
23. Used a moving company? Find, get.
24. Hired a band or motivational speaker, clown? Find site, link.
25. Hired company to help train your employees in advanced excel? Testimonial, link.
26. Had an inspection from an independent inspector (or appraiser)? Find site, link.
27. Rented out a conference room or consistently renting out coworking space? Get the link.
28. Hired a masseuse, chiropractor, therapist, psychologist, grief counselor, or any service specific to employees (even a consultant to fire employees)? Get the link.
29. Had carpets, tile, or general contracting work done? If you like it, provide the testimonial in exchange for a link.
30. Used a local promotional products company? Get the link.
31. Hired a landscaping company to make things pretty outside company headquarters? Testimonial & get the link.
32. Used a local IT company for troubleshooting/outsourcing IT work? Link.
33. Purchased any type of vehicle for the business? Testimonial to the local car dealership & get the link.
34. Had a company happy hour? Get the link
35. Hire a local design firm? Done.
Almost all of the companies you would use to do all of the things above have websites. 99% of them would love a testimonial and all you have to do is ask if they’re ok with you providing a fantastic testimonial if they’ll link to your company.
If you used a real estate agency (1) to find a rental space in a mall (2) you’re going to use a moving company (3), have electrical work fixed to fit your needs (4), paint, (5), fix plumbing (6), rent or buy furniture & office equipment (7), after you demo (8) and get rid of the junk left from construction (9). Then you put down carpet or tile (10) and take a limo (11) to a happy hour at a rented room (12) that is catered (13) to celebrate your new business. You invite your newly hired SEO (14) firm and design agency (15). I’ll stop there.
You’ll find a lot of local opportunities here. If they’re not local for you, they’re still great linking opportunities for things you’ve already paid for, so make the most of them & get the link.
Posted: 12.06.10
Adam Melson:
Interestingly enough, ten minutes after posting this blogpost ranked #1 for Local Link Opportunities and a handful of other terms in Google. Real time search impacting rankings is a different animal, watch for a post soon.
Ivanmelvin:
Love the suggestions! Thinking out of the box is always a winner for link building!
Cory Howell:
Love the list – very out of the box thinking! So many opportunities exist outside the doors of your business’ offices. Get out, socialize, get to know your community. Rewards will follow.
Justin Premick:
Adam,
Dig the list – amazing how many of our daily interactions with others are link-building opportunities.
Adam Melson:
THanks Justin! Always adding & revising what we ask our clients to see what matters & what is worth the time. I think this low hanging fruit is easy enough to check if the companies you regularly do business with are able to link to you.
I’m sure it’s like that at AWeber, if you’ve been doing business with someone, you’re probably not just sticking around for the heck of it, you probably think they’re a quality company and a testimonial or searching for their “clients” page could be the easy link you need.
Andy @ FirstFound:
Testimonials for links is something you’ve mentioned often, and it’s a great example. You scratch someone’s back, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t scratch yours.
Eddie:
Fantastic suggestions! It’s almost like a Link building has become a lifestyle.
Thanks
David Ostendarp:
Dude, you guys rock with link building ideas…there’s so much garbage out there on the topic of link building and how to do it, but whenever I need to come back down to earth and get some real suggestions I come right back to SEER to find them.
Thanks Guys and Gals, keep it up!
Adam Melson:
David – thanks for the kind words. We’re always trying to push it in link building to find the obvious and the not so obvious. I know between the rest of the team we’ve got some big bad (read whitehat) ideas that’ll be posted here soon enough. Thanks for reading.
Lorena Dunn:
Interestingly enough, ten minutes after posting this blogpost ranked #1 for Local Link Opportunities and a handful of other terms in Google. Real time search impacting rankings is a different animal, watch for a post soon.
Jackson Lo:
Great list of ideas on getting local links! Testimonials are key for any local business, but leveraging testimonials to drive traffic back is smart. I presume some people would click through on the link to verify that person indeed exists :)
Uwe:
This article was one of the rare cases where I actually got some _practical_ tips on how to get backlinks. Most of the SEO articles I’ve read were too general and therefore rather uninteresting to me.
I’ve already forwarded this article to our marketing department :-)
Himanshu:
That’s a great list. If we go buy your ideas then the local link opportunities are endless. You can get links from takeaways, pubs, garage, computer repair, car rental or any local service you hire or have hired. These are the low hanging fruits. Awesome post.
Matt Mikulla:
These are all excellent ideas. Speaking as an SEO, and former working artist specializing in corporate and commercial fine art I can relate to number 8. Regardless if my collector posted the purchase of my work I would photograph it myself, blog and link to the company.
Adam:
Matt – sounds like a great way to build some extra backlinks for yourself and an example of how companies can squeeze the juice on their current linkable assets.
Natalya Murphy:
Excellent ideas. One other suggestion I would add is any company that sends you a newsletter with helpful information. You may not have given money to the company yet, but they’re still providing you something of value.
One thing I didn’t see mentioned here was the danger of providing a less-than-authentic testimonial. My advice: don’t put anything in writing that you couldn’t honestly say to your best friend. Your own integrity is on the line, so be sure your glowing testimonial is truthful.
Jonathan Wilhelm:
Great advice, I asked around the office and found out what charitable organizations everyone belonged to. I then gave them a nice letter asking for a link to send to the organizations and told them if they felt comfortable to send it to the organizations they belonged to.
David:
Very nice list, some great ideas for marketing local businesses here.
Kristoffer:
These are all great tips. I will try these methods out for my clients.
I also mentioned this article in one of my blog posts:
http://seogeek-kristoffer.com/local-rankings-with-local-links/
SEO Sydney:
Great article written on linkbuilding queries. It is very helpful for SEO’s and linkbuilders.
Thanks.
Adam:
SEO Sydney & Kristoffer – Thanks for the mention, glad you found it useful. Local is definitely a larger part of search now & worth investing the time getting the links, even if the quality may be lower than other linkbuilding efforts.
Chrissy Morin:
Loved these ideas, I’ll be passing them along to my clients.. Thanks!
Adam:
Chrissy – glad we could help! Hopefully they’ll benefit from a handful of these.
Moe:
Dear Adam:
Many thanks for such a great info
I have my URL : http://www.exceptionallimo.ca/
I target the key word : Toronto limo and I have more links than other sites that still up above me !
Can you assist me ?
Adam:
Moe – it’s not all about the total of links vs the quality of links. You might try to leverage testimonials (links) from businesses that use your services, get local toronto websites to link to your site. Hotels might be a good option as they might have a “Limo services for our hotel is provided by” section. Also, if there are some quality sites linking to your competitors, can you get those links? Do you offer something different or better than they do? All things to do some research on & figure out the opportunities that will link.
Matt:
Some utterly great ideas here for people who want to achieve authentic, and sustainable search rankings. Great stuff!
Brian Greenberg:
Great suggestions! I’m so happy someone made a list of best ways to earn strong links. Thank you.
Thomas:
A great list you have here. The sad thing is a lot of businesses owners are just a bit too lazy to seek out any of these link opportunities.
So as a web strategist, you have to either light a fire under them and get them motivated or do it for them because all of these things can work wonders a for a local businesses presence online.
Laura:
@Adam great post! You said ten minutes after posting this blogpost ranked #1 for Local Link Opportunities and a handful of other terms in Google. How did this happen? All the tweets? Blog comments? UGC?
Mike:
Some great ideas, thanks for sharing.
yash:
Hi
This so optimistic they WY you have found some great lol tactic to build relations thanks dude
marry:
Thanks super great lol technic to build links good job dude