Every brand and business has unique needs. Some are able to succeed by attracting a steady stream of in-person clientele. Others need to attract attention via digital means. Of those operating online, some focus on organic forms of traffic such as through search engines, while others gain notoriety via paid marketing efforts.

Whatever the situation, brands need exposure. For those that are focused on both a local presence and organic digital marketing methods, having a prominent and steady flow of online traffic is essential. In achieving this goal, search engine optimization matters.

Today, we’ll be focusing on locally-operated businesses seeking to be more visible in search results. Earning links from other local websites and brands is crucial in this task. Below, we’ll discuss how this can be accomplished.

Create Local Content That Inspires

When targeting local audiences and attempting to build links, one of the simplest strategies is to create content that local online brands, businesses and blogs will find useful. Depending on your exact niche, this may be easier said than done – but for any brand with a local presence, creating content that tangentially relates to their mission while simultaneously providing value to local audiences is easy enough to accomplish.

By pinging links to locally-relevant content, you can attract the attention of a greater number of people on social media. However, the real value in building links – if you’re targeting local search results in particular – is to earn links from other blogs and brands. Providing true value in your content can make it easier to earn a wide variety of links for various topics and angles (as opposed to securing a top-level domain link for your brand or website’s general offerings).

Snipe Competitor Links

Believe it or not, one of the easiest ways to build links is to find where your competitors or like-minded local brands have had success. There are plenty of useful tools out there that can allow you to compare links to your website with links to other websites, making it easy to find out where any comparable local websites have seen optimal link building opportunities.

In many cases, you’ll find one or more local repositories or directories for local resources in your area that’ll be happy to add a link back to your website if it provides genuine local benefit. You’ll also find opportunities to cultivate relationships with other brands in your vicinity who have collaborated – or at least linked to – your competitors or local analogs.

Dig Up Your Lost Links

Over time, even the links you’ve worked hard to build can disappear. Whether it be because you’ve changed your website link structure without utilizing the proper redirects or because the sites that have linked to you have had issues of their own, identifying broken links or links you previously enjoyed is a great starting point.

By contacting these brands and asking them to start pinging links back to your pages once again, you’ll hopefully be able to add a bit more link juice to your overall link building repertoire.

In the end, link building at the local level involves many of the same tactics as generic link building. However, there are a few unique instances where you’ll need to adjust your approach accordingly. Follow these tips and you can begin improving your local link building efforts even more!