7 Actionable Link Building Tips for Small Businesses
Link building is an important part of your SEO strategy for your small business. The more relevant links to your website from quality, reputable sources, the more trustworthy your small business website will appear to search engines. Link building is an excellent way for your small business to boost your credibility and earn higher rankings.
How to Get Started on Your Small Business Link Building Strategy
Check out these seven ways you can get started on improving your small business’ SEO through link building:
1. Guest Post for Industry Relevant Sites
Research businesses and blogs in your area that are relevant to your business and offer to write on-topic articles for their website. Writing relevant guest posts not only provides value to the host’s audience, but it also provides you with an opportunity to include a link back to your small business website. Note that this should be done conservatively, as mass guest posting can appear spammy to search engines like Google. Only write for relevant websites whose audience would truly benefit from your industry-specific insights.
2. Get Involved with Your Community
By getting involved with local charities or fundraisers for community projects, you naturally gain more link building opportunities. When you work to help causes people care about, more people will spread the word and get involved, promoting the cause and your small business’ involvement. If you’re listed on a featured sponsored pages for a local charity, do not hesitate to ensure your company name is linked back to your website for those who might want to learn more.
3. Join Local Directories
Join respected business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce for your city which also include local links to your website as well as fantastic opportunities to network with other business professionals. Be sure to apply for listings only in reputable directories and industry resources.
4. Partner With Other Businesses
Reach out to businesses within your industry, companies that perform complementary services which are related to what your business does, or those with whom you actively do business with and discuss ways you can help each other out. Building relationships with other businesses will lead to natural linking opportunities. Be careful with this tactic, as you do not want to create links between businesses that are truly not relevant or helpful for the visitor. Otherwise, you risk being seen as creating unnatural links in Google’s eyes.
5. Claim Unlinked Mentions
Perform an online search for your company name on Google by using quotes around your name (e.g. “Igniting Business”) and review what comes up. Whenever a website or blog mentions your business without including a link, reach out to request a link to your website be added. This is a low-hanging fruit tactic when it comes to link building.
6. Fix Broken Links
Sometimes the host website for your backlinks moves or the link simply breaks. Keep track of your backlinks and check on them periodically to ensure any broken links are fixed and improve your SEO. Additionally, if you find other industry related websites that have a broken link to your competitor’s website/resource and you have relevant content, this can also be an opportunity to earn a link in place of your competitor’s.
7. Social Media
Search engines do not treat social media content as links. However, they do attribute some weight to engagement on social media. Providing quick intros with corresponding links to your blog posts and website articles on your social media accounts not only boosts your online presence, but will also provide link building opportunities when others share your posts.
Supercharging Your Link Building Process with an SEO Tool
Keeping track of your link building efforts and finding new opportunities can be a challenge and time-consuming process. As such, there are several companies out there that made extremely useful tools that make finding, managing, and earning backlinks a lot easier. One of which that we highly recommend is SEMrush. With SEMrush, you can explore competitor’s backlinks, find new opportunities, and track your overall SEO process. Check out SEMrush’ full suite of SEO and online marketing tools.
Additionally, BrightLocal is another tool we highly recommend. While it does not currently have a robust backlink building tool like SEMrush, it does have a fantastic directory listings management tool, top-of-the-line rank tracking, review collection tools, and more. All of which fit hand-in-hand with your SEO and link building strategies. Check out BrightLocal’s listing management and ranking monitoring platform.
Note that these tools are built for SEO agencies or DIY (do-it-yourself) business owners and marketers that are willing to invest the time to learn how to effectively use the toolset and invest in ongoing improvement. If you are looking for an SEO agency to do the work for you, that’s where a company like Igniting Business excels!
Contact Igniting Business for Quality SEO Services
At Igniting Business, we provide a full range of SEO services to help your website rank well in search results and lead consumers to your door. For more link building tips, or to learn more about our ongoing SEO services and how we can help position your website front and center, contact us today!
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