Link Building for SMBs
Owning a small business often implies finding more affordable marketing options for promoting your brand. However, when it comes to digital marketing, that could put your business’ reputation at risk.
Many affordable SEO companies employ less-than-effective tactics that would temporarily boost your Google Search ratings. Though appeasing at first, the result could cause a penalty with Google, and you might become delisted from search, leading to a loss of your hard-earned reputation.
Fortunately, link building for small businesses can be done safely and effectively, so long as you are willing to invest time or resources into doing it right.
Do small businesses need to build links?
SEO experts will tell you that acquiring backlinks to your content significantly improves your chances of ranking on the search engine results page. However, link-building is the most challenging part of search engine optimization.
About 75% of internet users don’t scroll past the first page of Google. About 30% of these users never bother looking past the first few links.
By setting up a good link-building campaign, small business owners can use high-quality backlinks to improve their chances of ranking. Acquiring links from other thematically relative and authoritative websites will increase your sites’ authority, which as part of a holistic SEO strategy will improve your rankings and traffic.
Since increased traffic leads to greater exposure and larger revenue, small and local businesses should be looking for a high-quality link-building strategy.
7 link building tips for small businesses
Here are seven link-building tips that actually work and don’t rely on ineffective link-building methods.
Partner with other small businesses
Link building is ultimately about building a relationship with webmasters from whom you’re acquiring links for your web page. Partnerships with small, local businesses will ensure trustworthiness, and people will be more likely to add a link to your website if they actually collaborate with you as a business owner.
Research local organizations in your area that do something relevant to what you do. For example, if you own a pet shop, make sure you’re on good terms with a local vet, a pet groomer, or even someone who walks pets.
Reach out and establish partnerships with local businesses, and offer referral discounts to shared customers. Collaborating with other companies and organizations will lead to natural linking opportunities alongside other benefits.
Host a local event
Hosting or even sponsoring local events can help you amass unlinked and linked mentions on local blogs and news sites. Google takes these into consideration when ranking your business’ web page.
Think about various conferences, festivals, professional events, or any other event with a relevant audience and get involved.
Connect with bloggers and influencers
Many communities have local bloggers or social media influencers that create high-quality content for relevant target audiences. Their posts often present a good opportunity for your link-building efforts.
Reach out to local bloggers and relevant sites and see if they’re open to collaboration. Make arrangements to provide a valuable experience and perhaps a free visit to your business in exchange for a guest post linking to your business’ website.
Additionally, you can opt to set up affiliate-style content marketing. In exchange for a percentage of sales proceedings coming from their blog, they’ll maintain your online presence through linked and unlinked mentions. This links should be no follow, so the real benefit here is the referral traffic they will generate.
Guest posts
Writing a piece of content can go a long way in your digital marketing efforts. It’s important to research blogs that are relevant to your business and are open to collaboration and guest blogging. Make sure to write a really good piece for every blog or webpage that accepts your pitch, as it will increase traffic for both parties.
Join local directories
Joining local directories may or may not generate a dofollow backlink, but they are still helpful. For local search results, Google takes citations into account as well, which include listings on your business name, address, and phone number on sites, even if they don’t link to you.
Citation building is low effort and safe, so as a local business with a physical location, you shouldn’t seize this opportunity.
Promote to a press release
Reach out to local bloggers or journalists to let them know about an interesting project your company’s working on. This could get you mentioned or covered on numerous local sites, creating both trust and geo-relevancy signals. This is different than blasting out a cheap press release for syndication though – so don’t lump them together.
This strategy works well with other points in our guide; sponsoring an event or hosting a fundraiser are newsworthy activities. Make sure to go out and present your work to the news outlets and other media.
Get Links Added to Existing Content
As your business grows, so will your brand awareness, and people will mention you more frequently online. Finding these unlinked mentions could help you secure a link placement.
Another noteworthy type of link acquisition is broken link building. Larger companies and enterprises often have broken links on other websites. If your business is offering a similar product or a service, you can reach out to webmasters of those linking sites and suggest replacing broken links with ones leading to your web page.
It not only helps you increase your rankings, but it also helps the other website to offer a better searching experience to its visitors.
Endnote
These tactics will help your business earn more link placements and expand your business as a valuable and appreciated part of local communities. Implementing these in your marketing strategy isn’t always easy, especially when you have a business to run.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out our comprehensive guide on link building or schedule a free consultation to discuss our link building services.
