How to Get Local Backlinks for SEO?

Local backlinks are valuable assets that every small business (or large enterprise targeting a certain locality) needs to improve its local search engine rankings and attract local traffic.

These days, many people search for local businesses on Google and use the search results before deciding to purchase.

So, if you want to attract local customers, you have to improve your local SEO.

And local backlinks are your best bet.

In this article, you will learn how to get those local backlinks and the reasons why they matter in SEO.

Let’s dig in.

What is Local SEO Backlink Building?

Backlink building for local SEO is a practice of getting inbound links to your site from other local websites to increase your online search visibility.

The main goal is to attract backlinks from local business sites, publications, and blogs to show up at the top of local search results and drive local organic traffic who are more likely to make a purchase.

Let’s say you own a pizza restaurant in Downtown Minneapolis, MN. 

And you want more local people to come to your restaurant and order pizza from your website.

So, you would want to attract backlinks from local food blogging sites, news sites, and business directories to boost your search visibility in Downtown Minneapolis.

This way, when people from this area search for restaurants or pizza delivery, your restaurant might appear in the search results.

Why is It Mandatory to Build Backlinks for Local Service Businesses?

According to a 2024 survey from Brightlocal, 81% of all consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses through search queries before making a purchase decision.

So, to attract traffic from a specific geographical area, you need to build local backlinks and appear in local search results.

Let’s explore a few other reasons why building backlinks is mandatory for local service businesses:

• • The top five organic search results in the Google SERPs get 69.1% of all clicks. Since building quality local backlinks will help your business site appear at the top of SERPs, not focusing on getting these inbound links will cost you a huge portion of your customers.

• • With solid local SEO, your website can drive a lot of local organic traffic that is highly likely to convert into paying customers.

• • It will help you improve your brand credibility and trust among local consumers.

• • By getting several high-quality inbound links from reputable local establishments and bloggers, your brand’s authority will increase. And it will give you a competitive edge among other similar local brands.

• • You will see a boost in your site’s engagement rate and domain authority.

How Does Backlinking Work in Local SEO?

The most obvious benefit of earning local backlinks is getting high-quality referral traffic from the local websites you got the links from. 

It’s a huge boon for your business’s local SEO. After all, your site will get quality traffic from your target geographical locations. And these local groups of audience have a high possibility of converting into your paying customers.

Local backlinks can also help your business show up at the top of Google search pages for relevant keywords.

That’s because every single quality local backlink you get is similar to getting a vote of assurance from reputable local communities in the eyes of Google.

And if you can get backlinks from local .edu or .org sites, your brand’s local search visibility will be even more pronounced.

What’s more, unlike general link-building strategies, the domain authority of the sites you get the backlinks from doesn’t have to be too high.

The simple fact that trusted local brands recognize you by offering backlinks is enough to improve your local SEO.

How to Create Backlinks for Local SEO? (11 Effective Strategies)

1. Enlist your business in local business directories

Online local business directories don’t really give you the strongest backlinks. However, it’s quite easy to get inbound links from them.

What’s more, many local businesses, such as restaurants or other service-oriented brands, can rank pretty high in the local search results using the local backlinks from the online directories.

To find these local online directories, you can Google them using the following terms:

• • [Your area] business directories

• • [Your area] [business type/industry] directory

And don’t limit your search just to your city. You can also enlist your business in the business directories of the areas that are close to your business’s location.

2. Join industry-specific directories

You can enlist your business in industry-specific directories to get valuable backlinks that will help you improve your local SEO.

For example, if your business sells software or SaaS applications, you can enlist your site on G2 and Capterra. If you deal with hotels or restaurants, joining Tripadvisor would be a good choice.

If you get backlinks from these niche directories, you will have a high chance of receiving highly specific, quality leads to your business website.

Some of these directories also allow users to leave reviews after they make purchases, which will further enhance your local SEO.

3. Try to appear on local News sites

Appearing on local news sites is yet another way of getting quality local backlinks that can drive quality local traffic to your site.

You can try reaching out to them to get a free press release to get local inbound links to your site to improve your local search ranks.

Or you can submit your press release on these news sites or local online publications.

No matter which one of these two options you choose, getting backlinks from local news sites will improve your site’s visibility in relevant local search results.

4. Become a Part of local forums and communities

While local forums and communities aren’t as popular as they were in the past, they are still a great way to generate local backlinks for your website.

Use Google to search for relevant local online forums. 

Once you find the right forums, you can include the link to your website while offering advice or content that is highly valuable to the forum users.

However, do not spam the forum with your site’s links or products.

5. Create locally relevant content

You can create content that is helpful and relevant to the people of a certain geographical location to attract local links to your site.

For example, you can write blogs on topics like “best pizza restaurant in [city name]” or “tips to deal with common pests in [city name]” that are highly relevant to the local population.

Sure, getting natural local SEO backlinks using these content topics can be difficult.

But you can always make them part of your backlink email outreach campaigns.

6. Get links from city-specific sites and directories

Getting backlinks from city-specific sites and directories can give a huge boost to your site’s local SEO.

For example, you can enlist your business details and website’s link to Google My Business and Bing Places for Business.

You can use other city-specific sites and online directories available in your locality to get backlinks too.

While they might not be as effective as larger directories on a bigger scale, your site will have a high chance of showing up in relevant local search pages.

7. Work with local bloggers and influencers

You can also work with local bloggers and influencers to get high-quality local backlinks for your website.

These people have highly targeted local audiences. Plus, getting the attention of local bloggers will be a lot easier than receiving backlinks from local news sites.

For example, if you’re operating a restaurant, you can work with popular local food bloggers and influencers.

The key is to find the right local blogs and influencers who produce content relevant to your business.

8. Sponsor events in your locality

You can sponsor several local events in your target geographical areas to build a solid local SEO backlinking profile.

For example, if you operate a restaurant, you can sponsor local cooking events. 

You can also sponsor local workshops relevant to your business activities to reinforce your ties with a particular locality.

This way, you will get backlinks from the event organizers’ websites, and possibly from local online presses too.

9. Get local PR links

Are you planning to launch a new product or service, or add new offers and discounts? 

If you do, you can use this opportunity to draft press releases and get backlinks from local publications.

In addition to that, you can also publish the PR in other media outlets, such as social media, local papers, or online community groups.

Just make sure to add the event details and your site’s URL before publishing the PR.

10. Use internal links in your content

Your business website is also a local site and you can use it however you want. So, you can use internal links in your content to boost your local SEO.

Internal links can help search engine bots navigate your site more efficiently.

As long as you set them up properly on relevant web pages, they can boost the authority level of your web pages, allowing you to boost your overall search ranking.

11. Track your competitor sites’ backlinks

If your competitor sites constantly rank higher in local search ranking, you must check their local linking profile to see if they’re using backlinks that you are not.

So, you can use SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to see which directories and sites your competitors have received backlinks from.

Once you’re done tracking, you should reach out to the relevant sites to get inbound links to your website, which in turn will boost your local SEO.

How Should Your Business Acquire Local Backlinks (Expert Advice).

Link building takes a lot of time, effort, and expert SEO knowledge. 

So, unless you have an SEO expert in your team, it’ll be difficult to acquire quality backlinks and rank your site high in the local search results.

That’s where our experts at Traffic Kite with decades of link-building experience can help you.

We, at Traffic Kite, use a proven link-building strategy that helped many of our clients boost their search ranking, get more organic traffic, and create solid brands.

And we can help you too.

Speak with our local link building experts today to improve your site’s local SEO and attract more local customers!

Final Words

Many people often ignore the importance of local backlinks in SEO, only to be unable to attract local traffic to their sites.

Don’t be one of those people.

As long as you use the tips we have mentioned in this article, your site should be able to rank higher in local search results and get tons of organic local traffic.

Need extra help?

Connect to our link-building experts at Traffic Kite today!

Local Backlinks – FAQs

#1 What are the best backlinks for local SEO success?

Backlinks from reputable local sites and news sites are some of the best links for local SEO. But you should not ignore getting links from local citations, directories, and industry-specific directories to improve your local search visibility.

#2 What’s the difference between local citations and local backlinks?

Local citations just mention your brand name, site URL, address, contact info, and other business details. On the other hand, backlinks are hyperlinks to your web pages that are available on other sites’ pages.

#3 How much does local SEO cost?

If you’re working with SEO agencies, local SEO can cost you anywhere between $300 and $1,000 per month. For bigger enterprises targeting multiple geographical locations, the cost can be more than $1,000.

#4 Can local businesses benefit from backlinks?

Yes, local businesses can benefit a lot from building quality backlinks. Local backlinks can give you tons of referral local traffic and improve your site’s local search ranks.

#5 Does backlink quality matter for boosting local searches?

Yes, it does. Sites that have a lot of quality local backlinks are more likely to show up at the top of the local search results than the sites that don’t.