Google has brought the world’s information to everyone’s fingertips. For this reason, people depend on the search engine for everything, including products and services. In fact, the search engine giant’s ranking algorithms have boosted local businesses that offer value and contributed to the demise of those who lag behind. If you’re not in tune with Google, you’ll miss out on valuable sales and leads.

It’s important to understand how Google sees your business. This gives you an idea on how to work with the search engine’s algorithms and earn better rankings.

The Thing about Backlinks

Backlinks are essential for local SEO for SMBs; your website needs them to increase site authority. Not all links, however, are good for your site.

Each backlink is like a vote for your website, but not all of the votes matter. It still depends on whom it’s coming from. Links from popular websites establish your site’s credibility. On the other hand, links from low-quality sites with spammy anchor texts might land you in “Google jail.” Your site traffic numbers will drop as a result.

Which Metric Should You Focus On?

There are plenty of helpful SEO tools out there. You have the Domain and URL Rating from ahrefs, Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority from MOZ, and similar metrics from Majestic, SEMRush, and others. While these tools are wonderful, they are easy to manipulate in terms of domain authority.

Make the most of your time by focusing on relevance — the most important metric of them all.

Reach Out to Other Industries

Your local competitors would never link to your site. Some related businesses in your area, however, would love to partner with you. Reciprocal links from these industries are good for your website. Gain these niche industries’ cooperation with a valuable pitch that “gives before it receives.”

When looking for link opportunities, rate potential websites according to their relevance to your business. Low-rated sites are random websites in a different industry and have no overlapping content. High-rated websites, on the other hand, are websites within the same industry that offer overlapping interests.

For instance, if you are a plumber, look to other similar industries, such as lawn care, HVAC, or other home services businesses and reach out. There just needs to be enough of an overlap in content for the link to remain valuable.

Consider Local Sites

Any business’ website that is specific to your area makes a good addition to your backlink collection. This type of link establishes more local relevance compared to links with better metrics in an unrelated field. Search for local bloggers, directories, chamber of commerce, and news sites for outreach.

Think of Traffic Potential

Another thing to consider is your target audience: will they click on your site? If they do, will they like what they see?

Google evaluates the usefulness of a website’s content to users. Earn the search engine’s favor by creating long-form resources on industry topics that people will read. Don’t forget to link back to them. Also, stay away from websites that only have homepage links since these appear unnatural. Create your resources and then maximize your inbound backlinks by using internal linking.

Google should be a big fan of your local SEO’s backlinks before it spreads the word about your business. Follow the principles above to create a successful linking strategy.

Do you have more questions about local SEO? CreativoMedia can help you out. Get in touch with us today to learn more.