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0:05 Local links
2:04 Citations
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Just like in regular SEO, links are the most weighted relevancy signal, but you have to change your focus. Typically in local SEO, you’re working on a much smaller scale. You don’t need thousands or even hundreds of links. Many local businesses have fewer than 20 sites linking to them. So adding a handful of links can make a massive difference.
With local SEO, your focus should be on building links from local businesses and websites. We’re not worried about Domain Authority or Trust Flow, because many times the local sites linking to you are much smaller and have less overall authority.
We don’t even care if the link is followed or nofollowed – in the local algorithm, nofollowed links still carry weight and can make a difference.
Basically, all the things that traditional link builders avoid are the things that you’re going after in local SEO. I like to call them “crappy church links” – that really juicy hyper-local link from a church website that’s absolutely killer for the algorithm… looks exactly like the kind of link that the traditional guys would avoid like the plague. It’s got a DA below 15, it’s a nofollow link, and the site that’s linking is pretty ugly.
It’s much easier to build links for local SEO, again because you’re at a smaller scale. You don’t have to create massive, awesome content pieces and then run huge PR campaigns so people see the content. Usually, you can simply look at what the business is already doing and you’ll have awesome link opportunities.
Relationships are an easy source of local links too – it’s likely that the business has been there for years, forming relationships with other businesses and individuals in the local community. It’s infinitely easier to get a link from someone you know…
Local sponsorships and charity work are another great source of local links – basically, if you’re involved in the local community, it’s incredibly easy to build local links.
Citations are another important off site signal in local SEO. Citations are mentions of your business’ name, address, and phone number (commonly called NAP) on other websites. It’s important to Google that your NAP is exactly the same everywhere it’s listed online.
Citations aren’t as powerful as they used to be – now they’re more of a foundational tactic. It’s important to get them right, but it’s not a hugely important signal that you need to add to month in and month out.
This graphic shows the local search ecosystem for the US, so you can see the relationships between the different citation sources. The 4 major aggregators are at the top, feeding down to the second tier sites, in turn feeding to the third tier sites. Then everything feeds to Google’s local algorithm which looks upstream to check consistency. If you’re doing local SEO in another country, the ecosystem will be different, and probably less complex, but the idea is still the same.
In the next lesson, we’ll talk about local content, and how a localized focus can make a huge difference.
#LocalSEO #LocalLinks #Citations #SEOcourse #SEOtutorial #SEMrushAcademy
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