Founder of Bliss Drive: Simple SEO in Los Angeles: How to Earn Links from Local Businesses

As a small business, it can seem impossible to outrank your larger, more funded competitors for the most popular and profitable search keywords.

While you may not be able to match your larger competitors’ budgets, you do have a very useful advantage: access.

From reaching out to other businesses with special deals and offers to contacting the owners of local organizations, being part of a small business means you can implement a variety of highly effective strategies that are “too small” for your larger competitors.

Below, we’ve listed five of our favorite local link building techniques that your small business in the Los Angeles area can use to increase your search visibility, generate more traffic and bring in clients and customers using SEO.

Offer discounts for customers of local businesses

One of the easiest ways to earn links from other local businesses is to offer a special discount to their customers.

For example, if you own a restaurant in a specific area, you can reach out to doctor’s offices, car mechanics, parking garages, dentists, study centers and other businesses in the area to inform them that you’ll provide a 10% discount for customers that bring their receipt into your store.

This strategy works because it’s a two-way value exchange. Your offer strengthens their unique sales proposition, all while generating leads for your business. Ask them to add the discount to their website and it also becomes a highly effective strategy for building local one-way links.

Hold meetups for local groups and clubs

If your area is home to local meetup groups and clubs, you can offer to host them at your venue either for free or at a heavily discounted rate. You can even sponsor a group and offer a service or product of some kind.

In exchange, you can ask the group or club to list your venue on their website as a sponsor or supporter. This is a great way to build links for cafés, restaurants and bars, all while building a local customer base at the same time.

Create local ‘best of’ lists

Businesses love to be mentioned online, especially on the websites of other businesses in their area. Another easy way to earn links from nearby businesses is to create “best of” lists on your website that catalog the best restaurants, cafés and other local businesses around yours.

Once you’ve completed the list, you can reach out to the businesses mentioned in your content and let them know why you’ve included them. Since social proof is such a useful marketing tool, most local businesses will be happy to mention and link to your list from their own websites.

Host a local event

This is another tip that works extremely well for cafés, restaurants, bars and other venues. If you have a business that can host other people easily, try holding a local event that attracts owners of other local businesses.

Not only can local networking events help you develop new connections — they can also play a part in establishing new partnerships and groups. Promote the event the right way and you can even earn links from local government websites and directories.

Moz has an excellent post on putting this strategy to work that covers the entire process of using local events to build valuable one-way links to your website.

Review local businesses

Finally, one of the easiest ways to earn links from other local businesses is to review them. Most businesses love positive reviews, especially from people in the community. Post a helpful review of a local business and there’s a good chance they’ll link to you to earn some social proof.

Although this strategy can work for any local business, it’s most effective for business in different industries from the subject matter they’re reviewing. If you own a local newspaper or magazine, a series of targeted, detailed reviews can be a tremendous source of highly relevant links.

Do you need help with link building?

digital-marketing Our company specializes in link building and promotion for businesses in Los Angeles County and throughout Southern California. Our expert team can help you think up new SEO Los Angeles link building strategies that improve your rankings, generate more traffic and drive more sales.