4 main types of local links and how to earn them
Getting backlinks is like exercising regularly. It is time-consuming, and the results are not immediate, but a daily workout contributes to your long-term health.
Likewise, regular work on a solid backlink profile builds authority for your website and contributes to organic ranking growth.
In local SEO, getting backlinks is particularly challenging. Small businesses often do not have the same resources as a corporate organization for links. There is not enough time, money and energy to build a local backlink profile.
However, limited resources need not limit local link building opportunities.
Often, local businesses do more to support local link growth than they realize. By defining the types of local links, we can reflect on an organisation’s values.
Typically, local links are less about developing outstanding PageRank and more about building relationships in the community.
4 common types of local links
These are the most common types of local links:
Each type of local link requires a slightly different approach, but they all contribute value to the local community.
Quotes and aggregators help customers find phone numbers and addresses, while local pricing helps customers trust the business.
Achieving local connections that will truly impact growth requires a shift in mindset.
Instead of thinking of links as an SEO “to-do” item, think of them as an opportunity to connect with your neighbors.
The best local businesses are known less for their SEO and more for their community involvement.
A company that raises money for a local charity or sports team may gain more local recognition than a business with fancy title brands.
A company that does both of these things can win on local SEO.
Let’s dive more into each type of local link below.
1. Citations and data aggregators
Local business citations, also known as web directories, are a well-known local link building tactic. Here, a company’s basic information is listed across sites similar to a phone book.
The SEO theory behind citations: by submitting location information across a network of online profiles, a local business establishes online name, address, and phone number consistency (also known as “NAP consistency”).
Google’s Knowledge Map uses this directory information to verify your business information and accurately share it with users.
Common examples of online directories include:
As a search engine, Google tries to provide accurate, reliable information for each individual search.
Listing your business information with local references helps Google and other search engines achieve this goal.
Data aggregators
Instead of spending hours submitting online directories and updating them, an organization can pay for data aggregators that automate most of the process.
Three companies offer a “bulk submission” service, placing business citations across a specific network of online directories.
Each of these organizations submits to a different list of online directories, although there may be some overlap.
For example, Data Axle and Neustar can submit to Whitepages, while only Neustar can submit to Apple.
The exact list of backlinks generated by each aggregator is unknown, but a business typically receives anywhere from 25-100+ backlinks from each (some of which overlap).
Aggregator resellers
Many SEO agencies and SEO tools include a service that will submit to all three data aggregators.
For example, BrightLocal ships to the three aggregators listed above and some smaller vendors (ie Yellow Pages Network).
Some of these referral link building services are available for an annual fee, while others have a one-time fee.
SEO impact of local citations
Local SEO experts have noted a downward trend in focus around local citations. In the 2021 Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors survey, top industry contributors were surveyed about which local ranking factors have the greatest impact.
Local citation scores were among the lowest ranking factors in 2020 and 2021. Survey participants stated that they achieved limited growth from citation submissions, indicating high effort for minimal results.
Ultimately, the value of local citations is relative to other SEO efforts and the age of the business.
While it may not be clear how many local citations help, they have been a fundamental part of the local link building process for years.
Online directories are an affordable, easy way to get local links or update existing directory information because all a business needs is a one-time fee, an address and a phone number.
Getting local links can show your organization’s goodwill to both Google and the larger community.
In “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge runs a bookkeeping business that is seemingly cold, calculating, and heartless. He is known by society as a miser.
This bad attitude gives Scrooge’s business a negative reputation, causing him to count profits in a dark, empty room.
In today’s business ecosystem, similar societal perceptions can play a role in local SEO.
If a business gives back and participates in its community, that business gets talked about, people engage with the brand, and the conversation continues online.
By investing in the local community, an organization can grow its organic backlink profile and achieve SEO growth.
Types of community engagement and feedback include:
All these local link building activities speak to one central facet – community. By investing in its community, a company invests in itself.
To get started with community engagement, call back to your organization’s values. What is most important to the company?
Principles such as service, management, communication and education can be applied to a local initiative with link-building potential.
For example, a local law firm may value clear communication as its guiding principle.
To channel this principle, the lawyer can lead a local seminar on residents to examine their rights around an upcoming regulatory proposal.
This seminar may result in a link back to the attorney’s website from the local newspaper announcing upcoming local events.
Spending extra time or resources on volunteering or sponsorship may seem time-consuming, but the return on investment can be significant.
When a local newspaper publishes an article about a $500 scholarship or sports team sponsorship from an organization, that organization receives a backlink or mention from one of the most recognized sites in the community.
This recognition builds expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-A-T) with search engines, contributing to your site’s organic ranking growth.
When competitors are ranking because of a strong local backlink profile, community engagement is a reliable way to outperform them because it attracts more stakeholders who can share links.
A simple contribution to charity can result in links from personal blogs, the organization that received the donation, and a local newspaper.
Additionally, community engagement does not necessarily result in a link.
Sometimes a mention of the brand name is enough to build the organization’s reputation and improve its online credibility.
SEO practitioners have begun to think beyond link building, including it in the larger practice of “off-page SEO,” which weighs brand mentions almost equally with links.
It’s not easy to measure the full SEO impact of community participation, but everything we know about search engines indicates that it makes a difference.
By investing in community engagement, an organization does more than improve rankings—it joins a conversation.
3. National and local awards
Receiving an award results in more than a plaque on the wall or a good sense of business practice. A price is a signal of trust.
When choosing a vendor, customers rely on awards and community recognition to determine whether they are a good fit for their needs.
Types of grant opportunities for a small business include:
The first step to becoming locally recognized is to research local rates in an organization’s industry and local area.
A common starting point is the Better Business Bureau. Being accredited by this major national organization allows customers to see an organization’s credibility.
Another opportunity to look for awards is the local chamber of commerce, which serves as a resource for businesses hoping to connect with the larger community.
When organizations find an award that aligns with their values, they can develop a plan around the best path to receive that award.
Sometimes the organization has already achieved many existing aspects of the award and trying to win is as simple as applying or contacting the award company.
When winning the award is not an immediate scenario, an organization can develop a company-wide initiative.
Management can announce the goal, share how it aligns with the organization’s values. From there, a specific team can assess why previous award winners were recognized.
By developing a plan around the core elements of the award, the organization’s existing successes and new initiatives to meet the award criteria, organizations take a proactive approach to winning the award and achieving feedback.
SEO impact of national and local awards
It has been theorized that search engines consider rates as a measure of an organization’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
In the Search Quality Review Guidelines (the primary resource for studying E-A-T and relevance in SEO), Google tasks its reviewers with examining a company’s trustworthiness through the awards it has received:
“News articles and informational articles can help you learn about a company and may contain information specific to reputation, such as awards and other forms of recognition, or also controversies and issues.”
Achieving local linkages through pricing means improving a business as a whole.
Rather than being segmented into its own SEO channel, local link building can be incorporated into an organization’s broader goals.
A small business can use community and organizational values to improve its products and services, build long-lasting relationships and achieve local connections.
As small businesses strive to improve their operations, SEO growth is a secondary benefit.
4. Relevant local content and studies
In addition to leading the community through stewardship and award recognition, an organization can become a thought leader by sharing resources about its practice area with local residents.
Types of local content will vary based on the type of business or links desired. Some examples of local content for link marketing include:
These are examples of content that can be published directly on the website, which can gain attention and backlinks from third party websites.
Newspapers, local blogs, community forums and other online resources are always looking for the latest information to share with their readers.
An organization can drive the conversation by publishing content that is new, relevant and useful.
When brainstorming ideas for local content, an organization should encourage all ideas. Creativity is essential in promoting local content and the links it can achieve.
SEO impact of local content and case studies
The results of a local content initiative vary widely based on topic and audience. However, the desired result is always the same: backlinks and brand mentions.
The theory behind local content for backlinks suggests that if the content is interesting enough, people will talk about it.
When an organization publishes interesting content and shares it with local news outlets and consumers, it will receive backlinks and brand mentions.
These backlinks and brand mentions will improve your E-A-T and organic rankings.
When the value of local content is clear, the organic growth from that content will also be clear.
How to get local links
So, how do you get local links?
The path to local links should look less like a hunting expedition and more like a garden. Plant some seeds and see what sprouts:
Targeting local links based on community needs is an opportunity to rank local competitors by default.
By integrating your backlink strategy with existing values, your organization connects to the fundamental essence of local link building – care.
Caring is the essence of local backlinks because it means your organization doesn’t want links for the sake of links.
Caring and local link building are one and the same.
So while pursuing these types of local links can seem daunting, the process is less about developing an SEO checklist and more about reflection.
If your organization has already put some effort into defining what matters, it will be that much easier to make an impact in the community and receive local links.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
Harmony Huskinson is an SEO strategist at Portent, a full-service digital marketing agency. Harmony specializes in local SEO and has worked with hundreds of businesses since starting her digital marketing career in 2015. You can find Harmony on Twitter or on LinkedIn to chat about the intersection of community and digital in local spaces.
There are 12 link types that can be placed on hyperlinks. What follows is a table of possible link types, and what each link type should point to. an alternative way to view the website.
What are the three 3 basic parts of the URL?
To summarize, these are the three basic elements of a web address:
- The protocol – HTTP or HTTPS.
- The domain name (including TLD) that identifies a website.
- The path that leads to a specific web page.
What are the basic parts of URL? What are the parts of a URL? A URL consists of five parts: the scheme, the subdomain, the top-level domain, the second-level domain, and the subdirectory.
What is the third part of this URL known as?
before url used to be the default, but it is unnecessary in the modern web. The third part is the domain name, such as google.com or whitehouse.gov. This is made of two parts: .com or . gov is the top-level domain, or TLD.
What are the 3 parts to a URL answer?
Answers. Protocol, domain name and path.
What are the 3 types of URL?
type: It specifies the type of server where the file is located. address: It specifies the address or location of the internet server. path: It specifies the location of the file on the internet server.
What is URL and give 3 example?
Most browsers display the URL of a web page above the page in an address bar. A typical URL might be of the form http://www.example.com/index.html , indicating a protocol ( http ), a host name ( www.example.com ), and a file name ( index.
What URL means?
Just as buildings and houses have a street address, websites also have unique addresses to help people find them. On the Internet, these addresses are called URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).
What are the 5 URLs?
A URL consists of five parts: the scheme, the subdomain, the top-level domain, the second-level domain, and the subdirectory.
What are the 10 examples of URL?
| # | The name of the site |
|---|---|
| 1 | https://www.google.com/ |
| 2 | https://www.Yahoo.com/ |
| 3 | https://www.Instagram.com/ |
| 4 | https://www.Twitter.com/ |
What are the 3 parts to a URL put route and get?
Using the URL for this article as an example, the three basic parts of a URL you should understand are the protocol, the domain name, and the path.
What are the 3 types of URL?
type: It specifies the type of server where the file is located. address: It specifies the address or location of the internet server. path: It specifies the location of the file on the internet server.
Is it legal to share links?
Such addresses are not protected by copyright. However, even if linking itself is not copyright infringement, it may be offensive on other legal grounds (eg if the link defames the owner of the website, or misleads the public into believing that there is a commercial relationship with the owner of the website).
Are website links copyrighted? Copyright and URLs URLs are not protected by copyright. This allows others to refer to or link to a website address without having to get permission from the website’s creator.
Is it legal to copy links?
Posting another person’s original material on a website without their permission involves copying, displaying, publishing and/or performing such work which may constitute an infringement of the owner’s copyright.
Is copying website content illegal?
At first glance, it may seem that it is perfectly legal to copy content from a website. But is it? The short answer to this question is “no”, unless you have obtained the author’s permission. In fact, virtually all digital content enjoys the same copyright protection as non-digital, “offline” content.
Can links be copyrighted?
Even when using direct links to online content, there’s one thing to look for: make sure what you’re linking to isn’t already offensive! If the linked content itself was uploaded or posted without the permission of the creator, you may be looking for contributory copyright infringement.
Is it legal to add a link to another website without permission?
Generally no, but you should check the site’s “Terms of Use” to see if it has any specific linking prohibitions. If there is none, you can link to the website, but make sure the website opens in a different browser window.
Does hyperlinking infringe copyright?
However, when the person posting the hyperlink has or should have had knowledge of the illegal nature of the content hosted by a third party, hyperlinking will fall within the scope of the author’s exclusive right and may therefore be prohibited.
Can you link to another website without infringing copyright?
Types of Links No court has ever found that deep linking to another website constitutes copyright or trademark infringement.
Is it fair to put hyperlinks in your website that lead to another?
If a website misuses links, the owner will face legal problems due to copyright infringement. If your site includes content from another site without citing the source, it’s obvious that this violates the owner’s copyright, but this violation may be more common than you think.
Are hyperlinks illegal?
Hyperlinking to illegal sources can be a copyright violation, especially if done for profit.
Do you need permission to hyperlink?
Generally no, but you should check the site’s “Terms of Use” to see if it has any specific linking prohibitions. If there is none, you can link to the website, but make sure the website opens in a different browser window.
Is it legal to add a link to another website without permission?
Generally no, but you should check the site’s “Terms of Use” to see if it has any specific linking prohibitions. If there is none, you can link to the website, but make sure the website opens in a different browser window.
Can you link to another website without infringing copyright?
Types of Links No court has ever found that deep linking to another website constitutes copyright or trademark infringement.
Can I use a link to another website on my website?
A link may take the user to another page on the same website (an “internal link”), or to another page altogether (an “external link”). You do not need permission for a regular word link to another website’s home page. Deep linking.
How do people make money by clicking on links?
Advertising networks like Google AdSense are some of the easiest ways to make money with pay per click. Website owners only sign up with an ad network and place the code they provided on their website. Google AdSense is one of the best choices, but it requires approval when you sign up.
Do websites make money per click? Websites make money when visitors engage with their ads, usually by generating impressions, engagements or clicks. For example, an advertiser might pay a publisher 20 cents per click. If their ad generates 500 clicks each day, the publisher earns $10 per day or $300 per month.
How much can I earn star clicks?
$0.01 Minimum Per Click This is the minimum value you earn when you click on an ad. You can get more than $0.01 per ad.
What is the minimum auto payout in Star-Clicks?
Automatic payout amount is maximum $10 and minimum $2. This is the amount for automatic payout and not the payout limit. The automatic payout threshold for Silver members is half of the manual payout threshold, which is $25.
Is Star-Clicks genuine or not?
Star-Clicks.com has been in business since 2008, the business is verified by various authorities and providers, such as Verisign, Norton Trust, UKTrustSeal and UK Companies House. You will find the links to these suppliers on the website.
Do Youtubers get paid for clicks?
You don’t get paid per video view. Instead, you get paid for the times someone watches or clicks on an ad that appears on your video. Influencer Marketing Hub says that while payment varies, the average YouTube channel can expect to earn around $18 per 1,000 ad impressions.
Do you get paid for clicks?
The amount varies depending on which ad is displayed. Typically, a website earns around $0.10 to $1 per click, while high-paying advertisers can offer up to $6 to $7 per click.
How much do you get paid per YouTube click?
The average YouTube channel can receive about $18 per 1,000 ad impressions, which equates to about $3 to $5 per video view, according to data from the Influencer Marketing Hub.
Can you make money posting links?
Many companies will pay you a fee to post links to their websites. If visitors to your website or social media click on that link and then make a purchase from the company, you’ll often earn a certain fee or percentage of the sale.
Is posting links a legitimate job? If you have a website with a decent amount of traffic, you may also be asked to get paid to post links on your website. This is perfectly fine, but be careful about the links you post on your site because a link to a scam or bad product will damage your reputation and may even get you penalized.
Can you get paid for posting links?
Essentially, when a person clicks on the link you posted, you get paid. There are several ways you can earn. Some companies pay per click, which means you get paid for every click that takes place on your link. One of the more popular ways to get paid for sharing links on the internet is through affiliate marketing.
How do you get paid for Instagram links?
Become an affiliate Use a mix of clickable links in your Instagram bio and Instagram stories or through stickers. Since you can’t put links in Instagram posts, you can create promo codes so you can monetize from different angles. Consider contacting one of the many online stores that offer affiliate programs.
