By now, hopefully, everyone knows that links are not bad things—if they are the right links. Done right, links can get you more visibility and build a healthy link profile. If you have a local business, you can take advantage of some unique ways to get the links that can ultimately help you. Links specifically help in SEO and traffic acquisition. Following are 7 of these techniques that your local business can benefit from to boost traffic to your website:

1. Be a Local Resource

Don’t be afraid to refer people to other local businesses that may be related to yours. Create a local resource directory on your site for this purpose. For example, if you are a real estate agent, offer links that would be useful to people relocating to the area such as the nearest grocery stores, dry cleaners, banks, dentists, restaurants and more.

2. Leverage Local Figures

Conduct an interview with someone known in your area as a city council member or the fire chief. The topic can vary but should somehow relate back to your business. Post that on your site and get the word out.

3. Give Kudos to Other Local Businesses

Offer to write a testimonial for other local businesses that you have had good experiences with. In exchange, you can ask for a link from their sites back to yours.

4. Give a Discount to Select Groups

Whether it’s to alums of the local high school or military veterans, find a group worthy of a discount and offer it. You’ll quite likely garner a link from a very credible source back to your site.

5. Sponsor a Local Organization

There’s never a shortage of community groups looking for sponsorships. Kids’ sports leagues are perhaps one of the greatest of these opportunities. You’re positioned as a valued member of the community through your support of these groups—and you get good backlinks in the process.

6. Sponsor or Host Your Own Community Event

Groups are not the only sponsorship opportunities. Does your community host a Fourth of July parade, movies in the park or other events through the year? Sponsoring these things gets your name out on a variety of promotional materials as well as secures strong links. Similarly, you can develop your own community event and pull together other local businesses to support it. Once again, the links here are all relevant and of high quality—exactly what you want.

7. Create a Fun Contest

Figure out a fun contest that would generate excitement and make people really interested in you and what you’re giving away. You’ll get good publicity out of the deal as well as the right links when you associate your contest with other local organizations.

As a local business, you can take advantage of a smaller, more personal network when developing a link strategy than can companies that operate on a larger scale. The above tips are just some ideas of how you can do that.

Quality Matters

In some way, you could say that developing links are akin to developing content for your site. It’s not about how many links you get or how many or even what keywords are in your copy. It’s about making sure that everything is relevant to your business and offers visitors something useful.

About the author:

Cody Jensen began his career with the corporate giant, Google Inc. He has been in Search Engine Marketing ever since and has a specific acumen for paid advertising. As the Founder of Searchbloom, Cody leads the strategy and execution of providing world class digital marketing to small businesses across the country.