Creative Ways to Get Powerful Local Backlinks

Creating Contests & Giveaways Are a Tried and True Method for Getting Backlinks

Here are three examples of contest and giveaways guaranteed to get you local backlinks that are Google gold.

EXAMPLE #1: Art Student Contest

Create a contest for local art students to come up with a logo, mascot, or poster for your business. Offer a scholarship for the winner.

Make sure you publish a page on your website. Then promote on social media. You’ll also want to see if you can get links from local art schools, community colleges, promoting the contest.

Don’t forget to contact local reporters from local TV stations and newspapers.

EXAMPLE #2: Charity Fundraisers

Organize a fundraiser for a local charity (instead of being one of many sponsors, be the organizer). If you organize a local charity run, you’re able to create a theme for the run that ties-in to a benefit of doing business with you. If you’re a bounce house/party rental company, a carnival or circus themed run would work great.

You’re able to highlight what you do, rent carnival supplies, while raising money for a good cause. Plus you can get great links from local news stations, newspapers, and social media.

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PRO TIP: This works best when the press releases are from the charity, not your business. And when the charity contacts local journalists. Because, in most cases, journalists are more responsive to charities than businesses.

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EXAMPLE #3: Award Local Community Volunteers

Offer to give a surprise check to community volunteers of the month as a feature on a local TV station’s evening news show. An attorney in the College Station area does this well with their “Be Remarkable” campaign.

The key to all of these ideas is to get local reporters writing and interviewing you. While your competitors are getting links that are easier for SEO companies to get from the comfort of their computer keyboard. You’ll get the most powerful links your community has, from trusted local media.

Put Career Pages on Your Website

When you find a website with a Career section, you think it’s a big company. Right?

Well so does Google. But that isn’t the only reason to have a career section on your website.

Here are a few more ways you get links from career pages:

• People share links to job postings.
• Have job posting websites like Indeed link back to your website.
• Post unique job titles. One candy company gets a lot of links from major publications by creating a creative job title. They offered a $100K job as a taste tester

I’m sure you can think of other ways you’re able to use a careers section on your website to get more quality backlinks.

Local Resources Page

Publish a page on your website recommending non-competing local businesses. Then ask the businesses you recommend to reciprocate with a page on their websites with a link back to your website. If you’re in a local networking group like BNI, this is a great way to help promote other business owners in the group.

Calculators, Quizzes, & More

Make it easy to share online tools. Here’s an example…

For several years I owned a website that helped people find mortgage lenders.

One of the most successful things we did was put mortgage calculators on the website. We made it easy for people to copy the mortgage calculator code and put it on their website. The code included a link back to our mortgage lender website.

Hundreds of real estate websites put our code on their websites with the link to our website. This one tactic helped us rank high on Google for very competitive mortgage keywords.

Local Workshops & Trainings

Offer Workshops and trainings in locations you want to rank in Google’s Map Pack. Last year I did a “Lunch and Learn” for our local chamber of commerce. At the time, our website was down. We were in the processes of updating it.

Even with the website down, our Google rankings went through the roof for several competitive keywords. All because the Chamber of Commerce promoted the “Lunch and Learn” and we promoted it too.

Sponsor a Local Youth Sports Team, Band, or School PTA

Most local businesses get asked to make contributions to local schools and charities all the time. Of course you want to support and help your community. By sponsoring local youth groups or a PTA, you can request a link from their website back to your website. It’s a great way for Google to add data proving you serve the community.

The Right Backlinks Send Powerful Signals to Google

According to Google, the three main factors that influence your rankings in the Google map pack are relevance, distance, and prominence. I won’t go into all the details of these 3 factors in this article, but getting more and better local backlinks forces Google to recognize you as the most prominent business in your area.

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