This is the third part of a four part series looking at how small business owners can obtain high quality backlinks to their web site.
Be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series before reading this article.
Complementary Businesses. This is where the real community building happens. Look around the local area where your business operates and identify businesses that are complementary to your own. For instance, hair dressers and beauty therapists complement each other in that each can refer clients to one another. So why not refer clients via each others web sites as well and capitalize not only on the extra business but the backlinks as well?
Don’t get confused with the message that I was promoting in my Rusty vs Gold-plated Backlinks post. Forming reciprocal links between complementary businesses is a solid business (and Internet Marketing) practice if it is beneficial to your visitors.
The trick here is in the implementation of the backlinks. Don’t just create a ‘Partners’ page and drop in a link. Rather, create a promotion that involves both businesses and market this through your respective web sites (and social media outlets). I will leave it up to you to work out what the ‘deal’ is.
Once you start thinking this way you can see just how powerful this technique can be! What’s more you can be sure that Google will like this form of community building for it is local, relevant and useful to your visitors.
Clients/Customers. A group of people that many small businesses either forget about or fail to effectively utilize are their very own customers. So how do you generate backlinks from your customers? Ask them. It’s as simple as that.
Many of your customers will have their own web sites, blogs, twitter accounts and so forth. If you have provided them with a great product and customer service then there is a good chance they will be more than happy to help you out. Make sure they include a link back to your site.
Local Government. Do you do work for your local Government? If so, check to see if they have a page identifying their preferred suppliers and make sure your web site url is listed. Look for ways to get your business web site mentioned within their site for yet again, backlinks from Government sites carry a lot of value.
Charities. Does your business support a local charity? If so, ask them to include your business logo and/or a short article on your business with a link to your site. Most local charities will be more than happy to help you out.
Again, the search engines will view these types of links favorably because of the implied community involvement associated with obtaining these types of links.
Local paper. Contact your local paper and see if they would be interested in running a local news story around your business. You will need to identify a unique angle that will be of interest to them and their readers. If you are successful in capturing their interest then you will likely do very well from the publicity the story will generate, from both their online and offline versions of the paper. And the backlink from their online paper will be very valuable indeed!
Local Community Web Site. Most local communities have a local web site that is used for a variety of purposes; news, local interest stories, local businesses and so forth. Get involved and get your web site listed. Try using the following search terms in Google to find your Community Web Site: “yoursuburb / yourregion directory” and “yoursuburb / yourregion forum”.
Next week we will look at the format that you should use when creating your backlinks.
Mindmap made by using the the cool software at touchgraph.com
Related posts:
- Developing Backlinks for Small Business Owners
- Developing Backlinks for Small Business Owners – Part 4
- Developing Backlinks for Small Business Owners – Part 2
- A Rusty Backlink vs a Gold Plated High Value Backlink? You Pick
- Google Loves Small Local Businesses – But How To Keep Up With The Innovation?
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