Increase your web traffic with small business link building

Most business owners understand the importance of SEO.

Search traffic to your website is often high value as people are engaged and actively searching for your services.

So having a proper SEO plan in place will help you rank higher on search engines and capitalise on this opportunity.

There are numerous factors that influence where your site ranks in search results, and these vary from industry to industry.

However, broadly speaking, you can group them into three top-level categories:

1. Website optimisation – overall site structure, page structure, clean code and fast load speeds
2. Website content – creative, unique and useful content
3. Offsite signals – predominantly links from other websites to yours 

And it’s this last one that many small businesses get stuck.

To be fair, link building for small businesses is tricky to do and time-consuming.

So, we thought we’d put together a quick post outlining what link building is, its advantages, and a straightforward way you can build links to your sme website. 

Small business link building

Before you start link building, it’s crucial that you understand what it is. The term refers to when other websites link to a page on your site. You might also hear them called “backlinks”.

This will earn your business a higher spot on search engine result pages (SERPs). That’s because it signals that your content is of high quality. 

The only way to ensure you get consistent links is to create relevant, first-rate posts. That way, authoritative sites will want to refer back to your work. 

As a general rule, you mostly want trustworthy sites to link to your articles. This will typically give you a higher boost in rank. 

SMB link building step-by-step

Now that you know what link building is, we can take a look at how to implement this SEO tactic.

There are numerous ways to build links to your site, from guest posting to digital PR. However, in this post, we’ll focus on a super simple method you can implement: Niche edits.

What are niche edits?

Niche edits (sometimes called contextual links) are links to your website from existing website content – normally blog posts – back to your site. They are placed naturally in the flow of the content and are highly relevant to the content on your website. Two things that search engines like.

For example, if you are an account, you would aim to get niche edit links from blog posts about financial planning, setting up a company, etc. It wouldn’t be much good getting links from content about graphic design or architecture.

Securing n includes a mixture of careful planning, awesome content and outreach.

Step 1: Plan your small business link-building campaign

To begin the process, you need a plan!

Focus on two things here:

1. Identify the search terms you want to rank for. Or identify existing content you want to rank on your website. We recommend starting with your conversion-focused content, as this is the stuff that’s most likely to generate leads.
2. Understand how many links you need for these pages to rank highly. You’ll need SEO software to do this, which requires a bit of investment, but the payback is worth it.
3. Research the competition to see the types of content that are ranking for your search terms, and to identify ways you can improve on what’s already ranking.

Once you have an idea of what’s popular, you need to get creative and think of content you can create that is as good as or ideally improves upon the work you’ve identified.

Step 2: Create or improve your content

With your plan in place, the next step is to create your content. Or improve on your existing pages using the research you’ve just done.

The goal here is to create something that people want to link to – even without your outreach efforts.

For example, we created content for SaaS company Brandspace that attracts links with zero outreach.

For more help on this section check out our post on how to write blog posts that get more visitors.

Step 3: Backlink prospecting

Now that you know the content you’re going to create the next step is to identify sites that are likely to link to your awesome content.

As a starting point, you can do some competitor analysis to see where your competition gets links.

Your research in step one should also identify some good sites from which you could get links.

Remember, topical relevance is key.

You want to find sites that cover topics that are relevant to your service.

This is super important!

For example, if you’re a plumber, you don’t really want to spend time getting links from a blog about dog grooming.

Look for articles that you could naturally add a link to your new content, broken links on their site, or sites where you have ideas for guest posts.

Once you have a short list of websites, you need to get the relevant contact details of their content creators and editors.

If you don’t have time to do this, consider one of our SEO packages for small businesses, which includes content creation and small business link building services.

Step 4: Reach out to your prospects

With your new article in hand, you can move on to contacting your prospects.

Ideally, we just want a link placement, but you might need to offer a guest post in return for the link.

This has the benefit of helping you build more authority on your topic, but it is more work.

Send an email or a direct message introducing yourself and outlining the opportunity to add a link to their site.

Use your research to personalise your message, offer value to them and their website viewers, and be polite.

It’s crucial to be as polite as possible when you do this and use this as an opportunity to start building a relationship. Contacting people and demanding a link is going to get you nowhere fast.

And there you have it.

Increasing your website traffic through link building is a simple process, but it takes time!

Firstly you need top quality content that adds value to your audience. This can’t be rushed as even if you get links poor quality content won’t convert.

Then you need to find and contact relevant website to get links. Again this takes time to find the content, asses it, get the contact details then do the outreach.

Don’t have the time? Consider using our small business link-building service.

Advantages of small business link building

Link building has numerous benefits.

The tactic can help improve your website in many ways. Here’s a quick look at what it can do for you.

Increases traffic to your website

When an authoritative site links to your pages, it exposes your posts to new clients.

As a result, you should see a nice boost in traffic. 

As well as the immediate boost in referral traffic, more links mean higher authority with Google (and other search engines), which helps your page rank higher in search results.

Higher rankings mean more traffic again.

Boosts sales

Link building will help drive your target audience to your site.  

So, with more potential clients visiting your site, you’ll be able to promote your products to more people. 

Providing your website looks good and is optimised for conversions this should result in more sales.

Creates new online connections

Networking is one of the pillars of any small business. You’ll need to get out there and connect with other leaders and authorities in your field. 

This will allow you to learn from their experience and mistakes. 

An excellent way to build these connections is through link building.

The tactic can help you share knowledge and open up new avenues for collaboration. 

In summary

Small business link building can benefit your website in many ways.

It can increase traffic, boost sales, and help you build valuable industry connections. 

That’s why many small businesses rely on the tactic. 

The first step of the process involves planning and research. Then, you have to create awesome new content.

Finally, reach out to your prospects and start building valuable industry connections (and backlinks).

Small business link building definitely isn’t a glamourous job, it’s labour-intensive and time-consuming.

But it’s definitely an SEO activity that pays off!