#1: Your Blog

Your website blog can attract inbound links, build a brand, and support social engagement/community-building. It’s a great way to showcase the depth and breadth of your knowledge regarding the services that you provide.

Your business’ audience and business goals should be considered when blogging. Write about information that will be of benefit to your target audience. Your blog posts should be sufficiently long to provide support for your topic and cover it in sufficient detail. When necessary, posts should link to external resources to validate information.

For SEO benefits, write posts that match keywords for your services and the kind of pain points your clients experience. Your blog posts should link to other pages or posts on your website.

Blog posts should be simple to read and scan. To break up content and make it easier to digest, formatting (headings and short paragraphs and images) is important. Consistent posting of content is important, both in terms quantity and scheduling.

#2: Guest posting

Guest posting allows small business owners to publish content on the website of another person and receive a link. This may include collaborating with other small business owners, related business owners, industry associations, and groups to secure guest-posting opportunities.

Only publish content on reputable websites. Avoid guest-posting on any spammy sites. For local businesses, guest posting works very well when you find opportunities with people you know.

Avoid using the same anchor text phrase over and over (site owners don’t naturally use target keyword phrases for which a business is trying rank for, and they certainly don’t do it repeatedly). Place links in the body of published posts, not the footer, blog roll, and byline.
Contrary to what some might believe, guest posting does not begin with finding an audience. This is when you identify a website that accepts new content/guest submissions and whose audience is similar to yours. Begin with your own circle of influence. This could include associates, allied business that you exchange referrals with, local businesses, and so on.

To find opportunities, start your search by substituting “small business” in these examples for your industry.
small business “write for us”
small business “write for me”
small business “contribute to”
small business “submit a guest post”
small business “guest post”
small business “guest post by”
small business “accepting guest posts”
small business “guest post guidelines”
small business “guest author”
small business “guest article”
small business “guest column”
small business “become a contributor”

Emailing your contacts is the best way to reach out and offer to work together on content. There must be mutual benefit in any type of collaboration. Your network of contacts is unique and you will need to make some judgments.

Be careful when choosing the sites where you will guest blog. You should check their backlink profiles, DR, Domain Rating, DA, Domain Authority, indexed pages and organic traffic. Publishing content that is similar in topic (e.g., from other small business s) is a good idea. If you are able to link to an internal resource (such relevant statistics on a blog), this approach can also work.

Think about your audience. Small business owners need to remember that all content should address consumer’s intent. Most searchers will come to your content with a question in mind. Therefore, the content must address that question in a way that they can use.
You should write in depth. Do not submit guest posts of low quality. Google now considers metrics, such as traffic from the origin source. If the content is not of high quality, Google may reduce the authority of the link. Take a look at similar content and add more resources, angles and arguments to make your content truly valuable for your audience.

#3: Niche-Specific Business Directories

Directory listings are basically web pages that list websites. They’re similar to the Yellow Pages. There are many directories for small business owners on the internet. They range from paid, free or one-time fees.

Some small business directories are very authoritative in terms of linking. These directories often allow business s to submit their names, phone numbers and business areas. They also have links to social profiles and links to websites. Topically relevant links to business websites can be found in business-specific directories.

Paid & Free Directories

Website review: Paid directories usually require websites to be reviewed. After a short review by directory owners, small business owners will need to submit a form and pay a fee. The site will then be published. Sometimes, however all that is required by small business owners is to fill out a form and submit their payment.

Free Directory: The criteria for inclusion in a directory is usually a little more relaxed. Just fill in the basic information and add your website. An approval process may be required.

Best Business Directories

Business directories can be easy to obtain, but also easy for you to get into problems with. These are the things you need to be aware of:

• You should look for directories with a high Domain Rating.
• Directory sites that are being actively curated. Beware of missing images and broken links.
• Before listing your site in a directory, make sure it is trustworthy. It’s not a good idea for your website to be listed there if it appears low-quality and suspicious.
• Submissions are determined by the type of directory. However, each directory is unique.
• For local businesses, look for directories in your location. Focus on city, county, region, state. Also look for niche-specific directories to your profession.

#4: Scholarship Programs

The link building strategy involves creating scholarships and then contacting financial aid departments at universities, colleges and/or technical schools to get the scholarship listed on their sites. You will receive a source for.edu links, which are authoritative and positive publicity from your philanthropic activities.

#5: Local Citations

Local citations provide information to local customers. Local directories are often the first website people visit when they search for local service providers, such as small business owners. These websites often include elements such as reviews, navigation and contact information, which make it easier to find local businesses.

Get on as many quality directories that are location-based as possible. Completely fill out your profile with contact information, biography, images and keywords.

The most popular local citation sources are:

• Yelp
• Apple Maps
• Local.com
• Google Business Profile
• Bing Places
• Facebook Business
• Merchant Circle
• Better Business Bureau
• SuperPages
• Manta
• WhitePages.com

#6: Link-Building with Reddit

Reddit is an active social platform. Link building on Reddit requires you to create a trusted account, and then place links to your website’s resources whenever possible. It is important to not just show up and post links. Small business owners must first be a member of the community.

Start by interacting with other members by posting useful information pertaining to your field. Comment daily on posts of other members. You can post a link to your website for every few posts that you reply to.

Be ultra careful as Reddit users are very protective of their community. You could quickly get banned for posting too many promotional links. Your approach should really be to people solve problems. Link back to your website’s resources as appropriate. This allows for a longer-lasting link, as opposed to jamming links that will eventually be removed.

#7: HARO Link-Building

What is it? HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. It is a service that is free in the North American market. It assists reporters in obtaining leads and content for their stories, and users can also get publicity.

HARO can be used by small business owners to build authority and links online. HARO allows small business owners to submit news stories that are distributed online. This helps them get exposure for their private or business. You can include links to your site in the content.

HARO requires that you submit references from a unique perspective. HARO’s goal is to engage the audience so you don’t have much chance of getting quotes if you offer dry quotes. It is important to be interesting and offer a new point of view in order to make your quote stand out from the rest.

#8: Testimonial/Review Link Building

To help with conversion, businesses need social proof. One strategy is to write testimonials or reviews for products and services you use. The company may link back to the source. Although not all websites allow this, many sites have a section where reviewers can leave a URL to be used as a reference in their testimonial. This tactic has an extra benefit: Even if they don’t allow links, the goodwill generated may make them more open to future collaboration.

This strategy can be used to target almost any service that a company uses. Reviews are a great way to get reviews for office supplies, cleaning services, and staffing companies. Contact any affiliate or service provider to see if you can leave a review on their website.

Link to your homepage. Take into account the unique selling proposition and value you received from the service, not just how amazing they were.

#9: Article Contribution

Contributing articles is a strategy that creates content to answer specific questions of consumers and provide a resource for learning more about specific issues. This service is offered by many popular small business directories. Be aware that some sites allow you to submit content but don’t provide a link back to your website.

Linking to the most relevant article on your website is a good strategy rather than your home page. It is better to link to the relevant page for a better link. Make sure you interlink that page with your homepage, contact page, and other relevant web pages. Be sure to add a call to action on that page so that prospective clients can connect with you for services.

#10: Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorships can be sponsored by small business owners. These entities may have websites that can host links. For local SEO purposes, focus on opportunities within your region particularly those that serve non-profit purposes for additional goodwill. Also look at sponsorship opportunities with public schools, team sports and/or school club events.

#11 – Publishing E-Books

Authoring and linking to an e-book can open up new opportunities for you.

Writing a book just to get links is obviously a waste of time. But if you are already working on a book or have done so in the past, you can use that content to create an e-book and get valuable links. Publishing your book on Amazon creates direct links to your website. These are high-quality links from an extremely authoritative domain.

#12 – Podcasts

Podcasting is a great way to market your small business . You can also get exposure for your website. You can get links from podcasts in two ways: 1. From podcast hosting companies/profile pages 2. From podcast blog transcriptions

There are many podcast hosting services available online. Usually, when you create an account you are allowed to make an author profile page. This allows you to link to your site. Although it’s difficult to get links on sites such as Apple and Stitcher, there are still many opportunities.

Podcast owners often promote their blogs by transcribing podcast interviews into content. They will often include links back to the interviewee. This is an example of a podcast that uses this strategy:

#13 – Licenses, Associations & Awards

If you are a licensed professional, check on whether your licensing organization allows you to include your website on your profile on their website. If it’s a government entity, that backlink is a valuable and authoritative link.

Similarly, if you are a member of relevant business associations, check to see if you can get a backlink from the association’s website.

Many small business awards include a profile page for members and recipients. There are many criteria to be included. Some are peer-nominated while others are based on years of experience. These links can be very useful because they are relevant. However, they also increase website conversions thanks to the perceived value of social proof.

In addition to these 13 proven strategies, check out this spreadsheet that you can download with a number of additional DIY backlink opportunities that you can pursue.