How to Get Backlinks: 15 Ways a Local Business Earns Links, Ranked by Effort

Fifteen backlink sources, scored for a business with one site and no staff writer

The ranking below is our judgment from doing this work, not a measurement, and it assumes a local service business or shop. Effort means hours, not dollars. Payoff means how much the link is likely to matter: whether real people read the linking page, whether it is relevant to what you sell, and whether the site chose to link on its own merits.

Work the list top to bottom. The first seven are mostly a matter of asking, and most businesses never ask. Before you send a single email, read what makes a link worth having in our guide to high quality backlinks, so you know which yeses to chase. The link building hub explains how links fit into search and what Google's spam policies forbid.

Methods 1 to 5: ask the people who already vouch for you

A business that has been open three years already has a network: brands it installs, suppliers it buys from, associations it pays dues to, people who send it referrals. Many of them publish lists of exactly those relationships. A manufacturer's "find a certified installer" page, a distributor's dealer list, a trade association's member directory, a realtor's page of recommended inspectors. Each one is relevant, read by buyers and placed for a real reason.

• Manufacturers and suppliers. Search each brand's site for installer, dealer or stockist pages. If you qualify and are missing, email the brand's dealer or channel team with your account number.
• Associations. Check your profile in every member directory. Many list a website field that members leave blank for years.
• The chamber and business groups. Treat the dues as buying a membership and a listing, not a link. If the listing links to you, good; if not, the referrals still count.
• Referral partners. Ask businesses that already send you customers whether they keep a page of trusted pros. Offer to do the same only where you genuinely recommend them.
• Customer stories. Software companies and product makers publish case studies about customers. Volunteer for one; they usually link to the business they feature.

One caution on referral partners. Google's spam policies list excessive link exchanges and partner pages made only to cross-link as link spam. Two businesses that really refer work to each other can link; a page of forty "partners" you have never met is the thing Google describes. Our guide to reciprocal links draws that line in detail.

Methods 6 and 7: claim links you already earned

The fastest links are ones people already meant to give you. Somebody wrote about your business and forgot to link. Somebody linked years ago to a page you deleted in a redesign, and now the link lands on an error. Both are fixable in an afternoon.

1. 1

   Search for your name without your site

   In Google, search your business name in quotes and exclude your own domain: "Your Business Name" -site:yourdomain.com. Add owner names and product names too. Our guide to Google search operators covers quotes, site: and the minus sign.

2. 2

   List mentions with no link

   Open each result. News stories, event pages and blog posts that name you without linking go on a list with the writer's name and email.

3. 3

   Send a short thank-you with one request

   Thank them for the mention and ask whether they would link your name to your site. Some will say no. Accept it and keep the goodwill.

4. 4

   Find links pointing at dead pages

   In Search Console's Links report, open Top linked pages and look for addresses that no longer exist on your site. A crawler that checks status codes speeds this up.

5. 5

   Redirect them to the right page

   Send each dead address to its closest live replacement with a permanent 301 redirect, as our redirects guide shows. Pointing everything at the home page wastes the link.

Google's Links report is a sample rather than a complete list, so a paid tool will find more. If a migration left hundreds of broken addresses, our team fixes 404 errors and broken links.

Method 8: sponsorships, and what the link is really worth

The youth soccer league, the charity 5K and the school fundraiser all put sponsor logos on their websites. Sponsoring them is a good local marketing decision for reasons that have nothing to do with search: parents see your name every Saturday. The link is a side effect, and Google wants it labeled as one.

Google's documentation on qualifying outbound links asks sites to mark paid placements with rel="sponsored", and its spam policy says advertising and sponsorship links are fine when marked sponsored or nofollow. So a sponsorship link should not pass ranking credit, and you should not ask the organizer to remove the label. Judge the sponsorship by the audience. Hosting your own event works the same way: a free workshop on storm-proofing a roof gets listed on community calendars and in the local paper's events page, and the mention travels further than the link.

Methods 9 and 10: give a reporter something to write

A link from a local news site is among the best a small business can earn: an editor chose it, local readers see it, and the story itself is a mention that people and AI engines read. Reporters need stories and sources every day. The trick is offering one instead of asking for coverage.

Our digital PR guide goes further on angles and expert source platforms, and email outreach covers writing a pitch a busy editor will read to the end.

Methods 11 to 13: outreach to pages that already link out

Some pages exist to link elsewhere: a city's guide for new residents, a neighborhood association's list of local services, a school's resources page, a blog's roundup of helpful tools. If your page would genuinely help their readers, ask. Find them with queries such as "new residents" "helpful links" plus your city name, or site: searches on local organizations' domains.

Broken link building is the same pitch with a gift attached. Run a resource page through a link checker, find a link that now leads nowhere, and tell the owner, suggesting your page as a replacement if it truly covers the same thing. It works less often than the guides of a decade ago promised, because everyone sends these emails now, which is why it sits low on the table. Our roundup of link building tools lists checkers and prospecting tools, including free ones.

Writing for other sites is the last of the outreach methods. A publication your customers read may want an article from a practitioner. Write it for its readers, let the editor decide on any link, and never pay for placement: Google lists paid articles with followed links as link spam. Our guest blogging guide shows how to tell a real publication from a link farm wearing a blog costume.

Methods 14 and 15: build the page other sites cite

The most durable links go to pages that are useful enough to cite without being asked. For a local business, that usually means one of two things. Data: what a kitchen remodel actually cost across the jobs you quoted this year, how long permits take in your county, which months your phones ring for frozen pipes. Or a tool: a solar savings estimate, a moving cost calculator, a checklist that does the math.

Both cost real time or money, so build one, promote it hard, and keep it current. The skyscraper technique is one way to promote such a page, and link building strategies puts assets, PR and partnerships into a six-month plan. If writing and building the asset is the part nobody has time for, that is the work our content marketing team does.

The free backlinks that cost more than they save

Search for free backlinks and you will find lists of directories, bookmarking sites, forum profiles and comment sections that accept a link from anyone. Google's spam policy names most of them: low-quality directory and bookmark links, links in widgets spread across sites, keyword-stuffed forum signatures, and automated link building. Links nobody chose tell Google nothing, and the time spent posting them is time not spent on the fifteen methods above.

• Directory blasts. Submitting to hundreds of directories at once is on Google's list. A handful of real ones, your industry's and your city's, are worth a listing for the customers they send.
• Blog comments and forum signatures. Google asks sites to mark comment and forum links with ugc, so on a well-run site they pass little or nothing, and Google lists optimized forum links as spam.
• Link packages. Anything priced per link belongs to buying backlinks, which explains what the vendors actually sell and the narrow paid options that are legitimate.
• Your own anchor text. Let people link with your business name or their own words. Google lists optimized anchor text in guest posts and press releases as link spam.

If someone already did these things for you years ago, our white hat SEO guide explains what Google does about it and when cleanup is worth doing.

Keeping track, and handing it off

Keep a plain spreadsheet: who you asked, when, what they said, and the address of every link you earn. Check Search Console's Links report each month to see new linking sites appear; Google says the report does not show which links are nofollow, so look at the page itself. Judge the month by whether customers would recognize the sites that linked, not by a count.

Most owners get through the first seven methods alone and stall at press and assets, because those take writing and follow-up nobody has hours for. That is where hiring help pays. Earning links and mentions can be part of a monthly SEO program starting at $625 a month, with no long contract and a scope set after an audit; SEO pricing shows the range. On sites we build, Athena CMS's Odysseus agent lists backlink prospects for approval. A free website audit is a sensible first step, because links send visitors to pages that need to be worth the visit.