The main ranking signal for a local organic search is link signals or back links. That includes anchor text, which we talked about earlier, and the linking domain authority. If you have a really spammy website linking to your website, Google looks at that as bad. If you’ve got a great domain authority website, like one of the news sites – CNN or Fox News – they’ve got high domain authority. They’re seen as very authoritative. That’s a very good high ranking with high weight back link. Then Google also looks at how many domains are linking to your website.
For my local clients I always try to give them links from local media like The Pulse. If I can get Bracken or Leslie to write an article about one of my local businesses, that back link is huge. WGNS is good about that. The Daily News Journal is great, although they’re owned by Gannett now so they’ll probably increase their domain authority. That is a huge factor.
How do I get back links? That’s the question. One of the best ways to do it is the Chamber of Commerce. If you’re a member of the Chamber, make sure that they are linking to your website because the local Chamber typically has high domain authority. It’s seen as fairly objective. Same with the Better Business Bureau. They’ve got a super high domain authority website. If they link to you that is a very good link.
The bottom line is you can send an email asking to write blog posts for related websites. I’ve got one client where we do that and we usually get the chance to write guest posts with a back link around once a month. This has really helped his SEO because now he’s got consistent back links. Google looks at that as a vote of authority online and it’s consistent so it’s been good for him.
