If it isn’t a priority already, local SEO should be a core focus of your print shop’s approach to web marketing. Let’s take a look at what link building is, and explore some ways for your print business to gain local links to your web page.
Link building is the act of generating inbound hyperlinks to your web site, from external web pages. With approximately 60 trillion web pages that Google must index through as of May 2016, it is easy to wonder how Google measures the popularity of a website. Links are probably the closest thing the Internet has to an election system, with each web site representing a single vote of varying authority. Link authority is determined by link quality, and although what determines a website’s success is somewhat shrouded in mystery, when it comes to the most powerful SEO ranking factor, proximity or closeness has a dominant SEO impact. Check out a full study about local search ranking factors by MOZ here.
Participating in community events by offering your print services gives you an opportunity to link-build by having your site included on the event website. The impact of a high organic ranking in your local area is that it increases the amount of traffic on your web page. Try sponsoring a community baseball tournament by printing programs, schedules, or team banners, or get involved with a church fundraiser or a newsletter. Networking for links in your community is a great way to bring in that web traffic that shows Google you’re a prime cyberspace resource.
A great way to promote your expertise in the vicinity is to do an interview for a local blog or have a local news outlet contribute a piece about your company with a link to your Root Domain (home page). Any online publicity is good, and potential contributors are always on the prowl for fresh content to write.
With nearly 100 different local SEO factors that Google takes into account, earning links might be the most important. Not just because Google’s indexing algorithm views link signals as high value factors, but also because there are so many different methods to go about getting them. A nice tool to gauge your Local SEO is to inspect the amount of inbound links directed to your homepage, or Root Domain. Progress Reports are never a bad idea as it means you can keep track of your SEO rankings to understand if you’re improving. To gauge the amount of backlinks (inbound) you have, I’d advise looking into popular tools, such as MOZ (Pioneers of SEO analysis) or Majestic.com, each offering a plethora of SEO related tools to assist your local efforts at search engine optimization.
Next week we’ll look a little bit deeper into what Domain Authority is and share some thoughts on Private Blog Networks.