Need Affordable Seo? Tips For Local Businesses

As a local business owner on a small budget, you might think that the best way to grow your customer base is through word-of-mouth advertising. Of course, there’s no doubt that face-to-face interactions are vitally important, but with most people using Google to look for local services, you just cannot afford to ignore your website’s need for quality SEO.

Link building is an especially effective and affordable SEO strategy which can make a real difference to your site’s rankings. Yes, finding and maintaining high quality backlinks takes time, but the return on investment is well worth the effort. Here are five tips for generating those all-important links:  

Only Chase High Quality Links

Not all backlinks are created equal. Prioritise links on sites that are relevant to your industry, which build your brand’s reputation, and which are likely to drive traffic to your own platform. A link on a well-respected magazine’s site is worth much more than a link on a barely-visited blog.

Monitor Your Link Opportunities

New opportunities for link building will appear as your industry and community grow. Stay ahead of the curve by keeping a list of your target sites and updating this list regularly. There are a number of marketing tools which promise to help you manage your prospects, but if your goal is stick to the most affordable SEO strategy then it’s fine to conduct searches manually.

Get Listed

By far the simplest way to acquire backlinks is to ensure that your website is listed on any local online directories. It’s worth contacting directories dedicated to your industry first. For example, if you run an art studio, make sure that you’re listed on local directories focussing on arts and culture. Usually, it’s as easy as getting in touch with whoever is managing the directory and letting them know that you exist. 

Guest Blog Regularly

Guest blogging is a hugely popular and affordable SEO strategy for good reason. Most websites have blogs, and their owners are nearly always on the lookout for quality content that they just don’t have the time to write for themselves. Even if you haven’t seen an explicit call to contribute, it can be worth approaching a site’s owner and offering your services.

Produce Quality Content

You need to incentivise your target site to link back to you. Fortunately, unless they’re a direct competitor, site owners tend to be happy to link to sites which they think their customers will find valuable. So, make sure that your own site contains quality content, like an informative blog or interactive resource. If, for example, you run a garden centre, then a blogpost about how to make a garden a haven for hedgehogs is likely to be very attractive to sites devoted to wildlife preservation.

It’s perfectly possible for local businesses to improve their site’s visibility with a high quality and affordable SEO strategy. An essential part of the strategy must be effective link building which, with time and effort, can yield remarkable results. In today’s digital marketplace, affordable SEO is a business necessity, not a luxury. 

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Kit Jones is a professional consultant at LeadGeneratorsDigital, a successful online marketing agency focusing on a variety of digital strategies including content and SEO marketing. The agency provides affordable SEO for businesses looking to not only boost their Google rankings, but also their conversion rates and the overall quality of their site.