Tips to Build Authority for Your Website Using Local SEO

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Every marketer, local business, and the brand has one goal in mind. It improves website authority. 

However, improving website authority is not always a straightforward task. This is especially true when you compete with millions of websites on the internet.

This blog has listed the top 9 ways to improve website authority straightforwardly. Let’s get started. 

9 Effective Tips to Build Authority Using Local SEO

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1. Invest in PR 

Think again if you think PR is only for large businesses and brands. PR is essential when you get your small business out there and gain free publicity. 

Moreover, media outlets love small businesses. Even though large brands have the budget, they often miss uniqueness. Outlets don’t have any unique story to cover on a large brand, as their teams already handle most of it. 

But small businesses provide them the opportunity to craft a good story. That’s what they love. 

Now, many think PR is expensive and just out of reach. But the good news is, PR doesn’t have to be expensive. Here are some essential tips to crack a PR strategy if you are a small business. 

• Partner With A PR Firm: PR outreach typically needs a detailed understanding of how PR works. As a result, partnering with a PR firm will save both your time and resources in the long run. Moreover, most PR firms today have packages for small businesses, so you can start PR without costing you a fortune. 

 Take a look at this example:

• Strengthen Your Customer Service: No good PR will help your business if your customer services are bad. People love coming back when your services satisfy their needs. So, it's your job to set up excellent service that keeps customers happy. 

2. Prioritize Quality Local Content

One of the best, easiest, and most importantly, cheapest ways of increasing website authority is through quality local content.

Now, what does quality local content mean?

Notice how Cox and Kings made locals content to get visitors to visit Jordan.

Quality content has these qualities. They are:

1. Helpful - The content should answer the queries of local customers or solve their problems. For example, if you are a local shipping company, you can put a free shipping cost calculator on your site to help your clients estimate costs.

2. Relevant - Relevance matters more than you think. Writing a blog post about the latest fashion would not be relevant if you are a courier company. 

3. Not Promotional - No human being wants to read content full of promoting the services. That's why it's so hard to gain quality backlinks if your website is full of promotional content.

4. Shareable - High-quality, link-worthy content is shareable. This means publishing well-written content that will encourage people to share it with others. 

5. Evergreen - Although you can ride on popular topics, don't forget evergreen ones. Evergreen content will remain relevant for many years and naturally attract quality links. 

Are you struggling to find relevant local topics for your local business website? 

Use tools like AnswerThePublic, and Google Trends to understand what local people are searching 

for. 

Here’s a screenshot from Google Trends

3. Power Up With Social Media Marketing 

Social signals matter a lot more than you might think. 

Don’t believe us? 

Just look at the top sites ranking on the first page. You will see that most of their social media posts also appear in results. For example, their latest tweets, Instagram posts, or videos show up in SERPs. 

Here’s a screenshot from the social media campaign of Instagram 

So, it is time to capitalize on this opportunity and improve your site authority. Here’s how you can do that:

• Keep track of what people are talking about your local business and respond with action. 
• Post Regularly: You don't want to keep your audience wondering why your business went missing. Posting regularly will keep your business at the top of the social feed. 
• Using Images And Videos: If your social media is filled with boring walls of text, stop! Visual content such as images and videos will go a long way in improving your engagement rate.
• Partner With Local Businesses And Influencers: Social media is a perfect place to partner with other local businesses and cross-promote. For example, a restaurant can cross-promote with a local theatre. 
• Understand What To Post: Social media are not created equally. While Instagram has a chill vibe, LinkedIn has a more professional vibe. Understanding what to post will save you time and money in the long term. 

For example, if you are using Twitter, you will need to post multiple times a day to get noticed. It's because Twitter receives 5,787 tweets per second! 

On the other hand, if you post on Instagram, post no more than three posts a day! Moreover, Instagram is all about visuals. High-quality, engagement-worthy images and videos will receive more attention than text-only posts. Instagram stories are also an excellent way to get noticed. 

Read: Importance of Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses

4. Backlinks Are Important, But Not All of Them

Backlink plays a huge role in improving website authority. According to Ahrefs' study, 53% of websites miss getting traffic because they do not have backlinks. 

But, it is important to note that not all backlinks are created equally. Some are bad news for your websites, which can do more harm than good. These are spammy backlinks.

Here’s an example of how it looks.

Here are some tips for managing backlinks to improve your site’s authority: 

1. Remove Spammy Backlinks: If you cannot remove these links, simply go to your Google Search Console and disavow these links. Disavowing links will ensure that they can no more harm your site rankings. 

2. Write Guest Blogs To Receive Links: One of the best ways to get high-quality links from authoritative websites is to guest blog. 

3. Partner With Local Influencers: Influencers already have a powerful community, and by partnering with them, you also gain access to this community. Simply reach out to them with your proposition. Don't forget to remind them to link back. 

4. Register On The Local Directory: Another easy way to gain quality backlinks is by registering on online directories. By simply adding your website link while registering, you gain a backlink. 

Some tools to check your backlinks profile are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz. 

5. Pitch to Authoritative Websites And Podcasts 

Today, small businesses are not limited by their locality. You have the option to get out there and show your expertise.

Take a look at this example to see how

Don't forget to reach out to podcasters when seeking guest blogging opportunities. Podcasts have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. 

Simply Google the following combinations to find relevant opportunities for guest blogging. 

• Keyword + submit a guest post
• Keyword + guest post
• Keyword + accepting guest post
• Keyword + guest post guidelines
• Keyword + submission guidelines

Here are best practices when pitching to high authority websites 

1. Read The Guidelines: The last thing you want to pitch to the website owner without understanding their guidelines. This is one thing that many websites use as a filter. It will go straight into the trash box if the pitch is irrelevant. 

2. Flattery Is Unnecessary: You don't need to flatter the bloggers to convince them to accept your guest post. It doesn't matter how many good words you use; if you are not suitable for their site, you are never getting in. 

3. Personalize! : Yes, we know personalization is over-hyped, but it's critical when pitching for guest blogging. After all, nothing turns off bloggers more than generic, copied and pasted pitches. Show them you have done your research and understand what they need.

 Read: Importance of Doing SEO for Your Podcast

6. Fine Tune Your On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is often about improving user experience and helping search engines understand your content. 

Here are a few tips for fine-tuning your on-page SEO

• Get your meta title and descriptions right! So many local businesses lose golden opportunities just because they ignore meta details. Almost 30% of websites use duplicate titles, whereas most don’t even have meta descriptions. 
• Use the correct heading tags—for example, H1 for the main heading, H2 for the subheading heading, etc. 
• Use local keywords naturally. 
• Look for opportunities to link the pages with other content internally. 
• Format your articles to feature in Google’s featured snippet. 
• Last but not least, avoid duplicate content. It's an invitation to trouble. 

You can use tools like google lighthouse, as shown below, to discover the ways to improve on-page SEO

7. Register on Local Directories 

For local small businesses, getting listed on local directories is one of the cost-effective and safe ways to improve website authority. When you list in one directory, you will automatically get listed in several others. It's killing two birds with one stone. 

Here are the most common local directories to improve website authority 

• Google My Business (this one’s huge)
• Yelp
• Facebook
• Angi (formerly Angie’s List)
• Foursquare
• Glassdoor
• Better Business Bureau
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• City Search
• MapQuest
• Manta
• Bing Local
• Yellow Pages
• Merchant Circle
• Super Pages
• Yellowbot
• Yahoo Local

Take a look at this example of a Yelp listing.

Things to keep in mind when registering on online business directories:

• Ensure that information is correct. 68% of customers won't interact with businesses that have wrong information online. 
• Claim and manage listings. Claiming a listing gives you the permission to edit and update the listing down the road. 
• Include business hours.
• Don't forget to add your website URL.
• Add high-quality photos of your business wherever applicable.
• Get as many positive reviews as you. Reviews can significantly affect your conversion rates. 

8. Technical SEO

You might not like to talk about the technicalities of local SEO, but technical SEO is essential to make search engines happy. 

Read: Importance of Technical SEO for Local Businesses

Here is the simple checklist:

• Check And Fix The Crawling Issue: To understand your content, search engines need to crawl it first. Ensure all your important pages are getting indexed by Google. 
• Replace HTTP With HTTPS Version: The HTTP version is not secure. This means using the HTTP version and getting ignored! Google wants to provide the best user experience. This means your site security matters much more than you think. Use an SSL certificate to secure your site. 
• Submit A Sitemap: If you are using WordPress, then beware! WordPress’s default sitemap can be difficult to navigate for web crawlers. Thus, use plugins like the All in one SEO plugin or RankMath to generate an XML sitemap. And submit it to Google Central Search.

Here’s a screenshot of Yoast’s post on an XML sitemap

• Use Schema Markup: It's a code that makes it easy for search engines to understand your content. Common schema markup for local business includes location, operating hours, name, reviews, ratings, etc. It’s a serious game changer. 

9. Google My Business Listings

Although GMB listing does not directly improve your website authority, it improves users’ trust in your business and helps them find you easily. 

Here’s a screenshot to show how it looks

Moz says Google My Business continues to be the biggest driver of local SEO. Google wants to show the most relevant content to users and thus use users' location to refine through the sea of content online. 

Three important factors determine how your business will rank locally on search engines: 

• Distance - This is the distance of your store/office from the user’s location.
• Prominence - How well known your local business is?
• Relevance - Does your business match with the user’s search intent? 

When thinking about GMB listings, the target is often to appear in the local pack, a top-three listing appearing in search. The local pack shows up in 93% of local searches. 

Here are some tips to optimize your GMB listing to improve business and website authority. 

• Fill In All The Information: It's hard for search engines to match your content with the user’s search intent if the information is not complete. As a result, ensure everything from name, address, phone number, and website is listed. 
• Get Reviews: Reviews signal search engines that your business is popular locally. This means higher search rankings and more website visits. 

Frequently Asked Questions:

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1. How Do Small Businesses Get Backlinks?

Small businesses can get backlinks in many ways. It includes guest blogging, listing on directories, partnering with local influencers, etc. 

2. What Makes A Website High Authority?

The content usually plays an important role here. High authority websites generally have a high amount of backlinks from authoritative sources. Since top websites easily attract experts' attention, these sites often have expert-generated content that people want to read. 

3. How Can Local Businesses Conduct PR Campaigns? 

The easiest way to conduct PR campaigns as a small business is to partner with PR firms. Most of them generally have packages for small businesses that are in an affordable range. 

4. Does Social Media Marketing Improve Authority? 

Although Google denies that social media is not correlated with website authority, it does play an important role. Look at top-ranking websites; almost all social media profiles rank on the first pages. 

Key Takeaways:

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• Generate high-quality backlinks using techniques like guest blogging. Remember to disavow spammy backlinks through Google Search Console. 
• Fine-tune your on-page SEO to provide the best user experience. 
• Register on local directories to boost trust. 
• Prioritize local content creation to attract visitors and natural backlinks. It includes informative, researched blog posts, how-to guides, etc. 
• Invest in PR to generate a buzz. Research out to media outlets to share your brand story. 
• Power up your social media marketing to improve social signals.