Most of the backlink offers landing in your inbox are selling links that either do nothing or put your site at risk. The links that actually help a local business are usually sitting much closer to home: with your suppliers, your industry body, the footy club you already sponsor and the businesses that send you work.
None of these are glamorous. Most take one polite email. Together they tell Google something a paid link never can: that real organisations in your area know you exist and vouch for you.
What makes a local link worth having
Before chasing anything, run it past three questions.
- Is it a real site that real people use? A supplier’s “find an installer” page gets visits from people about to buy. A “best plumbers in Australia” page on a site you’ve never heard of doesn’t.
- Is it relevant to your business or your area? A link from the Ballina netball club is relevant to a Ballina café. A link from an overseas casino blog isn’t relevant to anyone.
- Would you want it even if Google didn’t exist? If the link could send you a customer, a referral or credibility, it’s worth having. If its only purpose is ranking, be suspicious.
That last question filters out almost every scheme on the market.
Start with the people you already do business with
Suppliers, manufacturers and wholesalers
This is the most overlooked source we see. Plenty of brands run a “where to buy”, “stockists” or “accredited installers” page. If you sell, install or service their product, you may already qualify and simply haven’t asked.
Think solar inverter brands for electricians, tapware and hot water brands for plumbers, coating systems for concreters, coffee roasters for cafés, and skincare lines for salons. For a trade business, this is the first list we’d want written: every brand you’re accredited with, and whether that brand lists installers.
An email that works:
Hi Sarah, we’ve been installing [brand] systems around Ballina and Lennox Head for three years and we’re on your accredited installer list. I noticed your installer finder doesn’t include a website link for us. Could you add https://ourbusiness.com.au? Happy to send our logo or a short description if that helps.
Short, specific and easy to say yes to.
Customers who are businesses
If you do work for other businesses, some will happily mention you. A builder thanking their landscaper in a project write-up, a café crediting the roaster, a practice listing who did their fit-out. You can’t demand it, but you can ask when the job’s gone well.
Industry associations and accreditation bodies
Master Builders, HIA, Master Plumbers, NECA, professional colleges and allied health associations generally run a member search or “find a practitioner” tool. You’re paying the membership anyway. Log in, complete the profile properly and add your website.
These links matter because they’re hard to fake. Google sees a link from a body that checks licences and memberships, which is exactly the trust signal a local business wants.
While you’re there, check your listing matches your business name, address and phone number elsewhere. Our guide to Australian business directories explains why that consistency matters.
Sponsorships and community groups
Sponsoring the surf club, the local footy team, a school fete or a community festival often comes with a logo and link on their sponsors page. That’s good for you locally. People involved in the club see your name, and the link comes from a site with genuine local relevance.
Be honest with yourself about why you’re doing it, though. Google’s spam policies treat links you pay for as paid links, and its guidance on qualifying links says sponsored links should be marked with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Many club websites don’t bother, and that’s their call to make. Don’t ask them to remove the attribute and don’t sponsor something purely for the link.
Sponsor things you’d support anyway. The community goodwill is the real return, and any search benefit is a bonus.
Local media
Local papers, community newsletters and regional radio websites are some of the strongest local links available, and they’re earned, not bought. You get them by giving a journalist something worth writing about.
Things that tend to get picked up in regional areas:
- Hiring or graduating a local apprentice
- A milestone, like ten years in business or a move to bigger premises
- A community project, donation drive or flood recovery work
- A useful seasonal warning from someone qualified (a pool fencing reminder before summer, a mould warning after a wet spell)
- A clear opinion on a local issue that affects your industry
Send a short email with the story in the first two sentences, a decent photo and a phone number. If they run it, they may or may not link to you. When they don’t, it’s fine to politely ask whether they could add your website to the online version.
Partners and referrers
Most local businesses have a handful of others they refer work to and receive work from. The builder and their plumber. The physio and the podiatrist down the road. The wedding photographer and the venue.
A “people we work with” page listing genuine partners, with a sentence about each, is useful to your customers. It’s fine for them to link back. What Google warns against is excessive link exchanges: pages built only to swap links with anyone who asks. Keep the list to businesses you’d genuinely recommend to a customer and you’re on the right side of that line.
The link schemes to delete on sight
Google’s spam policies are blunt about this, and so are we. Ignore any offer that involves:
- Buying links that pass ranking credit, whether for money, free products or “a small fee for a guest post”
- Bulk link packages, like “300 high DA backlinks for $99”
- Link insertion, where someone offers to add your link to an existing article on a site they control
- Low-quality directory and bookmarking submissions, often sold as “500 citations”
- Automated link building tools or services
- Networks of blogs that exist only to publish articles with links in them
- Keyword-stuffed footer or widget links spread across many sites
At best these do nothing. At worst they earn a manual action from Google, and cleaning that up costs far more than the package did. If someone can’t tell you exactly which sites the links will come from, that’s your answer.
How to see what you already have
Google Search Console has a free Links report showing which sites link to you and which pages they point at. Check it once a quarter. You’ll often find a supplier or association link pointing at an old page that no longer exists, which is an easy fix: either ask them to update it or redirect the old address.
Don’t expect overnight movement. A few good local links build up slowly, and our take on how long SEO takes explains why.
Your list for this month
Grab a notepad and write down:
- Every brand you sell, install or are accredited with
- Every association you pay membership to
- Every club, school or event you’ve sponsored in the last two years
- Five businesses you regularly refer work to
- One story the local paper might run
Then send one email a week. By the end of the quarter you’ll have more useful links than most of your competitors, and every one of them will be real.
One email a week is easy to plan and easy to skip. Local link building is part of the local SEO work we do for small businesses, and that five-point list is where we begin with each client. Get in touch if you’d rather hand the emails over.