What’s the difference between traditional and local link building for SEO? 

Traditional link building takes a more general approach and focuses on building relationships and acquiring links from websites which do not necessarily target a local audience. It involves crafting relationships and tactics which are intended to draw in clicks from broader geographical areas. This type of link building is often time-consuming, and expensive, and requires more outreach or negotiation than local link building. 

Local link building focuses specifically on building links to websites and content aimed at a local audience. It involves creating relationships with local businesses and organisations to gain backlinks which are targeting the location(s) that a business is trying to reach. 

Most fundamentally, those links that a traditional SEO campaign would not consider relevant can be highly valuable for a local SEO campaign. 

Gaining backlinks from neighbouring businesses - even if they have no relation to you other than proximity - helps Google to associate your business with a very specific geographic location. 

Similarly, gaining backlinks from a similar business that’s not in your vicinity can help Google associate your business with a very specific industry.

There are 8 ways that local link-building differs from traditional link-building:

1. Location

2. Target audience

3. Link sources

4. Quality of links

5. Cost

6. Time investment

7. Risk

8. ROI

Let’s dig into these in a little more detail.

1. LOCATION

Local link building is focusing on adding links to websites that are within the same geographic area as your business. Traditional link-building can be done anywhere.

2. TARGET AUDIENCE

Local link building is geared towards a local audience, while traditional link building is more often focused on a global perspective.

3. LINK SOURCES

Local link building can involve adding links to local publications, events and websites. Traditional link building often involves acquiring links from national or even international publications such as Forbes or Huffington Post.

4. QUALITY OF LINKS

Local link building can often involve lower-quality links. Traditional link building typically requires higher-quality links.

5. COST

Local link building is often more cost-effective than traditional link building as, even though a greater volume of links may be required, the quality (and therefore associated time/cost) per backlink is lower.

6. TIME INVESTMENT

Local link building often requires more time to build relationships with local businesses and organisations. Traditional link-building can be done more quickly via established PR associations. However local relationships are easier to maintain in the long run.

7. RISK

Traditional link-building is generally considered much safer as it relies on higher domain authority links. Traditional link building tactics are more widely accepted in the SEO community, and they are less likely to be penalised by search engines. Local link building tactics, on the other hand, can sometimes be seen as spammy or manipulative, which can result in penalties from search engines, as often the links that one would get from local websites are very low authority websites.

8. RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)

Both traditional and local link building offer ROI. Whilst local link building has the potential to generate more targeted traffic and conversions meaning an increase in profits, traditional link building can generate more brand awareness. 

As one of the more modern methods of SEO, local link building can offer substantial benefits to companies who are looking to grow their visibility and market share in a certain geographic area. With quality backlinks generated from local sources, a brand can reap impressive rewards as they increase their presence in the local community. The potential reward shows that the time and resources put into this method of link building is worth the effort, when it comes to any local SEO campaign. As discussed, there are 8 key elements that differentiate local link-building from traditional link-building, offering an insight into how important its focus on location is. In conclusion, it’s clear that when executed correctly; local business links can bring huge benefits for those looking to expand in their local area, and it is undoubtedly one of the most effective means of improving a brand’s visibility within a specific market. 

This is the second article in a series of three about the importance of local link building for local SEO.

Read our related articles here:

12 ideas for building local links for your small business

Who are we, and what is this?

We’re LocalMark, a London UK-based local SEO service that helps connect UK trade, service & retail businesses with nearby customers. This post is one of many that’s been lovingly researched and written by our local marketing experts to help support the UK’s thousands of owners, managers and franchisees with growing their local businesses. If you found this helpful and could benefit from more of the same, be sure to share, follow us on social and sign up for our local business growth newsletter.