1. Get reviews from local bloggers
2. Write guest posts for local blogs
3. Get featured on websites of local media companies
4. Get listed on local business directories
5. Get listed on alumni directories
6. Create local skyscraper listicles
7. Find local blogs with broken links
8. Conduct surveys locally and publish original data
9. Hold special events and promotions that will excite locals
10. Get the same backlinks as competitors near you
11. Offer to provide testimonials to local businesses
12. Join local communities in your niche and network with members
13. Claim your Google My Business listing
14. Sponsor local organisations
15. Donate to a local charity that links back to donors
16. 3 important pointers to note when building links locally
17. Choose the right SEO partner

Boosting your local SEO can feel overwhelming, but the key to success often lies in one essential element—local link building. For local businesses aiming to outrank their competition and get more nearby customers, building and attracting strong, local “referrals” online is a must. But where do you start? That is where this guide comes in.

In this blog post, I will walk you through 15 effective strategies for local link building that are designed specifically for businesses like yours. Each step is clear, actionable, and tailored to help you strengthen your online presence in your local market. Whether you are new to SEO or looking to refine your current efforts, this guide will set you on the right path to creating valuable local links that drive both traffic and trust. Let’s get started!

1. Get reviews from local bloggers

Sponsoring local bloggers and influencers in exchange for a review of your product or service is a great way to earn local backlinks to your website. Here are the detailed steps for a successful review collaboration with bloggers:

• Search for local bloggers in your area.
• Check the website metrics of the local bloggers.
• Shortlist bloggers that you will want to work with. Make sure the website is of high quality and one where you will like a referral from.
• Reach out to the blogger via their email address or contact form on their website.
  • Example of email: Hi Mr Local Blogger, I sell premium dog treats in a shop in Singapore. Can I send over my premium dog treats to you, so that you can write a review about them on your blog? 
• Discuss other terms. If they request for additional cash on top of the product or service sponsorship, it is up to your discretion. 
• Review their blog article and make sure it includes a link to your website. 
• Request for a Google review. 

2. Write guest posts for local blogs

Another link building idea similar to getting reviews from local bloggers is to write guest posts for local blogs. 

• Search for local blogs in your area.
• Check the website metrics of the local blogs.
• Shortlist blogs that you will want backlinks from. Make sure the blog is of high quality and one where you will like a referral link from.
• Reach out to the blog via their email address or contact form on their website by offering to write a free guest post for them.
  • Example of email: Hi Mr Local Blog, I offer SEO services in Singapore. Can I write a guest post for your blog around SEO marketing agencies in Singapore? 
• Discuss other terms. More often than not, active local blogs request for cash on top of the guest post. Whether you pay to write a guest post or not depends on your budget, industry and SEO goals. 
• Review their blog article and make sure it includes a link to your website. 

Here is an example of a guest post I wrote on a Singapore blog using this local link building strategy: How to choose the right SEO agency for your business.

3. Get featured on websites of local media companies

Depending on the local media company that you reach out to, this link building strategy can cost you more than just your time. This is because media companies with a large audience often charge for editorial features (often in the thousands). 

However, if you choose the right media company to partner with, you can not only get editorially placed, high quality backlinks, you may also get leads and sales directly from the editorial feature. Here are the steps you need to follow if you would like to get featured: 

• Search for “top local media companies” in your vicinity on Google.
  • I searched for “top local media companies in Singapore” as you can see in my screenshot below. 

• Check out the full list of media companies in your region & shortlist media companies that will be a good fit for you to get featured on. 

• Contact these media companies for a feature.
  • A simple message like “Please let me know the cost of advertising with you through an editorial feature” will do. 

• Based on their quote, potential reach from their content and price of your services, calculate the approximate return on investment for you to work with them. 
• If you gauge that the ROI could be positive and the feature is within your local link building budget, engage the media company and get featured!

Check out how to maximise your ROI from paid local media coverage here.

4. Get listed on local business directories

The next place to look for building links locally are business directories in your vicinity. These business directories are also potential channels, where customers could discover the solutions that your business provides. 

• Search for business directories in your vicinity on Google.
  • I searched for “business directories Singapore” as you can see in my screenshot below. 

• Add your website on suitable directories. Usually you will be able to add your name, address and website.
  • If you cannot find information to add your business details, email the owner of the directory for more information. 

5. Get listed on alumni directories

This local link building strategy is one that your competitors can never copy. Because you likely need to be an alumni of your school to be listed in your school’s alumni directory. 

• Search on Google with the search term “[School name] alumni business directory”.
  • As an alumni of Nanyang Technological University, I searched for “NTU Alumni Business directory” as you can see in my screenshot below. 

• Add your business details along with your website in your alumni directory. 

Surprisingly, these days, you may even need to pay for listings in school alumni directories. They collect alumni membership fees as shown in my screenshot below.

So it is up to your discretion whether you want to pay to be listed. 

6. Create local skyscraper listicles

A skyscraper listicle is a piece of written content in the format of a listicle which is much more in-depth, informative, useful and engaging than that of your competitors. A local skyscraper listicle refers to compiling a “best list” of products or services in your niche and service area. However, it is important to note that Skyscraper articles usually require in depth research and resources to be written. 

For example, I spent more than 2 weeks creating my skyscraper listicle around “11 Best SEO Agencies In Singapore” here. I made this piece of listicle content way better than what is already out there – by adding information such as pricing and the SEO approach taken by each SEO agency in Singapore. 

Here are more examples of local skyscraper listicles that a business owner can create to attract backlinks.

Let’s assume you sell premium dog treats in Singapore. You can write a local skyscraper listicle titled “15 Premium Dog Treats In Singapore Your Dogs Will Love”. You can add detailed information about each dog treat that dog owners will love to know about before making their purchase. This may help you attract local and niche relevant backlinks from animal lover blogs.

You can even write local skyscraper listicles featuring complimentary services in your locality that will attract your target audience. For example, if you sell premium dog treats in Singapore you can write a local skyscraper blog post titled “10 Best Dog Swimming Pools In Singapore For Ultimate Fun”. This skyscraper listicle may help you attract local and niche relevant backlinks from the dog swimming pools you feature. 

7. Find local blogs with broken links

Broken link building is one of the best ways you can build links naturally without having to pay for links. The logic behind local broken link building is to: 

• Find websites in your locality that are linking to broken web pages (using this “Check My Links” tool).
• Contact the website owner to alert them about the broken link.
• Suggest to the website owner to replace the broken link with your website page. (See email screenshot by Brian Dean of Backlinko below)

If you are serious about using this specific local link building strategy, and want to get links from web pages with broken links scalably, check out this broken link building guide by Brian Dean. 

8. Conduct surveys locally and publish original data

Another free way to get local backlinks is to conduct surveys in your area around your topic. After you conduct the survey, it is important to publish original data that you get from your survey in the form of a content piece on your website. 

The content piece should include infographics and survey findings that people in your industry will find interesting and unique. Using this strategy, other websites citing your survey responses and including your original infographics in their content need to link back to you. Here is an example of a survey I conducted in Singapore to collect and publish original data.

I incentivised people to complete this survey by offering them a high value thank you gift in the form of a website feature. While I have not published the findings of my survey yet, I would share the link to my findings from my survey here when it is ready. 

9. Hold special events and promotions that will excite locals

While this is an interesting link building strategy, it does not make sense to hold a special promotion or organise an event for the sake of getting PR links. The special promotion or event must be aligned with your brand, audience and your business goals. Getting PR links should be more of an additional incentive or bonus benefit for you.

Here is one example of a special promotion by a prata shop in Singapore named SriSun express that attracted a lot of media publicity. The shop didn’t hold this special promotion to get PR links but ended up getting many PR links anyway. 

10. Get the same backlinks as competitors near you

You can find out where your local competitors are getting backlinks from. And try to get backlinks from the same places as them. Many SEO tools allow you to do this and my favourite one is Semrush. Here are the exact steps if you would like to get the same backlinks as your competitors: 

• Head over to backlink analytics in Semrush.
• Pop in your competitors’ URL. 
• Click on Analyze.
• Click on referring domains.
• All the backlinks of your local competitor will appear. 
• Contact website owners of these backlinks to feature your business too. 

Below is a Semrush sample result after I analyzed the backlinks of one of my local competitors, an SEO agency in Singapore.I can simply scroll the list to find each and every backlink that my local competitor has. After that, I just need to contact the website owner of sites linking to my competitors that I want backlinks from. And work with them to get the backlink!

11. Offer to provide testimonials to local businesses

Do you have a local product or service that you personally use and love? 

Would the website owner of that product or service appreciate a testimonial on their website? 

If you answered yes to both the above questions, this local link building strategy is one that you can use! Just make sure that the local business you are providing a testimonial to is willing to give a backlink to you. 

12. Join local communities in your niche and network with members. 

This local link building strategy works better for B2B businesses. Joining local communities in your niche and networking with members might seem like a lot of work. But it could do you a lot more good than just helping you build backlinks from members’ websites. It can even help you attract clients, part time or full time team members or product testers to improve upon your product or service. 

Apart from a simple Google search, Meetup.com is another great place where you can start finding communities in your niche and locality. However, when you join a local community in your niche, be sure to

• Introduce yourself.
• Attend networking events, especially offline ones.
• Exchange contacts with other members. 
• Exchange ideas and suggestions with other members.
• Request to write a guest post on their website (if you are in a b2b networking event, most attendees will have one) which will add value to them. 

When requesting to write a guest post on their website, make sure it is something that will add value to them and their audience. Alternatively, you can get into a friendly arrangement with them where you help them with something. And they let you write a guest post on their website in return. 

One example of a local community that I joined is this community of like minded entrepreneurs in Singapore called Launchpad.

 

13. Claim your Google My Business listing

Claiming your Google My Business listing helps you build a backlink directly from Google! But it is important to note that the link you get from Google is a nofollow link that does not pass SEO link equity to your page. Yet, claiming and optimising your Google My Business listing is useful because it can help your business appear in Google Maps and local search results. Having a verified Google My Business profile increases trust within your community too. 

Here are steps to claim your Google My Business listing. 

• Visit this link.
• Enter your business name and address.
• Next, find your business on Google search and Google maps. 
• Finally, head over to the “Business Profile” section and click on “Claim this business”.

After you claim your Google My Business listing, you also need to optimize your Google My Business listing with the below steps. 

• Complete Your Info 

Use your actual business name, pick relevant categories, ensure contact details (phone, website) are accurate, and update hours regularly. 

• Use Keyword-Rich Descriptions 

Write a compelling description (max 750 characters) with relevant keywords. 

• Get & Respond to Reviews 

Encourage clients to leave reviews, respond professionally, and use keywords when replying. 

• Add Photos & Videos 

Upload high-quality, geo-tagged images and videos like testimonials or case studies. 

• Post Regular Updates 

Keep your profile active by sharing announcements or blog snippets weekly. 

• Answer Q&A 

Monitor frequently asked questions and add helpful answers. 

• List Services 

Detail your offerings in the “Products & Services” section with clear descriptions. 

• NAP Consistency 

Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone number are consistent across all directories. 

• Monitor Insights 

Track views, calls, clicks, and direction requests to assess performance.

Optimising your Google My Business profile will help you get on to the “Google 3-pack”. For example, I searched for “house movers Singapore” and the Google 3-pack result looks like this: 

By getting into the Google 3-pack, you can rank higher in local searches and attract more leads and sales to your business. 

14. Sponsor local organizations

When you sponsor a local organization, event or community group, they will usually link to the businesses that sponsor them. A simple way to search for events or organizations to sponsor: 

• Search on Google for “niche/target audience events to sponsor in your vicinity”

For my business, I will search for “business events to sponsor in Singapore”. 

When I find organizations or events to sponsor, I will check some key metrics of the website. If I find the website to be one of high authority and quality, and I am still interested to get my brand featured, I will check with the event organisers on 2 important details: 

• The cost of the sponsorship
• Whether a brand mention with a link back to my website is a benefit I get from the sponsorship

If the cost is within my budget and the event organizer assures me of a backlink, I will consider sponsoring the event. 

Though this is rare, it is an added bonus if the sponsorship opportunity can result in more immediate leads and sales for your business. 

15. Donate to a local charity that links back to donors

Talk about giving back to your community and earning a backlink all at the same time. To find a local charity to donate to, start with looking for a charity website in your locality. 

• Search for “charity website [your area]”. 

For my case, I searched for “charity website Singapore” and discovered https://www.giving.sg/. 

• Shortlist charities and campaigns that
  • Are accepting donations
  • You resonate with
  • Own a website
• Contact the site owner. Ask if they can list your business as a donor and link back to your business if you donate a one time sum from your business. 
• If the owner approves, donate to the cause right away. 

One organisation that will feature your business on their website and link to you when you donate through them is B1G1. You can find SEO With Senthil featured in their member directory here.

Also known as crowdfunding link building, this is one of the most meaningful ways that you can build local backlinks for your business. 

3 Important pointers to note when building links locally

1. Ensure that you are getting high quality links.
2. Ensure that most backlinks are dofollow links.
3. Don’t “overbuild” local backlinks

There are few key pointers to take note of before building backlinks locally. 

1. Ensure that you are getting high quality links by checking these website metrics. 

Before you can ensure that you are getting high quality backlinks, you need to understand how to assess and differentiate high quality backlinks from low quality ones. There are a few ways to assess backlink quality:

• Use a SEO backlink audit tool like Moz Domain Authority checker to check the domain authority, linking root domains, ranking keywords and spam score of the website you want a backlink from. You can assess whether a local backlink is worth it by looking for metrics such as:
  • A minimum domain authority of 10. 
  • Higher domain authority (number) than your website.
  • More linking root domains and ranking keywords than your website.
  • Less than 30% spam score or less than 5% spam score if you want to be more stringent.

• Use SimilarWeb to track other key website metrics like total website visits in a month, bounce rate, pages per visit and average visit duration. To make your local backlink shortlisting process more stringent, you can make sure websites you work with meet more baseline metrics like
  • Minimum monthly website visits of more than 500 visitors.
  • Less than 55% bounce rate or less than 40% bounce rate if you want to be more stringent. 
  • Pages per visit greater than 1. 
  • Average visit duration of more than 1 minute, or more than 2 minutes if you want to be more stringent. 

• Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. While easier said than done, browse the website that you are considering getting a backlink from and ask yourself these questions:
  • Is it easy to navigate? 
  • Does it look legit? 
  • Will you trust website content on the website? 
  • Does the website content add value to visitors? 
  • Is the website niche specific and relevant to what you do? (It is an added bonus if it is!)

2. Ensure that most backlinks are dofollow links.

Dofollow links, also referred to as follow links, pass on a website’s authority to a linked page. Nofollow links however, do not pass website authority to your website. Meaning they don’t contribute to boost your website’s domain authority and help you rank better. Yet, nofollow links can drive traffic and increase your brand visibility. 

Most importantly, you need a good balance of dofollow and nofollow links. A good guideline to stick to is to ensure majority of your local links (at least 60 to 80%) are dofollow links. This way, your backlink profile looks natural to search engines too. 

There are 2 ways you can check the type of backlink you are getting: 

• Before working with a website owner, check with him/her if you will be getting a dofollow link. 
• After working with the website owner, you can do a backlink audit using a SEO tool like Semrush to verify the type of link you received. 

3. Don’t “overbuild” local backlinks

While it may seem exciting to get referral links from 100s of local websites, you don’t want to stretch link building to a point where it looks unnatural to search engines. In fact, building too many low quality backlinks within a short timeframe may raise red flags to search engines and harm your website rankings. 

While there is no single number considered as too many, even backlink building agencies do not usually advise building more than 8 backlinks a week.

Building strong local links is one of the most effective ways to boost your online presence and connect with your community. By implementing some of the 15 strategies outlined in this guide, you will be equipped to drive more traffic, build trust, and strengthen your local SEO.

Remember, as you work on these strategies, the key is to focus on quality over quantity, stay consistent in your efforts, and ensure that most links you are getting are dofollow links. These simple yet powerful pointers will ensure your success. Now, it is time to take action—start implementing on your own or contact one of these 9 best link building agencies to help build links for your business.

Choose the right SEO partner

If you want a SEO partner who can help you with all aspects of SEO, here is a list of the best SEO agencies in Singapore. This list even includes pricing and service comparisons, so that you can choose a suitable SEO partner based on your budget.