What are the best link strategies to increase rankings in Local Pack / GMB and where to find them?

[OlegLevitas]

As someone who manages GMB for 50 plus local US clients, I absolutely loved this article https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors#local-pack-finder-ranking-factors and found it somewhat useful. Most of the gurus are saying link building is the key, but I wish at least one of them would mention where do we find these links.  Is there a reliable source for this ( based on personal experience only please ) ?  A one stop shop for any local business to do quality links ?

I feel like to be truly useful to a local business this piece of the puzzle is missing and I would truly appreciate anyone's help.

[OlegLevitas]

thank you so much, I will look into it

[MiriamEllis]

And we're so glad to have you here, Ed!

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Thanks Miriam - I'd not heard of that one - looks awesome.  Yes outsourcing is not good but if you've got the tools to identify when the agencies have gotten you bad links you can always ask them to get you some good ones to replace the bad ones.

I've done that with a few agencies and they are not bad people - they are trying to do a good job and develop their own good relationships and I think they get let down by bloggers and make mistakes just like the rest of us.  So when they do and you've paid them you must ask them to make it right for you.

But if someone put a gun to my head and said get me a DA70 link by tomorrow I'd collar one of my dentists or therapists or nurses and make them write an article about how great their university experience was and send it to the student newspaper or uni blog.

That's a truly marvellous way of getting exposure. Incidentally Oleg emailed me and our conversation was about product suppliers also.  He works with dealerships for example and there will be lists of dealerships on the main car websites.  Every product I use from the sunglasses patients wear to stop the lights getting in their eyes to the bubblegum-flavoured mouthrinse.  I've written to them all about how much we love their products and they'll 7/10 times bang it straight up on the blog or put a link in my signoff at the end of the review.

I'm actually starting to like linkbuilding.  It's like spreading love around and making people fee nice about their products in return for links. I'd do that all day.

Thanks for the endorsement Miriam. blushes  I love it here.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Oleg,

Ed has provided an excellent answer, and while I don't recommend outsourcing linkbuilding, I do highly recommend that you check out ZipSprout's sponsorship finder product: https://zipsprout.com/

It's a great way to help you build local relationships. Recommended reading: https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-local-sponsorship-marketing

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

No you simply can't outsource it.  It's hard graft and the companies you outsource to will use some white some grey and some downright black hat methodologies.

If you have any professional services then I could give you some really useful advice.  What sectors do you operate in?  Being on your own is hard.  I' on my own but I just have one site to worry about.  But we punch above our weight.

Why don't you email me some specifics: ed@sexydentistry.com and I'll be able to tell you about the good the bad and the ugly.  I don't want to get into trouble on here because I don't want to offend or make enemies - and also it's not really a marketplace either.  but I don't charge.  I'm here to help. And I'm sure i'll need a favour in return one day lol.

[OlegLevitas]

Thanks for your feedback, its really helpful.  Because I'm one man show right now, it would really help to outsource the link building part to some reputable agency.  If anyone knows one - would really appreciate if you share the name.

[Smileworks_Liverpool]

Ok so you have two avenues here and people focus usually on one and not the other.

I'm a local dentist and struggled with the map pack.  I find it easy to rank number one for terms with a local identifier like 'product+location' which always trigger the maps.

The problems you might encounter are that the maps are great but they take the user to the home page.  This is problematic because I'd actually rather them be taken directly to my product page and not have to navigate around to find what they're looking for.  So maps are great but they do have this annoying limitation in UX and I find from looking at user feedback from recordings (like from Hotjar) that they can get lost and pogo back to the serp - always bad.

The other limitation is NAP-W.  So it can be worth getting your NAP absolutely squared away - which it sounds like you have.  But I got some great results from doing an audit with a company called whitespark who basically do it for you for a few hundred dollars.  Moz also have a great tool but it's not working here in the UK at the moment.  However, my NAP was in a mess so you may well not need these although it's a small investment and got us from 7% to 14% in the maps (out of thousands of positions) so that's a LOT of map 1-3 positions.

So places you must go are:

1. INDUSTRY SPECIFIC (like universities and local clubs and trading links with local businesses and local bloggers)  Bloggers want money and for hardly anythign they will publish nice advertorial that will move the needle.

2. LOCAL - It has to be local.  google 'Hyper local citations' for some examples.

3. BUSINESS - and this is the one people neglect.  You sell a product but you are also a business so get in touch with local business groups, start up organisations and write articles about business.  Then you have two sources of links.  Your product and general business stuff too.  This is how I've had some massive successes.  Local newspapers will write about small businesses and the people and stories behind them.  Use this.

Avoid signing up to rubbish local directories.  They don't work.  I read in Search Engine Roundtable - (which is reputable) that there are still some good directories out there but I ran them through my systems and they are all absolute rubbish.  I respected that company and really lost a lot of respect for them when they were touting these crappy listing companies.  Probably paid. Who knows.

Remember NAP and directories are different.  You need to be listed in relevant citation sources like local newspaper directories for businesses but the old web directories are a waste of your time and money.

If you have professionals working in any of your client organisations get them to write for their university alumni - if they went to uni in their city this will skyrocket your local pack presence.

But if you are new it can just take time.  So be patient and don't try anything shady to try to game the system.  Google is getting smarter and smarter and what worked even 6 months ago will get you penalised after the huge quality and link algo changes that happened in March, April and possibly in May too (of this year)

Also remember link building cannot be done without building relationships with real people.  It's essentially now PR.  Doing real things with real people in the real world.  Gone are the days of basement linkbuilding.  Use your brain not the tools. And don't copy other sites because what they did 9 months ago might now be banned in the eyes of google. Sure model their successes but don't blindly follow their strategies - they might be working with less reputable agencies and you'll do yourself harm.