4 Common Link Building Challenges for Small Business Owners
Standing out in SERPs is all about keeping up with on-page SEO trends, excellent keyword research, and creating high quality content so that other websites see you as an authority in your field. Most SEO experts agree that link building is effective when done right, and that’s where professional link building services come in.
As of 2023, our world had approximately 1.13 billion websites. For small business owners, that was the bad news. The good news is that only a tiny fraction of these websites are actively used and updated. Remove any website that isn’t a small business or your direct competitor; you have an even smaller pool to contend with.
In today’s blog, we shall explain the following:
- Why backlinks are crucial to your SEO efforts.
- The link building challenges of small business SEO.
- The solutions to said challenges.
Are you ready to get better acquainted with link building? Dive right in!
The Importance of Link Building for Small Businesses
Link building is when a non-competitive website with a high domain authority score adds links to your web pages in their content because they see your content as authoritative.
While this type of backlinking happens often, Google and Bing have developed spam policies to prevent unnatural link building campaigns.
Effective link building can boost a small business’s profile and improves its trustworthiness and credibility in the online landscape. With a robust and ever-evolving link building strategy with help from a baclink building service, you can improve your online presence and eventually lead the competition in your respective industry.
Proven Link Building Strategies for Small Businesses
Below are some effective link building strategies that can improve a brand’s visibility in highly competitive industries.
1. Guest Blogging
Share well-written guest posts to relevant websites and bloggers. “Well-written” in this context means creating content aligned with Google’s Helpful Content Update.
Your content should be geared towards helping people instead of just promoting your services, contain valuable and authoritative content, and include a naturally incorporated link to your website.
Recommended Read: What is Guest Blogging and How to Get Started with it?
2. Establish Industry Connections
Contact other website owners (not direct competitors), bloggers, vloggers, and other social media influencers. As 72% of millennials and Gen Z–ers follow influencers, social media and microblogging platforms are untapped wells for businesses.
Comment on their content and make collaboration or sponsorship offers in exchange for money, a shoutout or backlink.
3. Broken Link Building
Broken link building is a unique, albeit time-consuming, strategy whereby you could identify broken links on other relevant websites and offer to replace them with your own. Since it’s a mutually beneficial offer, they have no reason to turn you down.
If you’re having trouble finding relevant broken links, hire link building services and have them take over the entire process.
4. Create Authoritative Content
It all comes full-circle with high-quality content. Give other industry stakeholders something to link back to by creating valuable resources like eBooks, comprehensive guides, and case studies. These assets stand on their own and naturally attract backlinks.
Recommended Read: How to Write Quality SEO Content and Optimize It for Search Engines
Common Link Building Challenges And How You Can Address Them
Link building is rewarding, but it isn’t easy to implement. Nearly 41% of SEO experts believe it’s one of the most challenging parts of search engine optimization.
Here’s how they might address the following problems.
Challenge #1: Lack of Resources
Small businesses have finite resources; their marketing budget and time might be limited. Link building is a small part of this budget, but there are many ways to implement it, and not all are guaranteed to work.
Solution: Invest the resources you have into cost-effective strategies. Work with SEO experts and hire professional link building services to ensure perfect execution. You can submit guest blogs to relevant websites containing links to your website in the content or author’s bio.
You can also generate organic traffic for your website by sharing content on social media and engaging with followers in the comments section.
Lastly, you may collaborate with complementary small businesses that aren’t your direct competitors and social media influencers. Google doesn’t allow link exchange, but you can still reciprocate relevant links with your collaborators.
Challenge #2: Finding Relevant and Authoritative Websites
To earn backlinks, you must find websites that are:
- Not your direct competitors
- Relevant to your business
- Authoritative, and have the domain authority score to prove it.
The above might seem like a tall order for small businesses.
Solution: For the first part, you can visit competitors’ websites and search for non-competing resources in their content.
For the second part, you could look up relevant keywords on several online tools like the Google Keyword Planner and scan resource lists to identify relevant websites.
For the third part, you can look up websites that accept guest posts on industry directories. These directories usually state the domain authority score of a website, so you can easily filter out domains with a DA score below 60.
Related Read: Guest Blogging Goldmine for Lawyers
Challenge #3: Connecting with Site Owners and Influencers AKA Outreach
Establishing connections with site owners and popular social media influencers is a common problem, with a simple solution: approach them like your target audience.
Solution: Write personalized outreach emails expressing your interest in a collaboration. You could take this further by listing your objectives (read mutual benefits).
You can pitch a post or draft a well-crafted one and share it with the site owners or influencers. It will add value and improve your chances of getting a positive response.
Networking is an oldie but a goodie. Try attending industry events like trade fairs. These events usually have social media influencers and professionals from your industry. Put yourself out there—you don’t have to pitch your content immediately. Build a rapport, and only then should you propose a collaboration.
When it comes to social media platforms, relevant hashtags is the key. Start by searching for hashtags that are relevant to your industry or niche. This could include product categories, event names, trends, or industry jargon. This will give you a list of posts where the hashtags have been used. Start engaging with the posts; this includes liking, commenting, sharing, or retweeting the posts. When commenting, try to add value by asking a question or sharing a thoughtful opinion or insight.
Use these hastags in your own posts to make them discoverable for your target audience. Don’t be afraid to join the conversation to get your name out there.
Challenge #4: Adapting to The Changing SEO Landscape
Google last made broad changes to its search algorithm on March 22, 2023; this is the current year’s third and most recent update. If you had a website in 2022, you’d know that the search engine changed its algorithm 18 times! How is your link building strategy to cope with this ever-evolving system?
Solution: The more link building tactics you utilize, the better you can cope with Google’s algorithmic changes. Of course, this goes without saying that hiring a backlink building service can take this task off your plate while you focus on improving and upscaling your products or services.
Plus, no matter how the SEO landscape changes, it would always appreciate a natural link profile i.e., acquiring a diverse mix of different types of links at a steady pace. It’s better to have a few of those instead of associating yourself with scores of spammy or irrelevant websites.
Outsource Content Creation to Generate Backlink Material
As a business owner, you might be the authority on your products and/or services, but does that expertise translate to link-worthy content?
Creating seamless, engaging, and SEO-optimized content is a time-consuming task, and that is only one aspect of link building. Add regular link building audits, keeping tabs on Google’s algorithm changes, and influencer marketing to the mix, all while running your business.
Sounds overwhelming? Hire link building and content marketing services which adapt to search engine updates for a living and have the industry insights to create authoritative content.
Take your small business to new heights in no time with professional link building.
