Local SEO Local Link Building 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which metric best indicates the local relevance of a potential linking domain?
- The site's global Alexa rank
- Whether the linking domain mentions your city or region (Correct answer)
- The number of social media followers the site has
- The site's page load speed
Correct answer: Whether the linking domain mentions your city or region
Geographic relevance—whether a linking domain references your city or region—is a strong signal of local authority for local SEO purposes.
Question 2: A local business is mentioned in an online article but not linked. What should the business owner do?
- Ignore it since unlinked mentions have no value
- Contact the author and politely request they add a hyperlink (Correct answer)
- File a DMCA takedown request
- Create a disavow file for the mention
Correct answer: Contact the author and politely request they add a hyperlink
Unlinked brand mentions are low-hanging fruit; reaching out to convert them to followed links is a highly efficient local link-building tactic.
Question 3: Which local link source carries the most authority from Google's perspective?
- A link from a local Facebook group post
- A link from the city government's (.gov) official website (Correct answer)
- A link from a private blog network targeting your city
- A link from your own secondary website
Correct answer: A link from the city government's (.gov) official website
.gov domains are among the highest-trust domains on the web, so a link from a city or county government website carries exceptional local authority.
Question 4: What is the primary risk of participating in link exchange schemes with other local businesses?
- It increases your domain authority too quickly
- Google's guidelines classify reciprocal link schemes as a violation that can result in penalties (Correct answer)
- It costs too much money
- It requires technical SEO knowledge
Correct answer: Google's guidelines classify reciprocal link schemes as a violation that can result in penalties
Google's Webmaster Guidelines explicitly warn against link schemes, including excessive reciprocal linking done purely to manipulate rankings.
Question 5: A local dentist wants to earn links from community pages. Which content type would most likely attract editorial links from local community sites?
- A product pricing page
- A free local dental health resource or guide for the city (Correct answer)
- A list of staff bios
- A copyright notice page
Correct answer: A free local dental health resource or guide for the city
Genuinely useful, locally focused content such as guides, tools, or resources naturally attracts editorial links from community organizations and local media.
Question 6: What does 'link velocity' mean in local link building, and why does it matter?
- The speed at which your pages load, affecting link crawling
- The rate at which new backlinks point to your site over time (Correct answer)
- The anchor text distribution across your backlink profile
- The number of internal links on a page
Correct answer: The rate at which new backlinks point to your site over time
Link velocity is the rate of new link acquisition; an unnatural spike (e.g., hundreds of links overnight) can trigger Google's spam filters.
Question 7: Which local citation source is most likely to also provide a followed backlink rather than a nofollow link?
- Yelp business listing
- Niche-specific local directory relevant to your industry (Correct answer)
- Facebook business page
- Google Business Profile
Correct answer: Niche-specific local directory relevant to your industry
Many niche-specific local directories provide dofollow links, whereas major platforms like Yelp and Facebook typically use nofollow attributes.
Local SEO Local Link Building 3
Which metric best indicates the local relevance of a potential linking domain?