Local SEO Local Link Building 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A local HVAC company creates a 'Best Contractors in [City]' roundup post featuring complementary businesses. What is the primary link-building goal of this tactic?
- To rank for the competitors' brand names
- To earn reciprocal links from the featured businesses who share the post (Correct answer)
- To create internal links within their own site
- To generate paid advertising revenue
Correct answer: To earn reciprocal links from the featured businesses who share the post
Featuring complementary local businesses in a roundup often motivates those businesses to share and link back to the post, generating natural local links.
Question 2: What is the purpose of using 'skyscraper content' in a local link-building strategy?
- To create content that ranks only for national keywords
- To create a superior version of content that already earns local links and then outreach to those same linkers (Correct answer)
- To build tall internal link silos within a website
- To publish content on skyscraper-related real estate topics
Correct answer: To create a superior version of content that already earns local links and then outreach to those same linkers
The skyscraper technique involves finding link-worthy content in your niche, creating a better version, and pitching it to sites already linking to the original.
Question 3: A local business notices a competitor has many links from local university (.edu) websites. What is the most likely explanation?
- The competitor paid the university for links
- The competitor offers internships, scholarships, or educational partnerships recognized on university resource pages (Correct answer)
- The competitor is a university spin-off company
- The competitor bought the university's old domain
Correct answer: The competitor offers internships, scholarships, or educational partnerships recognized on university resource pages
Universities frequently link to local businesses that sponsor scholarships, host internship programs, or partner on educational initiatives.
Question 4: Which anchor text strategy is safest for local link building to avoid over-optimization penalties?
- Use your exact-match keyword in every anchor text
- Vary anchor text with branded, naked URL, generic, and partial-match terms (Correct answer)
- Use only 'click here' as anchor text throughout
- Use the same anchor text as the top-ranked competitor
Correct answer: Vary anchor text with branded, naked URL, generic, and partial-match terms
A diverse, natural-looking anchor text profile with branded, URL, and varied descriptive anchors reduces the risk of over-optimization penalties.
Question 5: What is a 'local scholarship' link-building strategy?
- Applying for scholarships on behalf of the business
- Creating a scholarship for local students that earns .edu links from universities that list it (Correct answer)
- Purchasing scholarship mentions on educational blogs
- Offering free products to students in exchange for reviews
Correct answer: Creating a scholarship for local students that earns .edu links from universities that list it
Offering a genuine scholarship and promoting it to local universities results in .edu listing pages that link back to the business's scholarship landing page.
Question 6: When performing a local link audit, which type of links should be added to a disavow file?
- Links from high-authority national news sites
- Links from spammy, irrelevant, or paid link farms that could trigger a manual action (Correct answer)
- All nofollow links regardless of source
- Links from social media profiles
Correct answer: Links from spammy, irrelevant, or paid link farms that could trigger a manual action
Spammy or unnatural links from link farms and irrelevant low-quality sites pose a penalty risk and are the primary candidates for disavowal.
Question 7: A local law firm wants links from other professional sites. Which approach aligns best with Google's quality guidelines?
- Buying links in a legal directory that openly sells placement
- Writing expert legal articles for reputable local news or professional association websites (Correct answer)
- Creating multiple sites that all link to the firm's homepage
- Scraping competitor backlinks and replicating their exact strategy
Correct answer: Writing expert legal articles for reputable local news or professional association websites
Contributing genuine expert content to reputable publications earns editorially awarded links that comply with Google's quality guidelines.
Local SEO Local Link Building 4
A local HVAC company creates a 'Best Contractors in [City]' roundup post featuring complementary businesses.
What is the primary link-building goal of this tactic?