A study by SEO authority site Moz has shown that links are essential for ranking local keywords. Local SEO is big business now and requires a different set of strategies than e-commerce SEO. You want to build authority and trust with Google so you can get your business featured in local packs.
Location plays a big part in local SEO rankings, so always ensure you have your address listed on your website, and make sure to include the postcode and full address alongside things like your company registration details for UK limited companies. This not only builds trust with consumers but will also help Google to rank you for local terms.
Location-based terms are keywords such as “boiler repair London”, “taxi firm in Stockton-on-Tees”, and “hairdressers in Basildon”. In short, they are hyper-localised search terms which feature businesses that sell location-based services or products. These tend to be small family-owned firms or just smaller firms in general which specialise in a certain product or service and have a local marketing budget to reach their target audience, which is usually within a 5-mile radius.
Most clients who digital agencies take on will find that smaller local businesses that do not have nationwide reach tend to come with a much smaller marketing budget; they expect results and a positive ROI, and in general some of your existing SEO strategies for e-commerce sites will not work as well when shrunk down for smaller local businesses.
Another thing to consider is that you may want to get links from inside your own country; for the UK, this might be getting backlinks from .co.uk sites that are established and trusted already with Google. These tend to help you a little more than having links from a .com domain name.
Our first tactic is the one that is most used; local citation sites and directories are great ways to build local backlinks and build towards becoming an authority in your market. Most of your competition will simply not do this at scale, especially if you are competing in a small town; getting 10 or 20 of these links in a market with low competition will likely be enough that you stick at number one forever.
The second tactic you can use is to reverse engineer the top results within your market. You can use tools like Ahrefs, which has a free backlink checker; just run the top results and see how they are getting links; export these out to a spreadsheet and start viewing them live to see if you can grab a link on these websites for yourself.
The third tactic you can use is to form local partnerships with other local business owners that have related but not identical markets and would be willing to market your business by providing referrals and links from their website. For example, if you want to rank for local graphic design terms, then why not reach out to local website designers who are freelancers or small businesses? These firms are much more likely to want to team together, and this is a great value proposition for both businesses, which will benefit from work referrals and backlinks.
The fourth tactic you can use is putting together local content on your website and creating more generic content rather than commercial content. An example might be a local skip hire firm; they may struggle to attract links because no one really likes linking to firms unless they have personally used them, but if you have some interesting local content, you are more likely to attract backlinks from local bloggers who already have established websites and don’t mind linking to non-commercial content.
The last link-building tactic would be to check social media sites; if you can filter by hashtag or search groups locally or filter by location somehow, then these are often goldmines of information that most competitors leave untapped. From these local searches, you can find out what kind of content and topics really draw an audience in the local market; for example, you may find out that old pictures of popular tourist spots in your area are extremely popular and get shares and likes on social media. From here, you could create a page with these images and invite others to view that page.
As you can see from the above tactics, local SEO requires a much more creative approach than doing SEO for an e-commerce site with national reach. You will often not be able to get links from press releases and guest posts due to the fact that the market is smaller and there are simply fewer influencers, bloggers, and websites in general to create content for.
When you are in a small market, you will often have to really dig deep to come up with some content. Most of your articles about “how to choose an accountant in Leeds” will be a rather dull read and won’t get many backlinks from other websites. Instead, try to see a much bigger picture and think about how to get larger authority sites to link to you by publishing more generic content. For example, if you could publish a list of tourist spots in Leeds, then you would open up a new angle to get some attention.
The biggest mistake most business owners make is to aim too narrow and only talk about their own business or market. Instead, start to think about how to become a local resource that people from inside and outside your location would link to. A great example of this is Wikipedia. They often dominate search results for just about every town and city despite not having a physical location. They do this by telling you detailed information about the town or city, things like the history of the place, local sports teams, famous people from the area, local monuments, and much more.
You don’t need to be a site as large as Wikipedia to win a local market; instead, just focus on producing a few key pieces of content. The easiest way to do this is to take a look at a free keyword research tool and come up with some ideas based on that. For example, if you notice the local football team gets a lot of search volume, then why not produce an article on the top 5 players in the club’s history? This will allow you to get some local search traffic but is also more likely to attract backlinks to your website than commercial content.
Limited budgets are often the biggest hurdle to overcome when it comes to local SEO. Most of the strategies above are either low cost or free to put together. Since most local business owners do no marketing other than word of mouth or footfall, you should easily be able to dominate search results with enough time and creativity.
Thinking outside the box is critical to getting great backlinks from local websites, but it doesn’t need to stop at that point. Think about how you can leverage press releases to take up local search terms. You don’t need to wait for Google to rank your website; you can get on page 1 with a decent press release if you plan things out and use a trusted high-authority website and create a keyword-rich press release that ranks for your local keywords but also helps to promote your brand.
Local branding is perhaps the most important part of local SEO. While you want to aim to get backlinks, you should look well beyond that. Instead, focus on local branding, such as getting your business name trusted and established before people need your product or service. This is why creating local pages not based around your core business is still effective; it allows people to click on your website and see your brand name. Even if they don’t purchase anything from you, they will now have been exposed to your brand messages and will be more likely to remember you in the future.
The truth of the matter is that in 2026 there is no such thing as a local business; with the power and leverage of social media, you can advertise both your location and website to the whole of the UK or even internationally. Most businesses simply don’t understand the concept of how the internet can help them to build a brand and make more money from local marketing. Many people will never visit your business or become a customer, but with Facebook shares, Instagram posts, and YouTube, you may find that your business and brand name will go viral well beyond your local potential customers, and as a result, you will dominate the local market.
People have also been known to travel all over the UK to create brand new content for social media, so you no longer have to worry about just appealing to local customers; there are plenty of content creators that will travel the full length of the country to take part in all-you-can-eat food challenges and record the entire process for social media. Never limit yourself to just your local market; even if you only have a local physical location, people are willing to travel hundreds of miles if you offer them something of value.