Patrick covers different strategies to build local links such as getting listed on already ranking sites, finding common links for your competitors, competitors in your niche, and other businesses in your own city, reclaiming lost links, unlinked mentions, and internal links.
2. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Product Advisor, Technical SEO, &
Brand Ambassador at Ahrefs
• I write for Ahrefs blog but have written for many industry
publications in the past
• I speak at some conferences like SMX, Pubcon, UnGagged, TechSEO
Boost
• Organizer for the Raleigh SEO Meetup (most successful in US) and the
Beer & SEO Meetup
• We also run a conference, the Raleigh SEO Conference
• Moderator /r/TechSEO on Reddit
Who is Patrick Stox?
24. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Much Better, Top Accountants From
Different CitiesKeyword URL
accountant seattle https://www.seattlecpaprofessionals.com/
accountant las vegas https://llbcpa.com/las-vegas-small-business-accountant/
accountant chicago https://www.chicago-accountant.com/
accountant chicago https://cpa-in-chicago.com/
accountant chicago https://www.actgroupltd.com/
accountant los angeles https://www.johnweldoncpa.com/
accountant los angeles https://www.roberthalltaxes.com/business-services/accounting/
accountant tucson https://www.cpa-tucson.com/
accountant tucson https://www.cpatucson.com/
accountant tucson https://www.pinpointeaccounting.com/
accountant tucson https://beachfleischman.com/
accountant san diego https://www.regalgroupcpa.com/
accountant portland https://perkinsaccounting.com/
accountant portland https://www.orcpa.org/for-the-public/find-a-cpa
accountant philadelphia https://accountant-philadelphia.com/
accountant philadelphia https://www.daletaxservice.com/
accountant philadelphia https://taxprofessionalphiladelphia.com/
accountant tampa https://www.waterscpagroup.com/
accountant tampa https://www.rgcocpa.com/
accountant tampa https://www.zachcpa.com/
accountant tampa http://jrosencpa.com/
accountant tampa https://www.taxaccountantsoftampabay.com/
26. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Combine Files
1. Windows Button + R
2. Type cmd and click ok
3. I open the folder where I saved the files in File
Explorer and click the address bar to copy the path
4. Back in Command Prompt, type “cd “ and then press
ctrl+v to paste the copied path
5. Type copy *.csv whatever.csv
27. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Data Cleaning
1. Insert > Table
2. Insert Column next to Referring
Domain to add Count
3. In the Count Column, add the formula
=COUNTIF(B:B,[@[Referring Domain]])
28. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Data Cleaning
4. Copy the numbers in the Count column and paste in
the same place as values.
5. Data > Remove Duplicates based on the Referring
Domain
6. Data > Sort by Count > Largest to Smallest
29. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Looks Good! Top Referring Sites To Top
Accountants Around The Country
Referring Domain Count
yellowpages.com 58
localbest.com 55
clutch.co 49
topratedlocal.com 48
expertise.com 47
find-open.com 41
goodfirms.co 38
yp.com 31
privatebanking.com 31
owler.com 29
tntcode.com 28
threebestrated.com 28
ucpaa.org 27
32. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Categorize – Generic Directories
Most of these are Local Citations
Also called NAP (Name, Address,
Phone Number) listings.
Getting these links: Whitespark, Brightlocal, Yext, Moz
Local, local SEO companies
41. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Categorize - Misc
• djs
• wedding
• photographers
• event planners
these link to people involved
• realtors
• apartments
• home communities (HOAs)
these link to things to do
43. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Link Reclamation – Links To Your Site,
But Broken
Websites change over the years
and often there are links going to
pages that no longer exist.
Redirects take users and bots to
the current pages. They reclaim
that lost value.
46. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Manually
• Google “intext:term –site.com”, where term could
be a brand or a person and site is your website
• Scrape results
• Check if there’s a link
Complex, time consuming, technical
49. #pubcon
@patrickstox
Links Without Mentions,
Lots Of News Articles
Content Title Content URL Author
Elmiron drug linked to vision problems in women https://www.wral.com/elmiron-drug-linked-to-vision-problems-in-women/193138
How Giving Tuesday impacts the Triangle https://abc11.com/society/how-giving-tuesday-impacts-the-triangle-/5732175/Michael Perchick
5 Best Divorce Attorneys in San Antonio 🥇 https://kevsbest.com/divorce-attorneys-in-san-antonio/
Elevating Others Scholarship at Pennsylvania State University Fayette, Eberly Campus (Penn State Fayette) | Uloophttps://fepsu.uloop.com/scholarships/view.php/1079951447/Elevating-Others-Sch
Whitley law firm new bern nc http://myphamsandy.com/cne0zhw/whitley-law-firm-new-bern-nc.html
‘Air hunger’ opinion a factor in $1.5M settlement – North Carolina Lawyers Weeklyhttps://nclawyersweekly.com/2014/03/18/air-hunger-opinion-a-factor-in-1-5m-seDavid Donovan
52. #pubcon
@patrickstox
My Old Process For A Single Page1. search site:whatever.com term
2. Settings > Search Settings, change to 100
3. Inspect > go to Console tab, see attached code and change the domain to your own
copy and paste the results and you have a list
4. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Spider > Advanced tab click "Always Follow Redirects"
5. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Custom > Search, choose ”Contains" and add in your targeted
term or phrase to make sure it exists on the pages.
6. Screaming Frog: Paste URLs and run to get the list of pages that contain the keyword
7. Screaming Frog: When finished, copy these URLs from the custom tab for your filter, now we
check if the link already exists.
8. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Custom > Search, change to ”Does Not Contain" add the end
part of the URL/URLs that you want to build the links to.
You probably don't want the whole URL because we use relative paths sometimes. This supports
regex, so you can match multiple pages.
Upload your URLs to crawl them, then export that final list when it finishes the same as you did
previously.
9. Optional, but you probably want to connect GSC, GA, Ahrefs, etc to get data on traffic and
strength of the page to prioritize which ones you want to do first, which you can do all within
Screaming Frog.
Code snippet for 3:
urls = $$('a');for (url in urls) {
var string = urls[url].href,
domain = "whatever.com",
google = "google.com",
search = "search?",
cache = "webcache";
if ( string.indexOf(search) <1 &&
string.indexOf(cache) <1 &&
string.indexOf(google) <1 &&
string.indexOf(domain) >=0 ) {
console.log ( string );
}
53. #pubcon
@patrickstox
My Old Process For A Single Page1. search site:whatever.com term
2. Settings > Search Settings, change to 100
3. Inspect > go to Console tab, see attached code and change the domain to your own
copy and paste the results and you have a list
4. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Spider > Advanced tab click "Always Follow Redirects"
5. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Custom > Search, choose ”Contains" and add in your targeted
term or phrase to make sure it exists on the pages.
6. Screaming Frog: Paste URLs and run to get the list of pages that contain the keyword
7. Screaming Frog: When finished, copy these URLs from the custom tab for your filter, now we
check if the link already exists.
8. Screaming Frog: In Configuration > Custom > Search, change to ”Does Not Contain" add the end
part of the URL/URLs that you want to build the links to.
You probably don't want the whole URL because we use relative paths sometimes. This supports
regex, so you can match multiple pages.
Upload your URLs to crawl them, then export that final list when it finishes the same as you did
previously.
9. Optional, but you probably want to connect GSC, GA, Ahrefs, etc to get data on traffic and
strength of the page to prioritize which ones you want to do first, which you can do all within
Screaming Frog.
Code snippet for 3:
urls = $$('a');for (url in urls) {
var string = urls[url].href,
domain = "whatever.com",
google = "google.com",
search = "search?",
cache = "webcache";
if ( string.indexOf(search) <1 &&
string.indexOf(cache) <1 &&
string.indexOf(google) <1 &&
string.indexOf(domain) >=0 ) {
console.log ( string );
}
Complex, time consuming, technical
57. #pubcon
@patrickstox
We’re Not Talking A Ton Of Links
Look at your competition. Most local services have less
than 150 Referring Domains.
Many are less than 30 and still on the first page.