All businesses, large or small, must establish a level of authority for the products and/or services they offer in the minds and hearts of their target audience if they expect to convince them to engage and buy.
This universal marketing truth plays out daily for small businesses looking to capture the attention of local customers through a variety of local SEO strategies.
Authoritativeness is the “A” in the much-heralded E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) found in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
In short, a business or organization needs to prove its authority to Google, and all other search engines, to be considered worthy of visibility in search engine results.
The authority of a local business can be established in a few different ways, but most notably:
- Via the helpful, high-quality, well-structured content it creates for its target audience/customers.
- Through validation of its offerings via industry-specific backlinks it maintains to its primary product, service, or other relevant content.
- Via the engagement of its content.
- Through validation of its “localness” via its local existence, appearance, community participation, and engagement.
We are obviously going to focus here on the fourth, often underestimated and overlooked, aspect of local business authority.
However, you’ll see that experience, expertise, and trustworthiness are also prominently referenced here, as all can be boosted via solid partnerships.
It only stands to reason: If a business wants to be visible locally, it needs to truly be visible in the community, with the digital local community merely being an extension of the real world.
While traditional SEO techniques like keyword optimization, content marketing, and link building are still essential, savvy business owners and digital marketers will look beyond these tactics to stand out from the local competition.
Leveraging local business partnerships and collaborations to build your local online authority and extend your web presence will most certainly help increase your visibility.
In this post, we’ll explore the power of forging partnerships with other local businesses and organizations to extend reach, build trust, and drive growth.
Building Authority and Trust Through Partnerships
Authority in the digital realm refers to your brand’s credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise in your industry and/or your location.
For small, local businesses, all this matters.
A business needs to convince its customers and Google, by extension, that it is the definitive local source of answers to their questions about its products and services. In other words, it is not the only game in town, but the primary one.
Partnering with other reputable, authoritative businesses effectively gets those businesses to validate your existence, expertise, and authority.
Google and other search engines consider authoritative websites more relevant and rank them higher in organic search results and local map packs.
Here’s how forging reciprocal local business partnerships can help build authority:
Co-Branding And Trust-Building
Partnering with reputable local businesses and organizations can create a co-branding effect.
When consumers (or search engines) see your business/brand associated with other businesses they already trust, it naturally enhances credibility, trustworthiness, and authority.
Local business organizations like Chambers of Commerce, Business Network International (BNI), and many others have been established, at least in part, to help small local businesses extend their reach, build trust, and, thereby, earn authority.
Many of these organizations have categorized online directories, content distribution opportunities (e.g., email newsletters or blogs), and business awards. They also have staff responsible for helping local business partners take advantage of these programs.
All local businesses should inquire, sign up, and take advantage of what these important local groups offer.
Maintaining listings, content, or recognition here provides search engines with potentially powerful local and topical signals.
Basic membership is important, but the more a business owner can do to boost their local offline and online profile through active engagement, the better.
Expertise And Resource Sharing
Collaborating with local, like-minded businesses will enable you to demonstrate your experience and expertise, along with your partner’s, and then showcase it on each other’s platforms.
This can be accomplished through guest blog posts, joint webinars, offline events, or social media takeovers – all of which can enhance your reputation as a trusted local information contributor.
One of the challenges of content marketing, especially for small local businesses, is simply having the time to create the content.
Thoughtful partnering with other business owners provides a viable means to share this burden of feeding the content machine.
For example, a local tax lawyer may partner with a local bookkeeping service or tax preparation firm to create a monthly tax tips newsletter or annual tax prep checklist, to which both firms can contribute.
Content Syndication And Social Collaboration
Similarly, two businesses that choose to share each other’s content on their respective platforms expose each other’s brands to a wider audience and can establish each as a go-to source for local information.
The key is to identify topics and content that will be relevant and interesting to each other’s audience.
While social signals, such as likes and shares, are not Google ranking factors, having partners occasionally like, share, and effectively validate any of your content will certainly extend its potential audience, where it will perhaps again be read, liked, and shared.
Content will typically only be shared once it has been validated by trustworthy sources, which your partner becomes on your behalf.
An example here may be a local auto body shop sharing car maintenance tips from a local mechanic via a customer newsletter. Meanwhile, the mechanic shares paint and detailing information through a series of Google Business Profile or social media posts.
Content sharing, depending on where and how it’s done, may result in the creation of valuable local backlinks and citations.
Backlinks
Backlinks remain valuable in SEO because search engines interpret them as votes of confidence.
Where possible, these links should be put in the proper context relative to your partnership and the related products or services offered.
For example, a local auto body shop might establish a partnership with a local full-service mechanic. Each could link to the other’s respective service pages as a reference for those customers looking for a trusted referral.
However, even a non-service-specific link for a local partner can be beneficial, too – as it is at least a local, if not topical, validation.
And yes, Google’s algorithm is sophisticated enough to identify when one local business has linked to another.
All backlinks (except for those without any relevant value) contribute to authority.
Supporting Local Organizations And Events To Gain Citations
Another aspect of growing local trust and authority is becoming involved in local service organizations, sports teams, clubs, or local events.
Whether you provide monetary or volunteer support, most organizations have websites or social media presences where a logo, contact info, perhaps a short business overview, and preferably a link can be shared.
These types of mentions, with a link or not, are considered citations and can have significant value.
These types of relationships serve to bolster localness online and provide more evidence of your business’s role as a contributing, engaged member of the community.
Furthermore, if approved by the supported organization(s), who are no doubt also looking for any positive local exposure, content and links to their websites, programs, events, etc., should be published on yours.
Typically, this is done in the “About Us” section or perhaps on a page dedicated to your business’s community support initiatives.
Local Competition And Content Differentiation
Depending on your location and level of competition, establishing local partnerships and collaborations may simply be a way of differentiating your business from all others when competitors don’t have the time, resources, or foresight to leverage this important opportunity.
The introduction of generative AI used to produce content has raised fears in some circles around the potential for a lack of “unique” informational content, as some marketers, while not advisable, will post what AI has generated verbatim.
Local collaborations can be a great way to complement what AI has to offer by injecting local partner contributions into standard service-related blog posts and FAQs.
A Local Collaboration Case Study: Fitness Food
Here’s a quick example of a local business partnership scenario and some of the potential benefits to be realized.
The Collab
A local fitness studio partners with a healthy café, offering a stay-fit meal deal to gym members.
The café provides fitness class discount vouchers with qualifying fitness-focused meal purchases, which are prominently promoted on the homepage of their websites while linking to each other.
They also collaborate on a weekly Fitness Food blog post with reciprocal links, which they publish and share on their respective websites and social media platforms.
Lastly, they create a health challenge and contest on social media for their customers, where participants are asked to share their fitness and nutrition journeys – again, cross-promoted.
The Results
- Combined, the businesses positioned themselves as leading community advocates for healthier lifestyles, reinforcing their authority as wellness experts.
- Blogs linked to their offers and primary service pages, shared via each other’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, trigger a boost in each business’s service page rank in organic search and, subsequently, organic search traffic and conversions.
- The program attracts local influencers who post user-generated content with links to their offers and blog posts, further enhancing their reach and authority.
- The health challenge and contest become a trending topic on local social media platforms, leading to likes and shares and thereby attracting a broader audience.
- The partnership created a mutually beneficial cycle – as more people joined the fitness studio, they frequented the café, and vice versa.
Practical Steps To Building Local Business Partnerships
With the potential benefits of local business partnerships outlined above, here are some practical steps to establishing and maintaining effective relationships:
Identify Compatible Businesses Or Organizations
Seek out local businesses and groups that ideally complement your products or services and share your target audience, as shown above with tax, automobile, and wellness-related businesses.
Ensure their values and marketing goals align with yours. This will form the foundation of a successful partnership.
You will naturally want to identify a business whose online presence reflects its understanding and commitment to this important marketing channel.
A few quick Google searches should quickly reveal solid prospective partners who can be easily found via organic search.
Develop A Clear Value Proposition
Clearly define what each party brings to the table and what outcomes are possible.
Consider how you can benefit each other, whether through collaborative content creation and distribution, co-promotion, shared events, or other tactics.
Create A Partnership Agreement
Consider putting a written agreement in place outlining the terms and responsibilities of each party.
This document should include details like the duration of the partnership, resource/time contributions, content ownership considerations, and any other mutual expectations.
Leverage Both Online And Offline Channels
Promote your partnership through various channels, both online and offline.
Depending on the promotion and budget, utilize your website, social media platforms, email marketing, or pay-per-click advertising, as well as in-store physical signage or offline documents, to showcase your collaborations.
Collaborate On Content
Partnering on content creation, such as blog or social media posts, is an excellent way to leverage each other’s expertise and resources.
If the plan is to create a joint blog post or email newsletter per week or month, alternate scheduling can be used to spread out the workload.
This will no doubt resonate with most local business owners who are generally taxed for time.
Monitor, Measure, And Adjust
Any good digital marketing campaign should be monitored and measured to see what’s working and what isn’t, i.e., messaging, channels, etc.
Part of your campaign planning should include a determination of what to measure and the goals you both hope to meet.
Start small with simple metrics both parties can easily obtain, such as newsletter signups, website traffic, or campaign-specific measurements.
Analyze organic search results, website traffic (and particularly referral traffic from your partners or other local sites), social media engagement, and sales at regular intervals to gauge impact.
Consider creating unique branded campaign URLs or QR codes to differentiate traffic or business received via the partnership.
With smaller businesses, it may be simple enough to measure new social media followers or shared content anecdotally.
Analytics is meant to be actionable, so be ready to suggest and adjust if something isn’t working as expected.
Ultimately, analytics will help you determine where to focus your attention, especially if one channel or source produces noticeable results.
Plan, Engage, Collaborate, Grow
Growing your business in your local community is all about extending your reach to the broadest audience possible.
Partnering with like-minded, non-competitive businesses and organizations is a quick and effective way to amplify your message – online and offline.
When done purposefully and properly online, the result is a boost in your all-important local and perhaps topical authority.
Consumers, particularly local consumers, buy from businesses they know and trust.
We all ask our friends, family, and those we do business with for advice or references when we need certain products or services.
Well-established partners can become trust proxies to bring in customers you might otherwise not have access to.
In short, building local online authority and trust boils down to being a highly visible and sincerely engaged member of your broad community that Google cannot ignore.
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