What Are Backlinks? The Complete Guide to Link Building for Small Businesses

01 What Are Backlinks and How Do They Work?

A backlink is a link from one website to another. When any site on the internet includes a clickable link that points to your website, that is a backlink, also called an inbound link or incoming link. Backlinks are one of the foundational signals Google uses to evaluate whether your website deserves to rank.

Think of it like word-of-mouth in a small Pennsylvania town. If the owner of a well-known Lancaster restaurant tells every customer, "You have to check out that electrician on King Street," that personal recommendation carries weight. A backlink works the same way online. When the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance website links to your business page, it signals to Google that a trusted community institution considers your site worth visiting.

How the mechanics work: When Google's crawler discovers a link on another site pointing to yours, it follows that link and registers it as a vote for your page's relevance and authority. Not all votes carry equal weight. A link from the Reading Eagle or a major university is worth significantly more than a link from an obscure directory no one visits. The trust and relevance of the source site get transferred (partially) to your site. SEOs call this transfer "link equity."

A simple example: if a Lancaster County contractor association publishes a resource page listing trusted local web designers and your site appears with a clickable link, that is an editorial backlink from a topically relevant, geographically relevant source. Google sees it, registers it, and factors it into where your site ranks when someone searches "web designer Lancaster PA."

According to Ahrefs (2024), 66.31% of all web pages on the internet have zero backlinks. Even a small, deliberate effort to earn a dozen quality local links puts most Pennsylvania small businesses well ahead of the majority of websites competing for the same searches.

02 Types of Backlinks Every Small Business Should Know

Not all backlinks are equal. Understanding the basic categories helps you focus effort on links that actually move the needle.

Dofollow vs. Nofollow

Most links earned through legitimate outreach are dofollow. Many chamber of commerce directories and platforms like Yelp use nofollow, but since Google updated its nofollow policy in 2019 to treat them as hints rather than directives, these links still carry value for referral traffic and brand visibility.

Editorial vs. Self-Created

Editorial backlinks are the gold standard: links another website places voluntarily because they found your content or service genuinely useful. A local news story featuring your business or a regional blog mentioning your work as an example are editorial links.

Self-created links are ones you place yourself: directory submissions, forum profiles, social media bios. They have their place for foundational local SEO but carry less authority than editorial links.

Local Citation Links

For small businesses, local citation links (mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on directories like Google Business Profile, Yelp, Angi, and the BBB) form the backbone of your local link profile. These are table stakes before any outreach-based link building begins.

03 Why Are Backlinks Important for SEO Rankings?

Backlinks remain one of Google's core ranking signals, though their relative weight has evolved. The #1 result in Google has, on average, 3.8 times more backlinks than pages ranked #2 through #10, according to a Backlinko and Semrush study of 11.8 million search results (updated 2025).

Google's own statements have grown notably more measured. Google Search Analyst Gary Illyes stated at a 2023 conference that links have not been in the top three ranking factors "for some time" (Search Engine Land, 2023). He reinforced this in April 2024, noting Google needs "very few links to rank pages" and that links have become less important over the years (Search Engine Roundtable, April 2024). Google Search Advocate John Mueller added that over-focusing on links "will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don't make your website better overall" (Search Engine Journal, April 2024).

So are backlinks still worth pursuing? Yes, but with important nuance.

An Ahrefs study of one million SERPs published in January 2025 found that referring domain diversity correlates with rankings at 0.255 on the Spearman scale, the strongest link metric measured. The key word is correlates. Pages may rank well because they have links, and they attract links because they rank well. Google's own antitrust trial (2023-2025) confirmed under oath that links remain one of three core signal categories in Google's internal "ABC framework": Anchors (links), Body (content), and Clicks (user behavior). Links are real. They matter. But content quality and user signals now share the spotlight (SISTRIX, May 2025).

For local businesses specifically: Link signals account for approximately 17% of local pack ranking factors, according to Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey of 47 local SEO experts, placing links second behind Google Business Profile signals (roughly 32%). For organic results below the map pack, links carry considerably more weight.

04 How to Create Backlinks for Your Small Business Website

Building backlinks as a small business is less about aggressive outreach and more about showing up authentically in your community, online and off.

Step 1: Start with existing relationships. Your vendors, suppliers, business associations, and satisfied clients are natural starting points. Many have websites with member pages, partner sections, or resource lists. A quick email asking to be listed costs nothing.

Step 2: Join your local chamber of commerce. Chamber directories are among the most accessible and legitimate backlink sources available to Pennsylvania small businesses. The Greater Reading Chamber Alliance (greaterreading.org) serves over 1,200 Berks County members with a member directory listing that links to your site. Lancaster Chamber of Commerce has over 1,300 members and a 154-year regional history. Annual membership fees for small businesses typically range from $200 to $1,000 (US Chamber Directory, 2025).

Step 3: Sponsor a local event or organization. Little League teams, community fundraisers, school events, and local road races routinely include sponsor pages with backlinks. Sponsorship costs for website recognition typically run $100-$500 (Koanthic, 2024). Local event coverage in community newspapers can generate additional earned media links from a single sponsorship.

Step 4: Earn local press coverage. Reach out to journalists covering the Reading, Lancaster, or Philadelphia metro business community. Offer to be a source for stories about web design trends, small business marketing, or local economic topics. A single mention in the Reading Eagle or LNP Lancaster creates a high-authority, geographically relevant backlink that money cannot buy.

Step 5: Create genuinely useful resources. Publishing original research, guides, or tools your customers find valuable naturally attracts links over time. A local contractor resource page, a cost comparison guide for Berks County homeowners, or a checklist for Philadelphia restaurant owners: these earn links from other local websites, bloggers, and industry associations.

05 Best Backlinks for SEO: Quality vs. Quantity Explained

One high-authority backlink consistently outweighs dozens of low-quality links. In a survey of SEO professionals cited by Authority Hacker (2024), 93.8% agreed that a single link from a high-authority site holds more value than multiple links from weaker sources. Separately, 65.4% of SEO professionals believe domain authority of the linking site is more influential than raw backlink count.

What makes a backlink high quality:

What makes a backlink low quality or harmful:

• Links from topically irrelevant websites with no connection to your industry or geography
• Sitewide links in footers or sidebars of unrelated sites
• Over-optimized exact-match anchor text repeated across many domains
• Links from sites built purely to sell links, with no real editorial content or traffic

For local businesses in non-hyper-competitive markets, Semrush's 2025 analysis found a Houston coffee shop ranking #1 in its local pack with just 100 backlinks from 72 referring domains. For most Pennsylvania small businesses, consistent focus on quality over years, not hundreds of links chased overnight, is the sustainable path.

06 How to Create Backlinks for Free (Without Buying Links)

Building backlinks without a budget is entirely achievable for local businesses. These tactics require time, not money.

Free directory and citation submissions: Submit to Yelp, Angi, the Better Business Bureau, and industry-specific directories. For Berks County and Lancaster County businesses, Discover Lancaster (discoverlancaster.com) and Visit PA Americana (visitpaamericana.com) offer regional directory listings at no cost.

Broken link building: Find pages on local websites that link to a URL returning a 404 error. Contact the site owner, flag the broken link, and suggest your relevant content as a replacement. Free tools like Ahrefs' backlink checker can surface these opportunities.

Resource page outreach: Many local business associations, chambers, and municipal websites maintain "local resources" or "recommended vendors" pages. Identify these in your service area and pitch your business with a brief, specific explanation of how you'd be useful to their audience.

Journalist source platforms: HARO, relaunched as Featured.com in 2025 after Cision's Connectively platform was discontinued, connects reporters with expert sources. According to Promodo's analysis (2024), 68% of journalist queries on the platform come from websites with a domain rating of 50 or higher. Consistent participation earns links from genuinely authoritative sources.

Guest posts in local publications: Regional business journals, local blogs, and trade association newsletters frequently accept contributed articles from area business owners. A 600-word piece on web design trends for Lancaster County small businesses, published with a link back to your site, is free content marketing that earns a legitimate editorial backlink.

07 Local SEO Link Building: Backlinks for Local Businesses

Local link building differs from national link building in one critical way: geographic relevance matters as much as authority. A link from a Berks County business association with modest authority carries more local SEO value than a link from a national directory with a high domain score but no regional connection.

The local link building priority stack for Pennsylvania small businesses:

1. Google Business Profile: Not technically a backlink, but the single most important local SEO signal. Ensure it's fully optimized before any link building. See our guide to Google Business Profile optimization for a full walkthrough.
2. Chamber of commerce membership: Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, Lancaster Chamber, Northern Lancaster County Chamber, or the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia depending on your market.
3. Local business directories: Yelp, BBB, Angi, Discover Lancaster, Visit PA Americana, and industry-specific directories (HomeAdvisor for contractors, Healthgrades for medical, etc.).
4. Sponsorship links: Event sponsor pages, Little League team pages, school booster clubs, nonprofit event pages.
5. Local press and media: Reading Eagle, LNP Lancaster, Philadelphia Inquirer local sections, neighborhood newsletters.
6. Supplier and vendor links: Ask suppliers and service providers to list you on their partner or customer pages.
7. Complementary business partnerships: Non-competing local businesses serving the same audience can legitimately link to each other's resources.

Pair this strategy with strong local keyword research to ensure the pages you're building links to are optimized for the terms those links need to support.

How many links does a local business actually need? Fewer than most assume. Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey confirmed link signals account for roughly 17% of local pack rankings. For many local service businesses, a profile of 20-50 quality local links is enough to compete effectively in non-hyper-competitive markets (Marketing Illumination, 2025). Consistency and relevance outperform volume every time.

08 How Backlinks Affect Google Rankings and Local SEO

Backlinks influence Google rankings through three mechanisms: authority transfer, topical relevance signaling, and trust establishment.

Authority transfer occurs when a page with strong link equity links to your site. Some fraction of that site's authority flows to the destination page, raising its perceived trustworthiness and supporting higher rankings for competitive keywords.

Topical relevance signaling means links from sites related to your industry tell Google what your page is about. A roofing contractor who earns links from building supply associations, local contractor directories, and a Berks County home improvement blog sends clear topical signals that reinforce keyword relevance for roofing-related searches.

Trust establishment, confirmed by Google's leaked internal API documentation from May 2024, involves how closely your site connects to Google's "seed" sites: trusted domains like major universities, government agencies, and established media. Links from sites themselves connected to these trusted sources carry outsized weight.

The Whitespark 2026 survey found that review signals have grown to roughly 20% of local pack ranking factors (up from 16% in 2023), while link signals have declined slightly to about 17%. Local businesses should treat backlinks as one part of a balanced local SEO strategy, not a standalone fix. Keeping close track of your SEO performance across organic rankings, map pack visibility, and referral traffic is essential to measuring whether your link building is actually working.

09 Common Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

The wrong tactics don't just fail to help. They can trigger Google penalties that are difficult to recover from.

Buying links. Google's official spam policies explicitly prohibit buying or selling links that pass ranking credit. The December 2024 spam update, described by Search Engine Roundtable as one of the biggest spam updates seen "in a long time, maybe ever," deindexed and deranked countless sites engaged in paid link schemes. Google's SpamBrain AI now silently neutralizes spammy links, meaning you may lose all ranking benefit without any notification or manual action (Google Search Central, 2025).

Private blog networks (PBNs). A PBN is a network of websites created solely to generate backlinks to a target site. Modern detection via SpamBrain makes PBNs a losing investment. Links get silently ignored, wasting your budget with no recovery path.

Spammy mass directories. Submitting to hundreds of low-quality, irrelevant directories generates noise in your backlink profile and can contribute to patterns that look manipulative to Google's systems.

Over-optimized anchor text. If a large percentage of your inbound links use the exact-match anchor text "Lancaster web designer" or "Berks County SEO," that unnatural pattern is a red flag. Natural link profiles contain a diverse mix of branded, partial-match, and generic anchors.

Obsessing over "toxic links." John Mueller stated publicly that the concept of toxic links is largely manufactured by SEO tools to sell subscriptions (Search Engine Roundtable, May 2024). For most small businesses, Google simply ignores low-quality links. The disavow tool is for genuine manual action situations, not routine maintenance.

The safest, most durable strategy for Pennsylvania small businesses is also the simplest: participate genuinely in your local community, create content worth linking to, and earn links through relationships and reputation.

FAQ Frequently Asked Questions