Links from other sites remain one of the strongest signals available, which is why an entire grey market exists to sell them. Buying links is a risk with a bad long-term expected value; earning a few good ones beats buying many bad ones.
Where small businesses realistically get links
- Suppliers, partners, and clients: dealer lists, partner directories, "who we work with" pages. Ask directly.
- Local: chambers of commerce, sponsorships, community organisations, local press.
- Industry associations and directories that predate SEO and are genuinely used.
- Something worth citing: original data, a free tool, a template. Assets earn links passively for years.
- Being quoted: journalists and bloggers need expert lines, and responding quickly is most of the game.
Quality beats quantity, decisively
One link from a respected industry site outweighs fifty from directories nobody visits. Cheap link packages are usually from the second category, which is why they are cheap.
Just ask
The most underused tactic is asking people who already know you. If you have done good work for a client, ask whether they would link to you from their site. A meaningful number say yes and nobody had ever asked.
Avoid the obvious traps
Buying links, private blog networks, and mass guest-post schemes are all patterns that get detected eventually. The penalty is worse than the years of slower, safer growth would have been.
Try it
List ten organisations that already know you — clients, suppliers, associations, local groups — and ask three of them this week whether they would link to you.