If you’ve done everything right on your website — clean structure, good content, a polished Google Business Profile — and you’re still stuck below competitors on Google, there’s a good chance the missing piece is backlinks. Links from other websites to yours are still one of the strongest signals Google uses to decide who ranks. For a local business, the right handful of local links can move you more than another month of on-page tweaks.
The catch: most “backlink” offers you’ll get in your inbox are junk that can actively hurt you. Here’s how to earn the real thing.
What a Backlink Is and Why Google Cares
A backlink is just a link from another website to yours. Google treats each one a bit like a vote of confidence — if reputable, relevant sites point to you, you’re probably worth trusting and ranking. The key words are reputable and relevant. A link from the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce or a local news site carries real weight. A link from a random directory in another country carries none, and a thousand of them can get you penalized.
For local businesses, local links matter most. A link from another Edmonton or Alberta site tells Google you’re genuinely part of this community — exactly the signal you want for “near me” searches.
Where Real Local Backlinks Come From
You don’t need hundreds of links. You need a steady trickle of legitimate ones. Here’s where they actually come from:
- Local directories and citations. Get listed accurately in the directories that matter — Google Business Profile, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Canadian and Edmonton-specific listings. Consistency is everything: your name, address, and phone number must match exactly everywhere. (We keep a full Canadian directory list for this.)
- Local organizations. Join the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, your BIA, or an industry association. Most list members with a link, and those are high-trust local links.
- Local sponsorships and events. Sponsor a community team, event, or charity and you’ll often earn a link from their site. It’s good for the community and good for your rankings.
- Local news and blogs. Doing something newsworthy — a grand opening, a hiring push, a community initiative — can earn coverage from local outlets, and those links are gold.
- Suppliers, partners, and “we recommend” pages. If you work with other local businesses, a “trusted partners” or “who we work with” link both ways is natural and legitimate.
- Being genuinely useful. Helpful content — a local guide, a resource, an honest answer to a common question — earns links over time because people cite things worth citing. This is the same principle behind getting cited by AI assistants.
The Backlinks to Avoid
If it sounds like a shortcut, it probably is. Steer clear of:
- Buying bulk links. “500 backlinks for $50” is spam, full stop. Google is very good at spotting it, and the cleanup costs more than the links ever helped.
- Link farms and private blog networks. Networks of junk sites that exist only to sell links. A fast way to a penalty.
- Irrelevant foreign directories. Links from unrelated sites in other countries do nothing for an Edmonton business and can drag you down.
The rule of thumb: if a link wouldn’t send you a single real customer, it’s probably not helping your rankings either.
How Long This Takes
Link building is a slow, compounding game. You won’t earn fifty quality links in a week, and you shouldn’t try to — a sudden spike of links looks unnatural. A handful of solid local links a month, earned steadily, is what moves the needle over a quarter or two. It’s one of the reasons real SEO takes ongoing work rather than a one-time fix.
How OnePoint Handles Links
Link building is baked into our SEO service. We handle the accurate directory and citation work, pursue legitimate local links, and skip the spam entirely — because a clean, slow-built link profile is the only kind that lasts. Combined with a well-built website and an optimized Google Business Profile, it’s what steadily pushes local businesses up the Edmonton results.
The Bottom Line
Backlinks still matter, and for a local business the best ones are local: directories, organizations, sponsorships, partners, and press right here in Edmonton and Alberta. Earn a few good ones a month, avoid the spam entirely, and give it time. It’s not the fastest lever in SEO, but over a couple of quarters it’s one of the most powerful.
OnePoint Solutions builds websites and runs SEO — including honest, local link building — for Edmonton and Canadian small businesses. Get a free quote and we’ll show you where your site stands.