If you’re trying to get your business to rank locally in Orange County, then you’re going to want to set your sights on getting links from local events and community organizations.

One of the primary reasons that link building through local events and community organizations, like charities, is because these are the types of businesses that are always looking for exposure. Not to mention, you want to build links with reputable organizations that Google itself holds in high regards—aka, high-level links.

High-level links let Google know you’re a trustworthy and authoritative source. The more high-level links you get to your business website, the more points you score on the SERPs. In this article, we’re going to cover using community services and local events for your localized Orange County content.
 
(Side note—for the purpose of this article we’ll be looking at the local events listed below and how they impact your SEO. However, we won’t be analyzing the impact, exposure, or the essence of the event.)

Local Orange County Events

Orange County is home to a multitude of events, including big expos, small meetups, and even trade meetings. This is something that’s easy to forget, especially if you’re not a part of the event circuit, but really all you have to do is hop onto social media and check sites like Eventbrite. Then you’ll see that there are events nearly every weekend.

The first step to getting involved and working with these organizations for SEO purposes is to locate events that actually have websites. There’s no use in trying to link build to build your SEO value if the organizations you’re working with don’t have a physical website they can use to link your business site.

Another key element in link building with these local events is to also ensure that they have a strong online presence. As mentioned earlier, you’re aiming to obtain high-level links from referring domains. If the local events are barely ranking, your referring links will be considered low-level or medium-level at best—which won’t do you any good.

You also want to consider scalability. You don’t want to waste time and effort getting involved with different local organizations only to get one or two measly links. The goal is to obtain ongoing links.

Lastly, you want to find organizations that are well-connected and collaborate and work with other organizations on events. So, if your business is contributing or part of an event, there’s a greater amount of potential for getting linked from multiple event and organization sites that are promoting the same event.

Now let’s take a closer look at the different type of events and how they can impact your SEO efforts:

Orange County Community Service Events

Community service is HUGE in orange county. These events range in size, from something as small as kitten adoption all the way to large galas.

When you’re trying to link build via community service events, you need to go beyond just being a volunteer. Volunteering is great, especially as a business owner. However, the most important thing is that your business is seen as its own entity—rather than you, the business owner as simply just a volunteer.

So, you want to make it clear to the community service organization that you’re interested in a partnership and that you want your business to be recognized for helping the organization.

From an SEO perspective, the goal is to obtain links, but you should also be aiming for your business to get visibility for its logo in addition to getting links.

Remember that even with community service events you still want to focus on scale. There are plenty of community service organizations that are incredibly powerful but have a weak website presence, which won’t offer you much value in terms of links. Adversely, other organizations may seem small but have a surprisingly strong domain rating on their website, which means they have excellent link equity.

When partnering with these organizations, it’s important to understand that you don’t have to always give monetary donations. There are plenty of ways to contribute, i.e., kind donations, services, etc., to garner a few links.

Orange County Trade Associations

Some of your strongest links will come from Trade Associations because they have ties to national organizations. This means that their websites will be a part of an entire network in relation to several localities.

One of the best things about Trade Associations is that they are much more open to partnering with businesses because they like to advertise their active participants. They also open the doors to a network of other businesses and their websites.
So, you’ll want to get involved with the Trade Association of your choosing whether it be by joining their board, becoming a sponsor, providing a venue for their meetings and events, and so on.

When it comes to Trade Association events, it’s critical to try and participate as a speaker or presenter. That way you’ll not only gain the audience’s attention but you’ll get an automatic link to your website because the organization will be promoting the event themselves.

Don’t forget, you still need to focus on scalability here. You want to aim for the Trade Associations that are well-connected, collaborate on large-scale events, and have speakers who are well-known. 

Go Forth and Get Involved

The best way to engage in link building when it comes to local Orange County events is to have them coincide with your regular marketing operations. Starting out, you’ll likely need to volunteer at your local community events, preferably the ones you’re passionate about, to gain some traction before you start asking for links.

Remember, the key is to acquire links while being an active participant—not just participating for the sake of a link. It’s important to enhance the organization’s value as well as your own when it comes to giving back to your community.