A small business owner asked r/localseo this fall whether sponsoring a little league or high school team was worth it for SEO. They'd get a banner in the outfield and a link back to their site, and they wanted to know what that link was worth for a year.
Sponsoring local sports teams as a Local SEO strategy?
My understanding is that any legit link pointing to your local business is good for SEO. I'm thinking about sponsoring some local sports teams. In addition to the actual advertising (ie a banner in the outfield of a little league or high sc...
That's the question behind most local link building advice, and it's hard to answer from a list of tactics. So we looked at what the businesses already winning Google Maps actually have.
On October 19, 2026, we pulled the top 20 Google Maps results for "plumber," "roofer," "dentist" and "hvac repair" in Columbus, Denver and Raleigh. Then we checked the links behind 64 of those businesses, 28 from the top three spots and 36 from spots 11 to 20.
Most local businesses have no real local links
Out of 64 businesses, 48 had no real local link at all. The best-linked one had three.
| Group | Businesses | At least one real local link | Median Google reviews |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 3 in Google Maps | 28 | 9 (32%) | 197 |
| Spots 11 to 20 | 36 | 7 (19%) | 139 |
The top three were more likely to have a local link, but most of them still didn't. Reviews moved with rank too. That fits Whitespark's 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors survey, where local search experts scored 187 factors and put the strongest link factor 26th for the map pack, behind reviews, proximity and the Google Business Profile.
The same survey tells a different story for the regular results below the map. There, link quality ranked 4th and links from local sites ranked 14th. So local links do more for your organic rankings than for your pin on the map, and that's still worth having.
The Maps results showed how far other signals can carry a listing. In Denver, six of the top 11 "hvac repair" spots went to businesses whose websites sat on .site, .online, .homes or .best domains, each with fewer than 75 linking domains. They held spots 3, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 11 with roughly 85 to 145 reviews apiece, and with almost no links of any kind.
We'd call this the empty-field effect. When almost nobody in your category has a single real local link, two or three good ones put you ahead of most of the list.
The thousands of links you already have
Before we could count real links, we had to get past the fake ones. 84% of the 196 small business websites we checked showed between 1,700 and 2,700 linking domains. That included a roofer with 76 Google reviews and a dentist with 117.
Those aren't real links. They come from scraper sites, "near me" directories and junk domains that link to every business they can find. After a basic spam filter, only about 4.5% of a typical profile was left, and most of what survived was still directory listings.
If a link tool says your plumbing company has 1,900 linking sites, don't celebrate, and don't panic either. Google has said its spam systems neutralize most links like these. Our post on white hat link building found the same pattern across 12 small businesses, where link farms made up 79% of the top linking sites.
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The real local links we found
Once the junk was filtered out, the real local links fell into four groups. We checked each one against the page that carries it.
| Link type | Example we found | Who had it |
|---|---|---|
| Trade association | Colorado Roofing Association member pages | All three of Denver's top-3 roofers |
| Chamber of commerce | Garner, Raleigh and Arvada chamber directories | A Raleigh plumber, a Garner HVAC firm, a Denver roofer |
| Sponsorship | A swim club's partner list, a charity sporting clays event, a fraternity golf tournament | A Cary plumber, a Denver roofer, a Raleigh dentist |
| Local news and awards | Denver Post Top Workplaces 2025, ColoradoBiz's Best of Colorado awards, a Denver7 list of businesses open during COVID | Two Denver plumbers and a Denver dentist |
The trade association result stood out. New Roof Plus, Riley's Roofing and Interstate Roofing held the top three Denver roofer spots, and every one of them had a member page on the Colorado Roofing Association's site.
The news links were mostly about something other than SEO. Barotz Dental's Denver Post link dates back to a 2009 business story, and Denver7 listed it in a COVID-era roundup of businesses that stayed open. Those links came from being part of the city, years before anyone asked about backlinks.
Chamber links last only as long as you pay
Chamber listings are the easiest local link to get, and the easiest to lose. In an r/SEO thread on whether they're worth it, the poster put typical dues at $99 to $500 a year.
Are local Chamber of Commerce backlinks actually worth anything for SEO in 2026?
I’m talking about the typical member directory/profile link that most local chambers provide. Normally they charge between $99-$500 annually. Depending on the chamber the link is dofollow
The replies were lukewarm. One commenter said their chamber links expired that month, and another said the real value is the people you meet, with the directory link as a bonus.
We saw the expiry problem firsthand. Riley's Roofing still had an Arvada Chamber listing in its link profile, but when we opened the page on October 19, it said the page was no longer available. A chamber link is rented, so count it only for the years you plan to stay a member.
Sponsorships work best with a write-up
Sponsorship links are real, but they're often weak. On the swim club's site, Cary Plumbing's link sits in a partner list of logos with no text around it.
One local SEO agency owner in an r/agency thread said sponsorships had the lowest return of any link tactic they'd tried. They'd rather point clients to niche directories that rank on Google, or ones that offer awards and badges.
A reply in the r/localseo sports thread had a better way to do it. Ask the team or charity to mention you in a news post or recap, like naming the sponsor who provided the vans for an away game. That link sits in real text, gets read and stays up long after the season ends.
Your competitors are getting cited by AI. You're not.
Every day without citation tracking is a day your competitors pull ahead in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
A local link plan for the next 90 days
Here's the order we'd use, built from what the leaders in our sample actually had.
- Get your citations right first. Your Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple and the main directories come before any link work. Our guide to local citation building covers the order.
- Join your trade association. Look for a state or regional group with a member directory, like the Colorado Roofing Association or PHCC of North Carolina for plumbers.
- Join one chamber, not three, and go to the events. Treat the listing as a bonus that lasts as long as your dues.
- Pick one or two causes you'd support anyway. Ask for a mention in a recap or news post as well as the logo on the sponsor page.
- Enter local awards and workplace lists. Programs like Top Workplaces and "best of" awards run by local business magazines link to the winners for years.
- Pitch one local story a quarter. A new location, a hiring push or a seasonal tip gives a local paper or TV station a reason to mention you.
- Check your rankings monthly, both in Maps and in the regular results.
What it takes each month
Here's a rough time budget for one small business doing this by hand, by our estimate.
| Task | Hours a month |
|---|---|
| Citations and profile upkeep | 1 to 2 |
| Association and chamber events | 3 to 4 |
| Finding and arranging sponsorships | 2 to 3 |
| Award entries and local pitches | 2 to 4 |
| Checking rankings and links | 1 |
| Total | 9 to 14 |
The dues add up too. One chamber at $99 to $500 a year plus a trade association and a sponsorship or two can easily pass $1,000 a year.
Local links and AI answers
Local links matter in a second place now. When someone asks ChatGPT for a plumber or a dentist, the answer often leans on directories and review sites rather than on the businesses' own sites.
In our AI visibility audit research, ChatGPT named just one of 49 small businesses that ranked on Google's first page for the same question. For local questions, it cited directories and review sites instead. Chamber and association directories are that kind of page, so a listing there can reach buyers in AI answers, even when the link itself does little for your pin on the map.
Links help the content you publish, too
There's a second reason to earn these links. Pages that answer local questions, like what a roof replacement costs in Denver or how often to flush a water heater in Raleigh, can rank in the regular results that Whitespark's experts tie closely to links. Our breakdown of local SEO ranking factors covers how those results differ from the map.
You can do all of this by hand. Or RankControl can take the content side off your plate. It writes local articles, publishes them to your site once you approve, and Link Control finds sites that might link to each one and drafts the pitch from your own mailbox. It then checks your Google rankings every week, so you can see which pages and links are paying off.
200+ SaaS teams already track their AI citations.
They know exactly when ChatGPT mentions their brand, and when it stops. Do you?
