Link Building is a big part of SEO, which you already know. So how do you get the most from your link building efforts without getting lost in the wild wild west, er web?  Well, focus on anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text attached to a hyperlink.

Not only is anchor text important to search engines, but it’s also helpful to your website visitors. It helps them know the topic of what they are about to see. You want to make sure to choose effective anchor text for the incoming and outgoing links to your website.  This will greatly increase the value of the link and boost your search engine rankings.

To get started, during your link building acquisition, seek out links where you can determine the anchor text that another website uses for your website link.  This is an important part of the search engine ranking algorithms.  Aim for websites that not only have a link to your website, but also the words around the link that include the keywords you want to rank for. For example, in the descriptions of directory listings, blogs, and press releases you should be able to include the text you want to hyperlink.

To illustrate, instead of saying, “Click Here” as your anchor text, use the keywords that you are targeting. If the search engine bots see that the text around the link includes the keywords related to the website that the web link is pointing to, that will help you gain authority and increase the value of that link.

As an example, if we want to direct web visitors to a web page about internet marketing, we could write Internet Marketing and hyperlink that to an external website about internet marketing, or even a page on our website about it. You should also add variety to your anchor strategy to increase the value of the links. Don’t just have the same anchor text over and over.  Let’s look at some examples of this below:

• Internet Marketing Company
• Internet Marketing Firm
• Web Advertising Agency
• Website Optimization and Promotion
• Search Engine Marketing Solution

Notice how some of these have 3-4 words in them. This incorporates the long tail keywords that help us show up for many keyword terms and they typically have a high search volume.  Every day, about 25% of searches are keyword terms that never been searched before, so having variety in your anchor text is a very important way to get new visitors!   Notice that those links aren’t all going to the same page, this is termed “link diversity”.  The same would be true for inbound links, it would be better to have less links  from different sources, then many links from the same source. Keep in mind the anchor text should be different for those inbound links.  This falls in line with Google’s methodology- keep everything natural and relevant for your users!  Now, start getting creative with your anchor text- you’ll be happy that you did!

Things change rapidly in the SEO world and good marketers are always trying to stay on top of the latest and greatest information around “best practices”.  There is a science to SEO but not an exact science.  Many SEO’s have slightly different strategies and I think we can all agree that no one campaign is created equal.  However, when listening to different types of SEO advice circulate, there are always seem to be some misconceptions behind some of the core theories.  This is normal in such a dynamic industry so I wanted to review a few of these points as a discussion piece. 

LINK TRADING

This is a big one because everyone is very careful not to “anger the beast” (Google).  We all want to abide by best practices so as to build great relevant link popularity and increase rankings for oursleves or clients.  However, the fear factor has pushed this a little over the edge.  The idea behind link building is to create a interaction between a site and other relevant resources, partners, content, etc.  The foundation should be similar to how we build our own relationships personnaly or in the business world (at least if we want to gain the most value). 

So for example, people seem to still think that you should only build high power inbound links and never reciprocate.  This is true in some cases and may not be true in others (these are just my opinions).  If you get a link request that comes into your site from some randon website then you should probably stay away from it.  However, if a partner company, client, or relevant blog has linked to you and is interested in having you reciprocate, then it should be fine.  Again, this goes back to key relationships and have a link architecture that makes sense.  Don’t accept a link and give a link if both parties are just doing to have another link.  It probably won’t do you much good.

CONTENT:  SEO VS MARKETING VALUE

This topic is a difficult one because there is value on both sides and the truth or best practice most likely falls somewhere in the middle.  Bascially, I am talking about the difference between search engine optimization copywriting that may be good from an SEO algorithm (a machine reading your content) perspective vs a more emotion driven marketing perspective (a person reading your content and being compelled to link to you, share the content, or convert to a sale). 

The best case scenario is to have a blend of both it seems but this is easier said than done.  To achieve this the SEO content writers must be very good writers and have a sound understanding of an industry and the audience.  This is why I always encourage cleints to blog.  They know their business the best, and with a little coaching, can weave in some keyword strategy as well.

TITLE, H1, AND URL STRUCTURE

All of this starts with keyword strategy and understanding the clients core goals.  Once that is established you want to dial in on how the keyword assignment will reflect the titles and description in the SERPs as well support the page content.  For example, a title tag that simply uses keywords may rank high but might not be as compelling as the result around it in the SERPs that may have a better “marketing message”.  I have seen both work quite well so it most likel will vary from site to site and industry to industry. 

I have also heard people say that title should not mirror H1 exactly but I have seen this work well too.  From a marketing and conversion optimization perspective, the page title (or H1) should be representative of the title tag itself which is what will appear in the search results.  This goes back to the marketing message and being consistant.  For example, if you are running a PPC camaign and use a specific call to action in your titles, the landing page used to support that link should have a direct keyword association and reflect the message in the title.  The same could hold true for SEO title tags. 

From a ranking perspective the variation seems to not matter much but from a marketing perspective the two should at least be a close mirror of one another in my opinion.  This of course also depends on how you use the H1 one, where it is on the page, and the page design (as far as call to action is concerned). 

conclusion

There is value on both sides of these arguments which is why this stuff takes constant testing and researching to find what works best in a myriad of different circumstances.

This Google Webmaster video is of Matt Cutts answering the Question:  Do footer links carry as much weight as links higher on the page and surrounded by content.  As Google’s link analysis becomes more advanced, the search engine will assign different weight to links based on placement and HOW they are used.  For example, a link placed in the body copy of good relevant content will now most likely carry more influence than an anchor text link place on the footer and displayed on every page of a website.  As we know, links are one of the most important components behind a quality search engine optimization strategy.  Watch the video for more details!