“Give Me Keyword Rich Anchor Text or Give Me Death!” – Dali Burgado, Search Engine Optimizer
Kind of harsh, I know, but if after implementing “basic SEO,” you are still wondering why your web content is not performing as it should, chances are you are missing some of the key few basic search engine optimization strategies that you can easily do yourself to improve your search engine rankings.
Using Keyword Rich Anchor Text Can Help You Rank Higher
For those new to this term, “Anchor text” are the words in web content linking somewhere else. You can call it a “hyperlink.” For instance the first hyperlink in this article links to my blog and SEO consulting page. Instead of linking to content using generic terms and “oh so 90s” call to actions, make strategic use of what you link to and what keywords you use to link to that domain or URL.
Get Rid of all Hyperlinked Words On your Web Site Like:
- Click Here
- Blog Post here
- Read More …
- This Videos
- His Bio
Etc.
You get the drift. Oh wait. One more… the absolute worst is using the URL or website link as the anchor text.
As my mentor, and Web Analytics Master, Avinash Kaushik, would say, “that is a crime against humanity.”
Your hyperlinks should always be a keyword phrase when it makes sense in your content.
Make sure it makes sense to link to those words and the flow of reading isn’t affected.
Improving Search Engine Ranking: 2 Anchor Text Case Studies
One of the ways Search Engines determine the relevancy of your site in your field is by looking at those hyperlinks (along with meta data and other factors) to determine what your content is about and see how on topic and relevant your content is.
Without adequate keyword rich anchor text, Google, Bing etc can not tell their web surfers (your lost visitors) that your blog is on topic and relevant to them.
Fair? Maybe Yes. Maybe No.
Case Study #1: Ranking Higher for a Keyword Phrase Unintentionally, The Adobe Reader Site
Google “click here” and you’ll find that Adobe reader ranks #1 for the term “click here.” Why would someone naturally Google click here? No one would. Adobe’s call to action to get someone to download it’s product was “click here.” As a result, they started accidentally ranking highly for it. Why? Because the anchor text adobe was using was helping the search engines associate “click here” with the Adobe web site.
You want the search engines to associate your web content with your intended keyword phrases.
Case Study #2: A Popular Brand Ranking Poorly in the Search Engines Due to Bad Anchor Text
In consulting a large corporation with its SEO strategy, their problem was that every hyperlink was a link to a URL instead of keyword phrases. Although, they had solid rankings for a few keyword phrases, had tons of links, and their off page SEO was not great … they virtually had no keyword rich anchor text. Had it not been for the authority and brand they built, they would have been in trouble. In performing SEO for their web site and replacing their ugly URLs with keyword rich text, I was able to improve dozens of their key rankings from page 2 to the top 3.
Getting on the top of Google is not so hard as you think when you know basic SEO and can determine what your competition is like.
Put it in your schedule to start looking at your top anchor text you use and replace them with keyword rich phrases.
Before you do make sure you are using the optimal keywords by conducting keyword research. At the very least use tools like Google Adwords Keyword tool, or if you want to really outrank your competition, use a keyword research tool like Market Samurai.
Related SEO Articles from the Web
- 5 SEO Mistakes that Crush Rankings (quicksprout.com)
- What Is Anchor Text? (smallbusinessmavericks.com)
About The Author
Dali Burgado, also known as "The Dali Blogger" teaches creative entrepreneurs how to carve a web presence that connects with their Inner Guru and their target audience. Her first online marketing love is SEO. She's an avid connector on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. When she's not coaching or teaching, she's tweaking sites for Search Engine Visibility, working on her PHP and Javascript coding skills, Singing Opera, or learning about gardening. Circle Dali on Google+
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Anchor text links is very important for keyword rankings in SERP. We need to choose right website and right place to keep hyperlinks. When we pad our keywords inside the content and keeping hyperlink, it really gives more weight-age then any other links, in simple we can say as contextual links. But the content must be quality, unique and related to our website.
Thanks for sharing this useful information to others.
Great work
Best Regards,
Aaron Nagal
One of the fastest ways to rank high on google, at least from my experience, is to get links to your site on other sites that have high page ranks. Google treats these high page ranked sites as authoritative sites and their links as very credible. If you can get links to these sites you will easily be able to achieve and maintain a great search engine ranking.
It requires some text
I browsed around for some search engine submittors, but they seem to be very expensive. Are there any free websites that submit your domain to search engines? I am looking for a good one that is worth using and that sends my website to some of the best and numerous search engines. Thank you!
You must implement good on-page SEO and be consistent with off-page SEO. The latter means you have to be building quality backlinks continually, and that entails a lot of article marketing.
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I’ve read a lot of seo tips but nothing really compares to your ways of explaining things. I understand it right away
since it is not full of hucus focus stuff. It is straight to the point and very literal indeed. Wish to read more of this kind of stuff.
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I know this can really help and I am really glad that I have found this pot and I am also looking forward to share this to them…
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I am agree with that but some times i listen from seo persons or seo guiders that if you will make long phares keyword then you will get more benefit, But i believe in your statement. I am confused that they are saying wrong ….
I believe that optimizing your profiles is very important, just as optimizing your website is, but the most important part of any SEO efforts is having quality content. The same goes for Twitter, you need quality content and updates for people to read and link to. If you tweet about the right subjects you will notice more and more incoming links to your twitter profile when your tweets start being republished on other people’s blogs (provides some temporary page rank).
Really say that I believe that optimizing your profiles is extremely essential, just as optimizing your website is, but the most essential part of any Search engine optimization efforts is getting quality content. The same goes for Twitter, you require quality content material and updates for people to study and hyperlink to.
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Are there any free websites that submit your domain to search engines? I am looking for a good one that is worth using for?
Hey Katie,
If you mean submit your domain to directories, I wouldn’t recommend it, as most don’t matter a whole lot nowadays. The ones that matter most are DMOZ and Yahoo Directory. If you have a lot of content, it is worth updating or creating a sitemap for your content, which you can submit to Google and Bing via their Webmaster Tools. I would focus on optimizing existing content and making sure you get more social shares, as SEO continues to be impacted by social activity.
Continuing the Discussion