SEO Tricks, The Anchor Text

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In this article we will discuss link building practices. Instead of focusing on methods, however, we focus on what you need to do when you put the methods into action. Specifically, we’re going to pay special attention to anchor text: what it is, why it’s important, and how to use it correctly so that the search engines will notice you and not penalize you. Search Engines and Links

In the early days search engines relied on meta-data and on-page analysis to analyze and rank websites. Search engine optimizers decoded ranking algorithms and started stuffing keywords in meta tags, titles, H tags and paragraphs, producing low value, spammy, but high-ranking pages.

Search engines were flooded with spam, because it was too easy to manipulate results. There was a need for better algorithms. That’s when Google arrived with Page Rank and changed the game. Instead of looking at on-page factors, page rank analyzed links throughout the World Wide Web. The formula was clearly a winner, as Google gave credit to super-hub sites in most industries and left the spam out. A new era of SEO arrived – the era of links.

Search engines, especially Google, look at hundreds of link factors. Some of those factors include:

The anchor text of the link
The site from which the link comes
The age of the link
The page on which the link is located
The text surrounding the link
The real page rank of the page (not the one shown in the toolbar)

What is anchor text?

The anchor text of a link is simply the text that you see on the page. You can click on anchor text and hover over it. Anchor text shows the actual words associated with a link, while the address of the web page is hidden in the code. Here’s an example:

<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_text”>anchor text </a>

And here’s how it looks: anchor text

You do need to know some HTML for search engine optimization, so if the above example seems unclear to you, you will want to brush up on your knowledge of HTML.

Anchor text is one of the most important factors that affects your rankings. Here’s what Aaron Wall has to say about anchor text:

“You can see how powerful this is just by adding a new related word or two in your inbound anchor text and seeing how quickly you start ranking for phrases including that word.”

A great example of the power of anchor text was demonstrated when several bloggers pulled a little prank on G. W. Bush and linked to Bush’s bio located at whitehouse.gov using the anchor text “miserable failure.” As a result, Bush ranked #1 on Google for “miserable failure.”

This is called a Google Bomb. Though Google has defused Google Bombs, you can see how powerful anchor text is in search engine optimization.

To get the best SEO results, vary your anchor text. If you want to rank for “home mortgage,” don’t get 100 links that all say “home mortgage.” Search engines will figure out you’re optimizing and penalize your website. This is exactly what happened to GoCompare, which used overly aggressive link building tactics. Google spotted it and “slapped” the website. As a result their traffic went down 80%.

Here’s how your anchor links should look if you’re optimizing for the phrase “home mortgage.”

Your Brand (whatever it is)
“home mortgage”
yoursite.com
click here (next to keyword rich description)
“home mortgage loan,” “mortgage loan,” “home loans,” “home loans for mortgage,” etc.

The point is to create natural-looking links. If other webmasters would link to you, how would they do it? Would it be your brand name, article name or something else? Mix those links with your top keyword.

Reserve the Top Anchor Text For Authoritative Websites

A basic link (a simple address without keywords) from an authoritative website is more valuable than 10 keyword-rich links from low and mediocre websites. For this purpose, if you can get links from authoritative websites, save your anchor text for those sites. It is better to get “home mortgage” from three authoritative websites and get 20 links with different anchor text from lower quality sites (remember you need to vary the text) than the other way around.

With variation in mind, you are somewhat limited as to the number of times you can use your top keyword phrase in anchor text, so keep it for the best and most authoritative sites you can.

Age of the Link

A one-year-old link is more valuable than a two-week-old one. If you have old links pointing to a page, make sure to keep that page live. If you must redirect, learn about search engine friendly 301 redirects.

Source: http://www.seochat