• The Importance of Links
The search engine ranking of any given website is heavily influenced by the number and
quality of other websites that link to it and the text used in the clickable part of each www
link (known as the “anchor text”).
Where a particular website has acquired links from trusted authority sites within the same
field, these links are considered to be “a vote” for that site and thus help to raise its search
engine ranking. Links from other www sites are often referred to as “backlinks” or
“inbound links”. Search engines use any keyword terms in the clickable part of such links
to determine what the target page is about. The effect of acquiring quality links can be
dramatic in terms of improving targeted traffic to a website. By way of an example, the
picture below shows the effect of links on traffic volumes for a new travel site over a one
year period.
- Link Anchor Text Variation Advice
It is reasonable to assume if links are naturally acquired from other www sites that they
will all be different and use a spread of keyword terms. Search engines like to see link
anchor text variation as it helps to show that a website’s links are natural and not added
artificially as part of a search engine optimisation (SEO) process. For this reason, when
building links to your website it’s important to vary the description and anchor text used.
- Choosing Keywords for Link Anchor Text
It also makes sense to use one or two relevant keyword terms in your backlinks along with
your company name to improve search engine visibility for keywords relevant to your
business. After all, nobody would search for “ZYX consultancy” when looking for an SEO
Consultant.
Critical to any website search engine marketing strategy is choosing the right keywords. It
makes sense to do detailed research when choosing keywords for your backlinks as the
most popular keywords will always be the hardest to rank for, particularly for new
websites. The best keyword research tools are Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com),
Digitalpoint’s keyword selection tool (http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion) and the
Google Adwords keyword sandbox (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal).
When choosing the best keywords for your site, try to choose terms which are highly
relevant to your business – terms which people would specifically use when looking to
retain your services or buy your goods. Choose keywords which are not the most popular,
but nevertheless still offer worthwhile search volumes.
After selecting the best keywords for your backlinks, try to use a selection of them when
applying for listings in directories and on partner sites, not forgetting to vary the keywords
used to give natural weighting to your backlinks. Two examples of good and bad web
directory links are shown below:
Here’s an example of a badly formatted directory link with no keyword terms in the anchor
text (just “Horsey Jameson Bird Pty Ltd”). This link would little benefit the recipient site
other than improving their search engine ranking for their company name - which
inherently less people would search for:
Here’s an example of a well formatted directory link with the company name and a couple
of useful keywords (“remortgage lenders”) used in the anchor text. This directory link will
help raise the ranking of the recipient site for the lucrative keyword search term
“remortgage lenders”:
- Reciprocal Links
The benefits of acquired links are largely negated by reciprocation. In other words, if site A
links to site B and then site B links back to site A, search engines like Google view it as
just a “link trade”. “Reciprocal links” as these types of links are called have less value and
offer less search engine ranking improvement, particularly in Google.
That said, adding some reciprocal links as part of a wider SEO campaign is a good thing,
particularly where backlinks are obtained from authority sources. However, adding too
many reciprocal links at the expense of acquiring quality one way links can cause a sudden
reduction in Google ranking, especially if the link anchor text used is little varied.
source: http://www.ksl-consulting.co.uk