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By Bruce Gow Search Engine Guy Pty Ltd
www.searchengine-guy.com.au
What is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the text that you see in the hyperlink on the webpage. Let's
take this example:
"For expert advice on A.
Australian search engine optimization go to
B. www.searchengine-guy.com.au "
If you click on
A. Australian search engine
optimization or
B.
www.searchengine-guy.com.au you will come our site using either link. The
big difference being is that if you use method A you are giving a vote to the
search engines for those keywords. The words “Australian search engine
optimization” are called the anchor text.
Anchor Text Enhances the Relevance of the Target Page
The keywords in anchor text enhance the relevance of the target page pertaining
to the keywords used. While the relevance of the page containing the anchor text
is also enhanced to some degree (because of relevant keywords appearing on that
page), the real gainer is the target page URL. Use this knowledge to build the
relevance of each page of your site, through optimized anchor text containing
important keywords, relevant to the theme of such pages, from other pages of
your site.
Search Engine Algorithms LOVE Anchor Text
The inclusion of important keywords in the anchor text can make a big difference
in the final ranking of your site pages. All search engines that matter, give
significant weight to the anchor text on your pages. In fact Google even has an
advanced operator: ‘allinanchor:keyword', which picks up text only from within
the anchor text of indexed pages.
Now why do you think that they would bother with something like that?
Maybe because it is a key factor in ranking websites by Google and other search
engines?
Our internal research leads us to believe that weight given to anchor text
has been raised recently in the Google algorithm. With these changes, it is
possible to enhance your website's ranking by using the right keywords in anchor
text.
It has also been studied that anchor text, whether from external, or internal
pages, is important. It should therefore be ensured that significant attention
is given to the inclusion of important keywords in your anchor text.
How to Optimize Anchor Text Within Your Site
Anchor text optimization can be deployed throughout your site to enhance the
relevance of most of the web pages based on individual page content. You would
be surprised, how easy it is, to find suitable instances of hyper-linking
structures to make use of optimized anchor text.
When linking to internal pages, it is better to use the format:
"Read all about Australian search
engine optimization" Instead of: "Read all about Australian search engine
optimization here"
Or, as is commonly seen, "Click
Here" for information on Australian Search Engine Optimization –
-unless, of course you would like to ranked highly for the keyword “click here”
:-)
The above example shows us that you can leverage the hyper-linking of important
keyword phrases instead of hyper-linking unrelated text wherever possible. It is
always a great idea to restructure sentences if keywords don't fit in anchor
text.
Using Keywords in Natural Text to Create Anchor Text
You can also locate (or insert) important keyword phrases in your page's natural
text and link it to relevant target pages of your site. Consider the paragraph
below: -
A.
Australian search engine optimization is an
important part of any
search engine optimisation initiative. Some
people believe that submitting the site to search engines alone is sufficient in
getting a great
search engine ranking. This is not true.
Australian search engine optimization only
announces your site’s existence to search engines. Remember,
search engine marketing is a powerful media for
your
website promotion.
Now notice below how the above text is reformatted where highly relevant keyword
phrases have been converted into powerful anchor text. Each keyword phrase links
to an important relevant section of the same site -
B. Australian search engine
optimization is an important part of any
search engine optimisation
initiative. Some people believe that submitting the site to search engines alone
is sufficient in getting a great
search engine ranking. This is not true.
Australian search engine
optimization only announces your site’s existence to search engines.
Remember, search engine marketing
is a powerful media for your
website promotion.
While the above example seems like overkill, this is just to illustrate how you
can accommodate your important keyword phrases by carefully rewording the text
of your web pages. If you feel that the standard blue underlined hyperlinks
appear ugly on your website, then you can re-format its HTML markup code to
change color of the text and get rid of the underline without losing the power
of the anchor text.
A "Sneaky Trick" To Use Subtle Anchor Text
You may not have noticed, but the first sentence of this page “Australian Search
Engine Optimization” found underneath the train and paragraph A (above) also has
the same keywords hyperlinked, but without usual blue colour and underlines.
Bring your mouse over the keywords to notice your cursor shows up the hyperlink.
Optimizing Anchor Text of External Links
Keywords within the anchor text are equally useful from links pointing to your
website. If you are pursuing or considering a link building campaign, put some
serious thought in writing multiple options of the title and description of the
link pointing to your website.
The "title" which is usually used as the hyper-linked text, should contain your
important keywords. It is good to work with ten different options of title and
description as it not only gives you more room to play with several keywords,
but it also helps search engines give you a wider keyword coverage.
When soliciting external links, it is better to provide your own "cut and paste"
HTML code. Webmasters like it when a ready-to-paste HTML code is easily
available for them to provide a link to your website.
Examples:
The above will look like this:
Australian search engine optimization
Website promotion and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services in Australia for small websites to large e-commerce sites requiring Search Engine Optimization &
Ranking
www.searchengine-guy.com.au
The above will look like this:
Website Optimisation
Increase your website visibility and Search Engine rankings.
www.website-optimisation.com.au
Notice how not only each of the title anchor text is optimized to contain
important keyword phrases, but also that the description text varies to
accommodate more keyword variation.
Links from external sites help your site to gain relevance for keywords
mentioned in the anchor text which increases your website's ranking. Inbound
links increase your site's ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Anchor text should be your main focus when optimizing your site for all
of your important keywords.
For more information on how to optimise your website using anchor text, shoot me
an email at
bruce@searchengine-guy.com.au
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