On the home page of Linking Matters, I refer people to the latest edition of this newsletter. I could use the linking text, Latest Newsletter: the text is meaningful, clear and wouldn’t need to change every time I published a new issue.
However, I’d be missing out on some important opportunities. Using the actual title of the newsletter - Keyword Phrases in Linking Text is a much better option.
There are two reasons:
In highly competitive situations the extra ‘points’ that Google gives can mean the difference from appearing on the first page of results and appearing nowhere.
Therefore to embark on an effective link building campaign you must be aware of your important keyword phrases and incorporate them into your titles and linking text. You also need to influence the words external webmasters use to link to you.
Including keywords in title text is attractive to human visitors as well as being a fundamental search engine marketing tactic. Your title also has the opportunity to influence the words that an external webmaster may use when linking to your site.
If your title is meaningful and useful, another webmaster is likely copy it, or at least edit it rather than go to the trouble of creating their own linking text.
There are two types of linking text to consider - internal and external. As far as Google is concerned, internal and external linking text are both important.
The internal linking text that you use is completely within your control so you have opportunities to use keyword rich linking text. Yet many people overlook this and use lazy phrases such as ‘home’, ‘click here’ and ‘read more’. Avoid these phrases and use keyword rich linking text instead.
Introducing variety into linking text is also a good tactic. Good writing in English uses a variety of different ways to say the same thing and keep the reader interested.
Likewise in linking text, use variety. This keeps readers interested and also provides additional information for search engines.
This is the linking text that sits on external sites and links to your website. You may think that you’re at the mercy of other webmasters in how they link to your site, but there are many situations where you can control the external text that links to you.
These include:
After that you do depend on how individual webmasters decide to link to your site. The best way to influence this is to write good titles and linking text in the first place. Then all the webmaster has to do is to cut and paste.
Even if the webmaster decides to write his own text, what you have written will influence how he does that and at least some of your keyword phrases are likely to be included.
To help determine your most effective keyword phrases, use the excellent Wordtracker service at www.wordtracke r.com or use an expert such as Dan Thies at www.seoresearchl abs.com to do the job for you - his keyword reports are terrific value at $99 and highly recommended.
Initially, this may seem like a lot of work but the benefits can be tremendous. If you plan methodically and practice, using keyword phrases in your linking text will become second nature - and a highly effective way of engaging your website visitors and boosting your search engine results.
