We all keep reading, and no doubt saying as well, about the value of links into our blogs. Very few will argue about this. It brings in traffic and helps with PageRank and search engine rankings.What we sometimes overlook though, is the value of the anchor text. By this I mean the words that we choose for our inward bound links. Often we simply use the name of our blog as the link.
We should, however, probably be giving this anchor text as much thought as we do our keywords. Using the right words can help with our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
This was brought home to me again by something that Michael Small of seo partner said.
He gave the example of searching for the words click here on Google. If you do the Adobe Acrobat Reader website will be at the top of the page. Now the strange thing is Abode doesn't have the words click here on it's website!
We are usually told that we need chosen keywords on our blogs to get a decent Google ranking, but this isn't 100% necessarily so. Another way is to have lots of inward links where the anchor text is your keyword(s).
Going back to Adobe, they are the top match for click here because of the thousands of other websites that use click here when linking to Adobe's free download of Acrobat Reader.
This anchor test is something to consider when getting inward links or exchanging links. I know that I sometimes forget and, when I refer to other blogs that I publish, I tell readers to click here to visit them. I should instead be using chosen keywords.
It's something that's simple to do and could help our blogs in several ways - so think: anchor text!
Good luck,
Mike.
