Back to Basics: The Importance of Anchor Text

As social media and search engine optimization techniques become more complicated and advanced, sometimes we forget about the basics. Yesterday, I had a client ask me what anchor text was, and I realized sometimes it is good to explain to the layperson what many of us professionals take as a given. Click for full article on anchor text optimization.

To begin, let's start with a definition of what anchor text is. It is the visible, clickable text that forms a link. The most famous example would undoubtedly be "click here", where you click on the words "click here" to go someowhere else.

Of course, "click here" is an awful use of anchor text. Why? Because the anchor text of a link is an important factor in helping the search engines ascertain the topical context of the target page (by target page I mean the page that is linked to from the page which is the source of the link).

The fact that anchor text is an important factor in ascertaining the content of the target page means that if you can exercise some measure of control over the anchor text of sites which link to you then you therefore have some measure of control as to what keyphrases your site, or particular page within your site, rank for in the engines.

Say you have a site which sells widgets. For the sake of simplicity, let's pretend that the widgets come with two options, red or blue. Therefore, you would want the page that offers the red widgets for sale to rank for the term "red widgets" and the page that offers the blue widgets for sale to rank for the term "blue widgets". This can be done through the use of proper anchor text pointing to each page.

Third party sites can be encouraged to link to you with the proper anchor text in a variety of methods. First off, if your page is clear in what it is offering, for instance red widgets, chances are people will link to you with anchor text that at least contains the phrase "red widgets". Further, you can influence social media users, bloggers, and the like to link to your red widgets page by providing content relevant to red widgets and providing the anchor text in an attribution, such as "About the Author", "courtesy of", or whatever.

Anchor text is also important in your sites internal linking. Yes, internal links count too! This is where you can exercise the most control over the anchor text pointing to particular pages of your site, as you are the one who controls your site! Examples would include text based navigation schemes and other links internal to your site which point to the target page. By controlling the anchor text of your internal links, you not only hint to third party users as to what anchor text you would like them to use when linking to the target page, you are yourself informing the search engines as to the target keyphrase query for that particular page.

About the Author:

Matt Foster is the CEO of ArteWorks SEO, an internationally recognized search engine optimization company based in Austin, Texas. For more information on ArteWorks SEO, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

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Response: Authority Link Building, What and How

It is amazing the mythology which abounds in the field of Internet marketing. Take for example a recent article written by a company called LinkBuilderz which was entitled "Authority Link Building! What and How". In this article, the author explains that you will be "amazed with the results" if you drop links into Wikipedia. Problem is, the author is evidently ignorant of the fact that Wikipedia links are nofollowed and therefore do not pass any PageRank or link juice. Click for full article on authority link building.

The LinkBuilderz article is yet another example of the type of misinformation which individuals are putting out there regarding search engine optimization. As the search marketing industry rapidly expands, more and more unqualified individuals and firms are jumping on the bandwagon and selling snake oil, both to the detriment of the web user's experience as well as their clients.

So called "authority" links cannot be obtained by spamming Wikipedia. My philosophy is this: the only way to obtain quality, relevant, inbound linkage is through the creation of rich content to which site owners will naturally want to link. Content can take many forms, it can be blog content, videos, product pages, reviews, audio clips, and the like. If you are creating useful content which provides value to the end user, the links will come.

The LinkBuilderz article is premised entirely upon the myth that Wikipedia spam will provide "amazing results" in the search engines. While there may be some residual value in direct link traffic from links residing within the Wikipedia domain (assuming that they are not promptly deleted by wise Wikipedia editors), there is zero value in terms of passing PageRank or "link juice". This is because external Wikipedia links contain the rel=nofollow attribute which informs Google that the link is to a third party site which is not trusted by Wikipedia. The premise that an "authority" site such as Wikipedia will pass its authority (i.e. trust) to a third party site via an external link is not only false, but the exact opposite is true. Nofollow indicates the site is not trusted! The nofollow attribute was developed specifically to combat this sort of link spam, which has historically been prevalent on blogs, forums, and yes, Wikipedia. Nofollow allows site owners to provide users with the ability to contribute content without the angst associated with link spam bleeding link juice away from the site or causing the site to inadvertently link to a "bad neighborhood".

It seems that dispelling SEO mythology is a never ending ordeal. Reputable SEO firms will never advise placing links within Wikipedia for the purpose of increasing search engine rankings. It is important for the consumer to understand that when considering various SEO firms, if it sounds too good to be true it is. If your SEO firm does not propose creating content and promoting that content as a link building strategy, you should steer clear.

Matt Foster is the CEO of ArteWorks SEO, a full service search engine optimization firm.

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