How to Not Get Penalized for Anchor Text

Anchor text is the actual word that you see in a link. The code that makes it direct you to a web site is hidden from view. You may be aware of the importance of links when optimizing your site, but you may not be aware of possible search engine penalties associated with your anchor text.

Back in the day, search engines simply looked at meta tags and links to rank your web site. As soon as people figured it out, they started spamming the search engines and undeserving sites were getting top rankings. Google quickly figured it out and created a system of penalizing sites for trying to manipulate the rankings. They changed their rank criteria to give results based on a lot more than how many times you can squeeze your keyword into your homepage.

Now Google and other search engines look at everything from the relevance of your content to the web of links pointing to your site from all over the web. They even consider the reputation of the site that is linking to you. The result is a very true search result. When I type in a keyphrase, I know that I am getting rankings based on relevance, popularity and quality content.

Now the question is, "How do I build these links to my site without raising any red flags with Google?" There are a few guidelines for building quality anchor text that will keep you out of trouble.

Do not over optimize one general phrase. For example, if you sell sports equipment, you may believe that you should optimize for the keyphrase "sports". But truthfully, this is a very broad term with a lot of competition. You could work on it for years and barely rank. As far as anchor text goes, you will have a lot of links with the same anchor text, "sports". Search engines will see it as over-optimization and possibly penalize you, which can take a very long time to recover from. Optimizing for a broad term like this will also get a lot of people looking for all sorts of information relating to sports and not people looking to buy sports equipment.

Mix up your anchor text and the words that you are optimizing for. Instead of "sports" you may need to be a lot more specific and work with more specific keywords, like "soccer pads", "golf clubs", or "kids football cleats". Not only will you have less competition, but you will be targeting the people that are actually looking to buy sports equipment.

Work with your SEO company on an internet marketing strategy that uses specific keywords related to your content and your site. Use different combinations of words based on what your customers are typing in to find you. Avoid the over use of any one keyword and you should start to see some real results.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.

Is Trading Links Beneficial?

If you own a web site, you may get offers from other sites to trade links. This is essentially a link swap, where you put a link to their site somewhere on your page and they will put a link to your site on their page.

Building links around the web pointing to your site can be helpful in the search engine rankings and getting links on other pages can get new visitors coming to your site, but is there a downside? Well, it kind of depends.

Link trading can be beneficial to you. It is most beneficial if the site you are getting your link on is a reputable site that relates to your industry. If you do some research and figure out that the site is a good site to "advertise" on, then there are a couple of other things to consider.

Be picky about where they are going to put this link. If it is on the bottom of a page that does not have anything to do with you, then it will not be helpful at all, to the visitors or the search engines. If you will be on a page that is rarely visited, then it will not help. If you will be in a long list of other links or if there are already too many links on the page, then it may not help you either. Search engines and users are looking for links that are extremely relevant to the content on the page. So, make sure that you approve of the context and content that your link will be associated with.

If you do decide that this is a good site, they are going to relevantly use your link and it would actually be an "honor", so to speak, to be on this page and site, then there is the other side of things to consider before you jump into it. You will need to put a link for the other site on your page. Is linking to them going to look unnatural with your content? Would the link look relevant to your visitors? Would you be willing for your visitors to leave your page when they click on this link?

Linking to other sites is tricky. Sometimes you do want to be associated with other sites, or you want to give someone else credit for some information that you are using on your site. But, you have to be willing to lose your visitors when they stumble upon this link. Sometimes it's not worth it. It just depends on the nature of your site. Plus, you are putting your site's reputation with visitors and search engines in their hands by linking to them from your site.

Consider all of these things before you decide to jump on the link trading bandwagon. If you are just uneasy with the idea but you are still interested in social marketing, which has become very important in the search engines, then contact a search engine marketing company about link building in the social world of the web.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.