SEO

Do You Anchor Your Links Like A Newbie?

August 12, 2008 By: Justin | 28 Comments

Getting quality keyword anchored backlinks is the name of the game in SEO. Outside of a few major on site SEO factors, links are THE factor that will get your site ranked higher for your desired keywords, but not if you anchor like a newbie.

When obtaining backlinks to your site, it is important to include you keyword as the text for the link! Google uses the anchor text to make choices about the content of your page and how to rank you for certain keywords.

5 Ways to Anchor Your Links Like a Newbie

  1. Use “here” / “click here” / “my website” when you link to your site. Congrats, you just told Google your site is about “here” or “click here”; not “clocks”, “clothing”, “video games”, “credit cards”, or “loans”.
  2. Using your name as your primary anchor text. You’ll rank really well for your name, but you’re going to have one hell of a time making money from that. When was the last time you saw massive demand for “Frank”?
  3. Using your business name. So you’ll rank really well for your business name, but this will do nothing but provide traffic from people who already know who you are. What about bringing in new people? Enough people will link to you with your site  / business name, so you’ll earn the top spot for your name eventually by default, especially if your business name is your URL.
  4. Anchoring your online nickname. This is even worse than your name. Who is every going to search for CoolDuDz1978 or something crazy like that?
  5. Anchoring the same thing over and over. This is the next step newbies take. You tell them “anchor your keyword” and they go get 1000 exact keyword anchored links over night. Google bomb much? Google will see this as spam and could actually hurt you. Mix it up.

5 Ways To Anchoring Links a Pro

  1. Anchor your keyword, related keywords, and long tail keywords.
  2. Anchor deep pages with keywords.
  3. Develop a “keyword” nick name. *cough* *cough* SEOZombie / SEO Zombie *cough* *cough* (kind of like I planned that)
  4. Develop a keyword sitename. Court’s “Internet Marketing” School. <– f’ing great.
  5. Get creative with your anchor text. My friend’s company he works for is “Paramore Redd”. They always anchor Designed by: Parmore Redd. Why not anchor something like “P|R Nashville Online Marketing”?

Looking at someone’s anchor text really shows how much they know about SEO. The role anchor text plays in your SERPS success is HUGE. Do not get caught anchoring like a newbie. Put some thought in creative ways to get the anchors you want. Of course, sometimes you have to go with the site name or your name, but try to get as many keyword anchored links as you can.

Filed Under Link Building, Sneaky

How To Get Links With Article Marketing

By: Justin | 12 Comments

The most important part of SEO and the part people have the hardest time with is getting links. Everyone always asks how to get links to their site that will get them ranked higher and drive more traffic to their site. We have talked about link building before and how there is no secret formula. Getting links is work, but I can point you in the right direction and make it faster, easier, and more efficient.

Article marketing is an effective way to build one-way back links to your sites. They are one method of many that I suggest you take advantage of. Article marketing is a great and legit way to build anchored links to your site. It is a great way to strengthen authority for long tail keywords and niche sites.

Article Link Quality

This is the point when someone is thinking “but aren’t article links low quality links” and “what is the point of getting low quality links”.

Four Reasons to Use Article Marking for Links

  1. Volume - Article marketing is about link volume. We are talking pure quantity. Link building is about diversity. You need solid high PR links, sure, but you also need a wide base. Article marketing is a way to quickly build hundreds of one way back links.
  2. One-way links - These links are one-way links. Getting these require no back link from you to them.
  3. Anchored links - Article marketing gives you full control over your link’s anchor text. This is invaluable when getting links. You can vary your anchor text effectively, while also building anchored links for long tails that are difficult to get links for.
  4. Term Targeting - You get full control over the content of your article, which allows you to target your desired keyword. The more related the content is, the more link juice is passed.

How to Submit Articles

There are hundreds of article directories on the internet that will take your articles and publish them, while allowing you to drop an anchored link in the footer. You can submit to these manually, but that can be slow and time consuming. I like automating things a bit.

I personally use Article Marketer to submit my articles. The free version of Article Marketer is horrible in my experience, but I have not had any problems with the paid version. I personally have an account there and use it to submit articles. It takes a few days to a week for an article to be pumped out across all the directories, but it takes little to no effort on your part. Once you submit the article, it is sit and forget, which is nice. Just come back in a week and check to see that your articles were submitted.

Another option is using Article Submitter, which will semi automate the submission process. With Article Submitter, you input your article and it will take you from submission page to submission page and auto fills the forums. You just have to press submit; a quick and easy way to do it. I like Article Marketer because it takes care of it for me.

Article Marketing Tips

  1. Use articles to build links for individual pages that target long tail keywords. Use to build for your domain, but article marketing can help you achieve multiple page one rankings by building links for low competition long tails.
  2. Anchor your links. It is important to include your keywords in your anchor text. Do not waste your time anchoring your name.
  3. Vary your anchor text. You need to mix up your anchor text so it looks natural. Do a few submissions that include your exact anchor text, but then do several submissions that include variations and related long tails of your primary keyword.
  4. Target your articles. Links pass more authority if they come from related pages. The more related the page’s content, the higher the quality of that link. I suggest including your keywords in both the title and in the first 100 words. Then use related keyword throughout and close the article with the keyword. Follow all the information in my post about writing for search engines.

Article Links

Articles are a great way to get links, but it is important to remember that they are low quality links. They work well for niche sites and long tails or as part of your overall link strategy. They should not be your only way of link building. Because these are low quality, they may take a long time before they are “counted”. Some may never show as counted. Do not stress this though, just get your links and move on. Let Google and Yahoo count them on their own time, because you cannot speed it up.
If you are looking for a new way to get links and keep asking yourself how to get more links, I would suggest you give Article Marketer a try. You can get a basic membership for not too much. Submit articles like crazy and watch as your links multiple for all your sites.

Filed Under Link Building

New Site Design!

By: Justin | 6 Comments

Yeah, I know… I keep changing it, but this will be the last change for a long time. We’re going to stick with this one. I’m a little sleepy, so I’m going to clean up the rest of the code tomorrow, but its pretty much solid.

I’m going to be testing to make sure it all works correctly. If you notice a problem, drop a comment and let me know.

Filed Under SEO Zombie

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