Many people are under the false notion that simply having large numbers of links to their website will cause their website to be indexed higher in the search results. There is more to it than that and
much of it centers around anchor text links.For this blog post, I am not going to discuss the Page Rank score of the referring website, but that matters as well.Instead, we will talk about anchor text linking and how it can impact search engine optimization.
Anchor Text, what is it?
Anchor text refers the words that make up a link (and when you place your mouse over the phrase, it turns into a pointing hand). For example, in the sentence, “SEO Service in Florida, South Carolina and Surrounding Areas” “SEO Service in Florida” is anchor text for the link.
Why is Anchor Text important?
Search engines index the Internet by traveling from link to link, and taking snapshots of content. Typically, the anchor text link reveals to the indexing spider (algorithm formula) “where” it is about to travel and what the page is about. For example, if 75 websites have “SEO Service in Florida” links that point to your page, the search engine is fairly confident your page is about that subject.
Be careful not to use the exact anchor text link, all the time.
Because the search algorithms are constantly evolving, they now look for negative trends occurring such as “the same anchor text” used for every link. I recommend not doing to aforementioned because you can ultimately be punished with reduced rankings; as a result. Rather than using 80 exact “SEO Florida” links, you can use a variety of phrases and combinations of the same phrase (i.e. SEO Company in Florida, Florida SEO, SEO Service Florida, etc…). By using a mixture of related anchor text links, the search engines will view your site as a more natural destination for website visitors, and your site will be rewarded with increased search result rankings.
About the Author: Rhett DeMille, the owner of PalmettoSoft, is a leading search engine optimization consultant located in the Charlotte NC and Charleston SC areas.
