Probably one of the most important elements of keyword use is in anchor text. Anchor text is text
found on a given web site that appears to be a hyperlink.
on web pages that companies often use it without any thought as to how it could affect their search
engine rankings.
How you use anchor text does matter, however, because anchor text is one of the most important
search engine ranking factors. When a search engine looks at your web page, it automatically follows
all the links that you have on the page. If those links (or even a large portion of those links)
are text-based links, that’s even better, because then what the search engine sees is not just the link
to another page, but also your keywords. It’s not enough just to make all your links text-based,
however. There’s a fine science to taking advantage of the power of anchor text.
The first thing you should understand is that there are two kinds of anchor texts: yours and everyone
else’s. I’m not being facetious here. It really is important that you consider not only how you link
with other people, but also how they will link back to you. For example, if you do a Google search
for the term “click,” you’ll find that the Apple QuickTime web site is at the very top of the list. This
isn’t because Apple loaded down the QuickTime site with the keyword “click.” What’s actually happened
is that many people link to QuickTime using the word “click” in their anchor text. This isn’t
hard to believe, because most web sites that use the QuickTime application usually include a text
link to “Click here to download” or something similar. As you can see, it’s not just your own anchor
text that matters. How your site is included in others’ anchor text is also important.
found on a given web site that appears to be a hyperlink.
on web pages that companies often use it without any thought as to how it could affect their search
engine rankings.
How you use anchor text does matter, however, because anchor text is one of the most important
search engine ranking factors. When a search engine looks at your web page, it automatically follows
all the links that you have on the page. If those links (or even a large portion of those links)
are text-based links, that’s even better, because then what the search engine sees is not just the link
to another page, but also your keywords. It’s not enough just to make all your links text-based,
however. There’s a fine science to taking advantage of the power of anchor text.
The first thing you should understand is that there are two kinds of anchor texts: yours and everyone
else’s. I’m not being facetious here. It really is important that you consider not only how you link
with other people, but also how they will link back to you. For example, if you do a Google search
for the term “click,” you’ll find that the Apple QuickTime web site is at the very top of the list. This
isn’t because Apple loaded down the QuickTime site with the keyword “click.” What’s actually happened
is that many people link to QuickTime using the word “click” in their anchor text. This isn’t
hard to believe, because most web sites that use the QuickTime application usually include a text
link to “Click here to download” or something similar. As you can see, it’s not just your own anchor
text that matters. How your site is included in others’ anchor text is also important.
