In another thread, we were talking about linking to and tweeting about a blog post to help it get seen by more people. To maximize the affect, here's a quick tutorial on how to give and get the most out of your links.
1. ANCHOR TEXT IS VERY IMPORTANT
Anchor text is the word or group of words you use to link to another page. Anchor text is most effective when it includes keywords that apply specifically to the landing page (target of your link.)
Examples:
Weak: You can read more details here.
Why: While it does send the visitor to a new page for more information, it does not specifically tell search engines about the content of the page being linked to.
Better: You can read more details about our flower shop here.
Why: In this example, we are linking to a page about our store. It IS a flower shop so it will reinforce to search engines you indeed are a flower shop. It will also help you rank in search engines for the term 'flower shop.'
Best: Visit our Anaheim florist to see more holiday arrangements.
Why: Ranking for the generic term 'flower shop' or 'florist' isn't going to be as beneficial for most brick and mortar stores as ranking for your geographic area (city, region, etc...) plus your business topic (florist, flowers, flower shop, wedding flowers, funeral flowers, etc...)
The anchor text indicates relevance to the topic.
The more authority a site has that is linking to your site and the more links you have themed similarly from different sources, the more search engines will trust that the anchor text is meaningful.
For example, a link to your home page from the New York Times with 'Philadelphia Florist' or 'Sunrise Florist' or 'Toronto Florist' would be a home run. It would probably send you to the top of the results for that term. A bunch of links from less well-known sites can also have a similar affect.
You may not have a lot of authority from your site alone, but a group using similar anchor text (not the same words or it may appear to be a spam effort) can push a site up in search engine rankings.
Example: ProflowersNote an article from FloristDetective.com ranks #6 on the first results page. It got there in part by having inbound links from a bunch of flower shops.
Linking works to drive messages, but we local florists just don't do it enough - both for our own sites and for industry issues.
2. WRITE PAGES AND BLOG POSTS THAT PEOPLE WANT TO LINK TO
Compose articles, product pages and blog posts that are interesting, unique, easy to read and relevant - and add titles and tags (for blog posts) that include the most appropriate keywords.
Don't make your article one long paragraph!!!! Break it up into one or two sentence groupings to make it more reader friendly and use bullet points or lists to get your points across.
Few will link to a post or page about your shop products unless they are unique or share an angle not usually seen in your area so make your stuff interesting and be especially sure to include a photo or two or more of flowers!
Writing about other businesses also invites folks to link to you, too.
Hope this helps you make your outgoing links more meaningful, and helps you earn more relevant incoming links, too.
1. ANCHOR TEXT IS VERY IMPORTANT
Anchor text is the word or group of words you use to link to another page. Anchor text is most effective when it includes keywords that apply specifically to the landing page (target of your link.)
Examples:
Weak: You can read more details here.
Why: While it does send the visitor to a new page for more information, it does not specifically tell search engines about the content of the page being linked to.
Better: You can read more details about our flower shop here.
Why: In this example, we are linking to a page about our store. It IS a flower shop so it will reinforce to search engines you indeed are a flower shop. It will also help you rank in search engines for the term 'flower shop.'
Best: Visit our Anaheim florist to see more holiday arrangements.
Why: Ranking for the generic term 'flower shop' or 'florist' isn't going to be as beneficial for most brick and mortar stores as ranking for your geographic area (city, region, etc...) plus your business topic (florist, flowers, flower shop, wedding flowers, funeral flowers, etc...)
The anchor text indicates relevance to the topic.
The more authority a site has that is linking to your site and the more links you have themed similarly from different sources, the more search engines will trust that the anchor text is meaningful.
For example, a link to your home page from the New York Times with 'Philadelphia Florist' or 'Sunrise Florist' or 'Toronto Florist' would be a home run. It would probably send you to the top of the results for that term. A bunch of links from less well-known sites can also have a similar affect.
You may not have a lot of authority from your site alone, but a group using similar anchor text (not the same words or it may appear to be a spam effort) can push a site up in search engine rankings.
Example: ProflowersNote an article from FloristDetective.com ranks #6 on the first results page. It got there in part by having inbound links from a bunch of flower shops.
Linking works to drive messages, but we local florists just don't do it enough - both for our own sites and for industry issues.
2. WRITE PAGES AND BLOG POSTS THAT PEOPLE WANT TO LINK TO
Compose articles, product pages and blog posts that are interesting, unique, easy to read and relevant - and add titles and tags (for blog posts) that include the most appropriate keywords.
Don't make your article one long paragraph!!!! Break it up into one or two sentence groupings to make it more reader friendly and use bullet points or lists to get your points across.
Few will link to a post or page about your shop products unless they are unique or share an angle not usually seen in your area so make your stuff interesting and be especially sure to include a photo or two or more of flowers!
Writing about other businesses also invites folks to link to you, too.
Hope this helps you make your outgoing links more meaningful, and helps you earn more relevant incoming links, too.
