SEO Anchor Text Selection – On Page
Our discussion of on-page SEO (search engine optimization) continues as we tackle the question of how to select anchor text for links within your own website, otherwise known as on-page seo. Brought to you by Lucidpage SEO and Web Design of Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
Let’s assume you have a website that you want to rank highly for the search phrase, “anytown auto repair” and you have decided to create several articles, to be turned into individual pages on your website, in order to establish topic relevance for auto repair in the eyes of the search engines, primarily Google.
Based on this, you create the following articles, ranging from 500-700 words each:
- The Most Important Auto Maintenance For Your Car
- Auto Repair in Colder Climates
- Top Ten Costliest Auto Repairs
- Car Repair Ripoffs to look Out For
- Car Repairs You Can Perform in Your Driveway
You write the articles, or have them written, and now you are ready to post them on your website, each on it’s own page, and each with a text link pointing back to the landing page you are trying to rank for your primary search phrase, mentioned above. You start creating your pages. When you create your text links for search engine optimization purposes, what specific text are you going to use inside the link?
In other words, the clickable portion of the link, otherwise known as the anchor text? What will help you most with Google and the other search engines? Well, the good news is, since this is your own site, you have much more flexibility to use exactly the anchor text you want for these links. Additionally, Google isn’t as strict about having your anchor text “over-optimized” on your own website, so there is a lot more leeway for you, the site owner.
Here’s how I would do it, based on my experience as a professional SEO service provider with hundreds of ranked web pages behind me.
It doesn’t matter which article you place the following links in. The important thing is to use slightly different anchor text in each article, and also to use some generic type anchor text, as I’m about to show you. Please note that I am also going to vary where in each article the links are placed.
In the first article, I would place a link to my landing page in the very first paragraph of the article, using the following anchor text: “anytown auto repair.” Notice that in this article, I am using the exact anchor text I am trying to rank for. I will only do this once, possibly twice, in any series of topical relevance articles, also known as silos.
In my second topical article, I might place the link in the last paragraph, and I might choose the anchor text “car repair,” which is still very close and related to my search phrase.
In the third article, the middle of the article would be a good location for my link, and my anchor text could be, “www.mylandingpage.com.” Notice the use of what’s known as a “bare link.” This is a good way to mix things up a bit.
For article number four, I could return to the top, or maybe the second paragraph, and the seo anchor text, “Uptown Garage” or whatever the name of the business is.
Finally, for article five, a random location in the middle of the article would be a good choice, and the anchor text could be “click here” or “more information.” Either would be fine, or use your imagination and come up with your own.
There you have it… an anchor text strategy you will find useful when creating a topical relevance silo for SEO purposes on your business or local business website. Let me know how it goes! For more information on local seo, or web design, contact Lucidpage, INC..