Why Anchor Text Links Are Important In SEO Terms

Anchor text links are basically live links consisting of words which link to another web page. They are commonly used in SEO to not only provide a link back to a website and to pass on a certain amount of value to the destination page, but also to identify a key phrase or word you would like to rank higher for. So, rather than just having, click here to go to this web page (with the word 'here' containing the live link to that web page) you might want to include a particular keyword or phrase that you would like to gain better search positions for instead.

For example, as a company we offer SEO services to a particular area of England, so we always add our anchor text links with things like SEO Suffolk and Norfolk SEO services. This covers two well searched key phrases for us and these are the phrases we have optimised our site home pages for.

The search engines use this to track links coming back to a web page and anchor text links have always been used to highlight those keywords that you have optimised particular pages for. Therefore, if you have optimised a page for 'dog training' on your website, you will have a link on another site with the anchor text 'dog training' which contains a live link to the web page you have optimised this term for. This will then allow the search engines to give this link value for that keyword or phrase.

The more links you get like this, the better it is - but beware. The search engines frown on the use of link farms and sites that obviously sell links. Therefore, try to get these links on high quality sites in your chosen niche and don't go down the very hazardous road of paying for thousands of links at a time. The lower quality links will certainly hold far less credibility and will only have short-term value. The search engines will also know who these link farm sites are and even if they don't you can bet that someone will spill the beans and tips them off. Therefore, go for quality. The anchor text links should be added to very authoritative websites, as a well as a number of smaller sites, but still in your chosen industry.

There is also the question of what looks natural to the search engines. The whole point about obtaining external links is that they should come from sites who have linked to you naturally. So, they have been to your site and seen some value in adding a link from their site to yours. This does not happen that often, but you can help this process by adding great, unique information to your site at every opportunity. If people like your site then some of them will link to you. They also want to give their visitors a better user experience and they feel that a link to you (another great site) is going to give their visitors that.

The latest panda update by google is changing the way we do SEO and the way we write web content. Gone are the days when you could just rewrite information or even get a software package to make it seem unique. Now you need to offer visitors something different; a unique angle or page with a personal experience, anecdote or some humor attached to it. People want more from the web these days and the search engines don't want to give them regurgitated material.

So, by all means get anchor text links but don't try too hard. If you purchase links and get too many too quickly, the search engines will be onto you. Remember, less is sometimes more, especially when it comes from a very high quality source. It will take a lot more of your time and effort to get the decent links and you can always offer to write unique content for them in return for a link - everyone wins all round then! It is still true - build it and they will come, but make sure you build it well and offer something very different.