Today's article comes from my friend Michelle. She's an expert when it comes to Search Engines and how to get "found" on the internet. Michelle says:
Incoming links to your website, known as backlinks or inbound links, can play a vital role in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website. Backlinks are useful for tracking external pages that link to your website but, more importantly, using keyword rich backlinks can actually drive traffic to your website. We also know that search engines use backlinks as one of the components to determine a website's ranking when displaying search results.
Search engine spiders are intelligent computer programs that calculate a variety of factors that impact where you place in website ranking. Getting lots of links, that are not relevant, scattered on multiple websites is a futile effort because search engines typically match website relevancy as part of their formula. For example, if you sell real estate and you place your link on a blog commentary regarding aeronautical engineering, chances are a search engine will not give the link very much "credit". If, however, you place your real estate link on a blog that deals with kitchen makeovers, then you may get picked up by search engines that calculate the related connection between the content and your keywords rich backlink. The best way to make sure you are placing your link on relevant pages is to consider that keyword connection on the topic. If the keywords are "related" then it's most likely a good match.
Having the link to your site it great, but it is even more important that the anchor text for the link is created using appropriate related keywords. The anchor text is the descriptive label that identifies your hyperlink. Your anchor text should be comprised of keywords that are related to the content of the link's landing webpage. The same concept should be applied to image tags since spiders (a type of search engine bot) crawl the web looking at all keywords, including ones that are not part of the page's main body.
For instance, if you are linking to a site about the best chocolate chip cookies, you should use anchor text that reads something like "best chocolate chip cookies" instead of
http://www.mybestcookies.com/
even though you see sites linking directly with the URL in the anchor text, keyword rich anchor text is best.
So how do you take those anchor texts and turn them into results? It is all about the numbers. On site search engine optimization can only take you so far, you then have to work on improving your reputation through off site relevant backlinks.
Using search tools you can analyze the backlinks of your competitors to determine what you need to do to compete. If you have 20 relevant backlinks and your competitor has 100, then you need to level the playing field, and consistently add more backlinks to meet or exceed the 100 relevant backlinks of your competitors.
Don't misunderstand, backlinks are not the only factor, they are one of many factors, but often noted as the telling difference between a top search engine listing and a listing that brings you no results at all. But if you have maxed out your on site SEO, the next natural step is to begin building relevant, keyword rich backlinks to your site.
If you want better results from your website, you can always do your seo yourself or you can choose an SEO expert to help move your site to the next level.
Michelle Chance-Sangthong, a Jacksonville Florida SEO Expert provides local and national businesses with search engine marketing services to help them get more results from their website and other online marketing services including YouTube Marketing, Online Video, Google Places and Local Business Directories. When she is not helping clients with SEO, you can often catch her making local presentations as a public speaker for SEO topics.
Incoming links to your website, known as backlinks or inbound links, can play a vital role in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of your website. Backlinks are useful for tracking external pages that link to your website but, more importantly, using keyword rich backlinks can actually drive traffic to your website. We also know that search engines use backlinks as one of the components to determine a website's ranking when displaying search results.
Search engine spiders are intelligent computer programs that calculate a variety of factors that impact where you place in website ranking. Getting lots of links, that are not relevant, scattered on multiple websites is a futile effort because search engines typically match website relevancy as part of their formula. For example, if you sell real estate and you place your link on a blog commentary regarding aeronautical engineering, chances are a search engine will not give the link very much "credit". If, however, you place your real estate link on a blog that deals with kitchen makeovers, then you may get picked up by search engines that calculate the related connection between the content and your keywords rich backlink. The best way to make sure you are placing your link on relevant pages is to consider that keyword connection on the topic. If the keywords are "related" then it's most likely a good match.
Having the link to your site it great, but it is even more important that the anchor text for the link is created using appropriate related keywords. The anchor text is the descriptive label that identifies your hyperlink. Your anchor text should be comprised of keywords that are related to the content of the link's landing webpage. The same concept should be applied to image tags since spiders (a type of search engine bot) crawl the web looking at all keywords, including ones that are not part of the page's main body.
For instance, if you are linking to a site about the best chocolate chip cookies, you should use anchor text that reads something like "best chocolate chip cookies" instead of
http://www.mybestcookies.com/
even though you see sites linking directly with the URL in the anchor text, keyword rich anchor text is best.
So how do you take those anchor texts and turn them into results? It is all about the numbers. On site search engine optimization can only take you so far, you then have to work on improving your reputation through off site relevant backlinks.
Using search tools you can analyze the backlinks of your competitors to determine what you need to do to compete. If you have 20 relevant backlinks and your competitor has 100, then you need to level the playing field, and consistently add more backlinks to meet or exceed the 100 relevant backlinks of your competitors.
Don't misunderstand, backlinks are not the only factor, they are one of many factors, but often noted as the telling difference between a top search engine listing and a listing that brings you no results at all. But if you have maxed out your on site SEO, the next natural step is to begin building relevant, keyword rich backlinks to your site.
If you want better results from your website, you can always do your seo yourself or you can choose an SEO expert to help move your site to the next level.
Michelle Chance-Sangthong, a Jacksonville Florida SEO Expert provides local and national businesses with search engine marketing services to help them get more results from their website and other online marketing services including YouTube Marketing, Online Video, Google Places and Local Business Directories. When she is not helping clients with SEO, you can often catch her making local presentations as a public speaker for SEO topics.
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