Link Building - the Importance of Anchor Text

This may seem like a really simple posting and some of you more advanced readers may want to skip this, but I think it's important to get the basic things right. I've already talked about a few strategies to link building for your website, BUT what's also equally important is how you get these links.

Anchor text basically just means the text you use for the link - the actual words that the url will direct you to. These typically would be your keywords that you have optimised for that particular page on your website. This is very often overlooked by many website owners - and there needs to be no more proof that this. That's an example of anchor text right there. I've used the word "this" but sent a completely different url in there. The link shows that the words "click here" give an organic number 1 listing in the SERPS to Adobe reader!



So anchor text linking is very important for gaining your links, but it's as equally important ON SITE. Avoid using links such as the words "next" or "following page" or "continue" - and try and really use the keywords on your website. If you have a natural web design and layout, you will be able to direct your users exactly where you want them to go, so it's just as easy to optimise your on-site links which will help slightly improve your position on the SERPs as well as letting the crawling robots know more about your site and it's structure.

Would you like to optimise your website? I offer affordable website optimisation in Barcelona and also Barcelona SEO Training in your company so you can take control of your website's destiny and start seeing improvements.

Link Building - Article Marketing

As I've mentioned on a few occasions, building links is one of the most important parts to a good SEO campaign.

One-way links to your site are also a great start to building your link arsenal, but can often be hard to attain. Link baiting is one clear way of going down this route, but if your site/blog is new then you can post something as controversial or challenging as you like but if next to no-one sees the post then it will never become viral. So there's a great way of obtaining one way links AND the possibility of generating even more from this source, too. Article marketing.



Article marketing is unique in that an article itself can become reprinted freely on any other website/blog, etc. BUT that you have two links to your site at the bottom of the article which always need to be re-printed along with the main body. So, if you write a good article about your niche, it might be re-printed on tens of other websites. If you write a great article, the viral aspect can earn you a lot of links - for free!

Now, some SEOs are announcing the early death of article marketing, with many sites allegedly using the nofollow attribute on your links. And there are now hundreds of article re-print sites offering this service. So my advice is to choose a handful of sites, and then track the links via your stats package (or Google Webmaster tools/Google analytics). Don't waste time writing an article and then trying to find all the possible sites you can - remember, google doesn't like duplicate content, so the vast amajority would be ignored anyway. The best idea is to write another article in that time, and build up your status as an expert in your field, which is great for branding and getting your name out there.

For more link building techniques and tips, contact me at Barcelona SEO - I'll be happy to discuss your website and help to plan a strategy together.

Link building 2 - more stratergies to implement.

As previously mentioned link building is an integral part of any SEO campaign, and putting all your eggs in one basket is not reccomended. No-one ever knows if Google or any or the other search engines will de-value certain types of links you have built, which means if you have only concentrated on one main area, then this could seriously affect your position. Here are some new ideas to focus on your link building.

I have also already commented on Link Baiting, which is one of the best ways to gain traffic. You can also search forums in your sector, and become an active contributer to these forums. Over time you will be able to offer suggestions, with perhaps a relative link to your own site. Some forums also allow HTML links as a signature, giving you a pwerful anchor text to your site.

Setting up an e-mail signature in your e-mail with your main search terms is also a fantastic idea. This does not create immediate links which will show up in Google, but is creating Branding for your company, and making an unconscious association of the keywords with your comapny and website. This is also very important.

Become an active Blogger. Leave comments on other people's blogs and read around. If you don't know where to start, you can use Google's Beta Blogsearch. Use it exactly as you would the normal search bar, and this will give you related results from various time frames, starting with the most recent posts in your area. Don't Spam however, and remember that many comments need to be moderated before being published.

For Link Building Services Barcelona please contact me at http://www.barcelona-seo.com

Link Baiting. Content is King.

Link baiting is possibly the best way to create 1-way links to your website and can provide fantastic results in a very short space of time, as it is considered viral.
The idea of link baiting is to create content on your website that people will want to link to, especially bloggers, social networkers (facebook, digg, de.licio.us, stumble upon,Myspace, etc. etc.). If you have something interesting, then it's natural that people will link to it. This can be done in numerous ways:

Create original content on your site. Content is King, and don't you forget it. If you have information on your site that is genuinely interesting, or perhaps gives an insight or another angle to the common viewpoint, then it's got a good chance of being tagged and linked to. Write unknown facts about your sector, or give a top 10 list - these are potentially huge winners, and if it spreads quickly, can earn you hundreds and ven thousands of links. Giving people something that seems unuique or something supposedly unknown is a very powerful viral technique.

Another way to gain popularity is to be controversial - challange a widely held belief, but be prepared to back yourself up. Also saying something nasty or unpopular can draw lots of attention, but be careful with the content you want to add to your site.

Giving something useful away on your site is another great way to gain links. A funny widget, or a genuinely useful tool that can lead people back to your site is very valuble.

Link baiting is something you need to try and persevere - maybe you won't get it right the first time round, but look at others doing the same thing and see how you can apply it to your sector.

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Link Building - the time consumer.

According to SEO Guru, Aaron Wall, link building is the single most effective stratergy to ensure your rankings go higher in search engines. Here is a direct quote "Link Building... Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it's still the trump card for higher rankings. "

Link building is, to be blunt, a pain. It is something very difficult to control and monitor, often frustrating and due to algorithm changes in Google (let's use Google as the example), can often wipe out weeks or maybe even months of work.


Aaron uses the word "trump card" to great effect, as any card player will know, you may be dealt several hands before being dealt a trump card. And even then a higher suit may win the game. Over the next few weeks, I am going to try and simplify the link building process with some stone wall SEO link building techniques, all of which are shown in greater detail in my SEO day training packages.

One of the most obvious link building stratergies is link begging. This involves writing to the webmasters of various websites you deem fit enough to link to your website, and asking them for a 2-way link.

So how do you find these websites? Well, an easy way of going about this is to look at your competitors, and let google do the hard work. If you type into google's search bar "links: yourcompetitorsdomain.com" you will be presented with a list (not complete) of websites linking to this site. Contact these sites - it's likely that if they linked to your competition, they will be willing to link to your site, too. You can also check the same sites and click on their link pages, in case the google result has missed a few. Then check out the incoming link site, and if you like it, and think this would be valuable to your site, click on the linkpage of this site, too, and find out who is linking to them. And so on.
Link begging is a slow process and 70% or more of your emails will more than likely go straight into a spam box, or get deleted without being read. For this reason, it pays to take a little time to actually view the site you want to link to, and then comment on why you like it. A standard "Would you like to exchange links" email will go unread, but if you comment on a specific part of the site that interestsed you, and mention it, then you're more likely to get a positive response.

Please feel free to contact me for your Barcelona Online Marketing.