To help a page get ranked in the search engines for specific keywords, ensure the links to that page use the keywords in the anchor text. This is one of the most misunderstood yet simple SEO tricks to rank better for a specific keywords.
In the Search Ranking Factors report published in June 2011 by SEOMoz, 132 of the world’s leading SEO experts voted that having keyword in anchor text still plays a significant role in helping a page to rank for the keyword in the anchor text.
Example: if you’re trying to help page A get ranked for the term “get more visitors” then you put a link from page B to A, with “get more visitors” in the text of the link, like this: We also offer a service to help you <a href=“a.html”>get more visitors</a>.
Now page B has sent some link reputation to page A. Page A should rank just a little higher, when people search for get more visitors.
The more competitive the keyword you are trying to to get a page to rank for, the more links to that page you are going to need to help improve your rankings. Internal links from within your site will only get you so far, and you will also want to spend some effort on bringing links in from the rest of the web. In both cases only links with the keyword in the anchor text will help rank for that keyword.
Just to clarify the point, if we had structured the link in the above example like this: “We also offer a service to help you get more visitors.<a href=“a.html”>Click here</a> to find out about the service.” Page A would be ranking better for “click here”. Not what we want at all.
One surefire way to get external links (where you can control the anchor text) is to post articles in quality article directories like eZineArticles.com with a link to your page with the keywords in the anchor text in the bio at the end of the article.
Remember that fundamentally SEO is about controlling 4 things
- The quality of your page’s content and use of keywords in your title tag, meta description and tags (which we cover in another post (see related posts below)
- The way you structure your site and link the pages together
- The reputation you get from anchor text both internal to the site and from external sources
- Getting authority from quality external links and other stuff