Tuesday, December 27, 2011

SEO Best Practices Part 8

Anchor Text

Choose descriptive text

The anchor text you use for a link should provide at least a basic idea of what the page linked to is about.
  • Example: Top 10 Rarest Stamps
  • Avoid:
    • Writing generic anchor text like “page”, “article”, or “click here”
    • Using text that is off-topic or has no relation to the content of the page linked to
    • Using the page’s URL as the anchor text in most cases (although there are certainly legitimate uses of this, such as promoting or referencing a new website’s address)

Write concise text

Aim for short but descriptive text – usually a few words or a short phrase.
  • Avoid: Writing long anchor text, such as a lengthy sentence or short paragraph of text

Format links so they’re easy to spot

Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and the anchor text of your links. Your content becomes less useful if users miss the links or accidentally click them.
  • Avoid: Using CSS or text styling that make links look just like regular text

Anchor text for internal links

You may usually think about linking in terms of pointing to outside websites, but paying more attention to the anchor text used for internal links can help users and search engines navigate your site better.
  • Avoid:
    • Using excessively keyword-filled or lengthy anchor text just for search engines
    • Creating unnecessary links that don’t help with the user’s navigation of the site

Write an anchor title

Having the link’s text be the text within the anchor’s title attribute will help increase usability and also affect page crawling.
  • Example: <a href=”http://www.leroysstampcollecting.com/collecting/kids” title=”kids stamp collecting”>kids stamp collecting</a>

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