Summersault Weblog

Hopefully after our last article, Search Engine Optimization Vol. 3: The <title> Tag, you’ve seen an increase in your site traffic due to a higher search engine ranking. This time we’re going to focus on a lesser known tip that will go a long way not only to help your search engine ranking, but your visitors as well. I’m talking, of course, about text hyperlinks.

Creating Good Hyperlinks

For most search engines their main goal is to find pages that relate, as closely as possible, to the word or phrase its users are searching for. When we link to something it’s typically because we want to share information with others online, which is the essence of the internet. So, when you link to a page the search engines pay special attention to the words used inside that link to help return search results that are more applicable and, hopefully, will help them find the information they’re looking for. Do you see why “Click here” isn’t good for linking?

Most search engines actually look for keywords in the hyperlinks and any text immediately surrounding the hyperlinks. What this means to you is that you should include your most important keyword phrases in the link itself and possibly the surrounding text.

A good way to get started down this road is to look through your content and find words/phrases that could be linked to other areas of your website. This will not only create text hyperlinks that contain good keywords, but will also make it easier for your visitors to find related content.

Here are some tips for using text hyperlinks in your content:

1. Try to include your most important keyword phrases within the hyperlink itself
2. Try to include supporting keywords (less important) in the text immediately surrounding your hyperlinks.
3. Be careful not to stuff your keywords! Make sure your links and surrounding text are still readable and make sense after you include a keyword phrase or two.
4. Remember that the focus should always be on providing visitors with the information they’re looking for. You’re not helping anyone if you have the #1 spot on Google and your content isn’t useful or pertinent.

Here are a few WRONG examples for a site about dog food:

• If you would like to learn more about our certified Angus Beef puppy chow, click here.
• To learn more about our degree programs please see this link.

To help optimize the above items for search engines I would use the following:

• If you’re interested in high-quality feed for your family’s little best friend read more about our certified Angus Beef puppy chow.
• Earthwind College has many wonderful Associate and Bachelor degree programs for a variety of interests and skills. See our complete list of degree programs to find out which one is for you!

Not too hard is it? You want your content to be seen by your visitors, so why not make it easy to find?

This concludes volume 4 of the Search Engine Optimization series. Check back soon for the next volume which will discuss how to use Heading tags to add relevance to your content and increase search engine ranking. Until then, feel free to post your questions and I’ll see if I can help.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 11:57 am and is filed under Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.