Important Link Building Guidelines

[shazbot]

Hello everyone! I am new to this forum and hope to be able to contribute. First, an interesting question about one of the most important fundamentals in SEO. We all know that putting your important keywords in your anchor text is critical. But what is better to do:

Put several keywords, phrases in one link, i.e. allergy help, allergy medicine, allegra

or break it up into 3 seperate links like: allergy help allergy medicine allegra

Obviously you have more control doing the latter if the links are on a site you own. Whereby if you are buying an expensive PR7, PR8 link, you want to get the most bank for your buck. Does targeting 3 keywords instead of one on a singular link lower the relevency, or doesn't it matter as long as the keywords you are targeting are in present the anchor text? Is there a limit to how many keywords you can put in a singular link?

[UltraZulu]

hi shazbot, wellcome to the forums

I believe that the more specific you can be the better. If I was going to buy a high PR link (which is not always the best thing to do) I would do it with my best keyword/phrase.

If I was selling accommodation online I would imagine my best keywords would be the area names and the type of accommodation. I would go about getting very specific keywords/phrases together and then base my link building on that. Examples would be:

cape town accommodation
cape town flatlets
cape town bed and breakfast
cape town hotels

If I used "cape town accommodation flatlets bed and breakfast hotels" as anchor text it would not only be confusing to a user, the search engine would not be able to categorise the link in the way you would want. Another think to consider is, will a user really search for all those keywords as one string.

Hope that helps.

[shazbot]

If I used "cape town accommodation flatlets bed and breakfast hotels" as anchor text it would not only be confusing to a user, the search engine would not be able to categorise the link in the way you would want. Another think to consider is, will a user really search for all those keywords as one string.


Thank you for a great response. But aren't the SE's sophisticated enough to be able to break up the keywords (or phrases) if you used a comma or semicolon so it sees them seperately and not as one string?
i.e. cape town accommodation flatlets bed and breakfast hotels compared to cape town; accommodation flatlets; bed and breakfast hotels or cape town, accommodation flatlets, bed and breakfast hotels

This way, whether you are purchasing a link, or requesting or trading a link from someone, you get 3+ targeted keyphrases for your landing page instead of just one. It seems to me if the name of the game is to get as many relevant inbound links as you can for as many relevent keywords in the anchor text as you can, this strategy would maximize your efforts (IF the SE's see the phrases seperately and IF each phrase is given equal weight as a singular phrase).

It seems to make logical sense that it would work, and should be an integral part of maximizing link building, but I am not sure if it is correct. Any thoughts? :)

[seobook]

This way, whether you are purchasing a link, or requesting or trading a link from someone, you get 3+ targeted keyphrases for your landing page instead of just one. It seems to me if the name of the game is to get as many relevant inbound links as you can for as many relevent keywords in the anchor text as you can, this strategy would maximize your efforts (IF the SE's see the phrases seperately and IF each phrase is given equal weight as a singular phrase).

if they gave each word the same amount of weight and did not deweight the phrases for adding more then lots of people would use really long link text.

best to use a variety of short variations of your primary phrases and related terms. keep most links somewhat short so you get to mix up the overall link text more.

[shazbot]

Hey! From the expert himself! I purchased your book when I just started out and it was excellent. It gave me a broad base of knowledge to start from.

Anchor text is critically important so I really want to get it down...

So it sounds like you agree that you can use more than one phrase in a single link as long as you keep it short, right? (and I assume the keywords in the link need to be seperated by commas or semicolons)? And it also sounds like youre saying that the longer you make it (the more phrases and keywords you stuff into one link) the less weight it will have with the SE's.

I just want to clarify things because if i need to target plastic chairs, wooden chairs, and outdoor chairs I can get links like: plastic chairs, wooden chairs, outdoor chairs every so often instead of having to go after each one individually.

Here is one more important question: if you do have the opportunity for someone to give you a number of links on their website to yours, is it safe to put like 10 of your targeted keywords seperated, but in a row? For example: plastic chairs wooden chairs outdoor chairs umbrellas outdoor furniture etc. Or would lining up all of these keywords in a row without the context of surrounding content raise a red flag in Google?

[glengara]

Must say multiple phrases look too contrived, a "real" link would rarely use them, IMO.

[shazbot]

Must say multiple phrases look too contrived, a "real" link would rarely use them, IMO.

Yes, but would the SE's see it that way? Consider the myriad of links in directories, at the bottom of high PR pages, all over the place. Very rarely do I see good, targeted anchor text links appear "naturally" in a web page. "Natural" or unsolicited links seem to almost always be URLs.

The big question here is how will Google see the links, and will they help or are they red flags that will be neutral or hurt your overall rankings?

I can't see how it would be a bad thing if it is on someone else's site and they are good relevant links. Google knows that you can't control what someone else does on their site. These links should be a benefit, no?

[Mel]

Ask yourself which is more relevant to blue widgets:

Blue widgets

we sell grunks, fambles, horses, blue widgets, fireflies and horse manure.

Search engines strive for relevancy first last and always.

[seobook]

Hey! From the expert himself! I purchased your book when I just started out and it was excellent. It gave me a broad base of knowledge to start from.
thanks for buying and liking my ebook. :)

I think in my ebook I probably said multiple short links is better than one long string of keywords, but I will go back through it and ensure that it conveys that idea well.