Hey everyone, let’s talk SEO strategy real quick.
(… I’ll be back with the next step in our Affiliate Marketing Tutorial shortly… )
There are many different moving pieces that make up the entire SEO ‘machine’…
… and that actually makes it pretty tough to accurately and definitively test out different elements and gauge the impact a given tactic might have on your rankings.
Having said that, I still try to run as many different tests as possible to see what works best for me.
Not to go off on a tangent or anything, but the SEO world can be pretty annoying if you pay much attention to it.
I mean, you’ve got a boatload of Internet marketers and gurus who all have varying opinions of what the “best practices” really are…
One of those commonly debated topics is whether or not it’s important to vary your anchor text when building links — and if so, how often and to what degree you should do it.
Throughout the past couple years I’ve achieved top organic rankings for hundreds (maybe even thousands) of keywords. And in the process, I’ve played around with anchor text quite a bit.
At times, I’ve been extremely aggressive, building links that have the target keyword I’m trying to rank for used as the anchor text in 100% of the backlinks. Other times, I’ve been very cautious, mixing up the anchor text with nearly every backlink built.
And to be honest, I’ve seen good results both ways.
But perhaps the BEST results I’ve seen have been as of late, when I’ve mixed up the anchor text in a specific manner…
Strategic Anchor Text Variation
Okay, here’s what I’ve been doing the past two months with great results…
I’ve been varying the anchor text almost every time, but in a very specific way. Basically, I always try to have the exact keyword contained within the anchor text, but I’ll strategically add words before and/or after the exact target keyword as well.
Oh and I don’t just use any random words as fillers — I use LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords and variations as pointed out to me by Google, via their Adwords Keyword Tool and Google Instant, which finishes phrases instantaneously as you begin to enter them into the search field.
To see how this all plays out, let’s assume you wanted to rank for the keyword “Internet marketing course.”
The first backlink I build would use the anchor text “Internet marketing course.”
Then, I’d begin using smart variations based on what Google tells me THEY think is related to this keyword. Here is a screenshot from the Google Adwords keyword tool:
… and from Google Instant:
Based off these quick checks, I could go on to use anchor text variations like “free Internet marketing course,” “online Internet marketing course,” “best Internet marketing course,” “internet marketing courses,” “Internet marketing courses online” and so on and so forth…
In this manner, not only are you using extreme variation, which looks more natural… but you’re also using LSI keywords to point back to your pages, which boosts relevancy for your main keyword in Google’s eyes. In addition, you’re still including your primary keyword in each of these variations, so it’s not like you’re wasting any of these links.
Give this a shot for your next major link building campaign and see what kinds of results you get. I’m guessing you’ll be happy with the outcome ;-)
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Sweet tip, Brad! You’re the 1st person I’ve seen that has shared this info so way to go! I’ve heard about varying my anchor text in my backlinks but YOU actually told us HOW to do it. Now I understand the strategy and what to do. I will try this.
Gave you a Stumble, a Digg, a Tweet, a Like and a +1
Hey, thanks Dan… my pleasure — and I really appreciate the love… thanks for taking the time to share buddy…
Brad
What percentage of main keyword anchor text do you use?
Anywhere from 40-60% for most keywords, and this has always worked very well for me.
Brad,
I really like these tips, thanks for sharing! If I submit articles to article databases, should I use my main anchor text with all the articles(using your strategy here) or should I use article specific anchor text… thanks in advance!
I’d try to use your main anchor text with variations as discussed in this post. The article doesn’t always have to be about the exact topic (or the exact anchor you’re using), as long as you can fit the anchor text link into the article or resource box naturally so that it makes sense.
Refreshing, you not only showed me how to do it, you gave an example that made sense and was easy to follow. Nothing more frustrating than to think you know something. but because someone skipped a detail, your understanding is incomplete or worse yet wrong. Thank you for taking the time to spell it out. Subscribing in hopes of seeing more great SEO tips explained in adequate detail.
Thanks for the kind feedback, cbemerine ;-)
Thanks Brad for the brief explanation about the Anchor Text importance for getting your keywords on top, which i really did not knew. I am expecting more of this type techniques from you in your website that would really help to get better ranking in search.
Thanks Denney, glad you found this useful!
Thanks Brad. Really your article is very useful to me. Your explanation is friendly to readers. I expect more tips about SEO. Please share with us.
Hi Bharathi, thank you for the comment. I am testing out some new SEO tactics and will be sharing the results soon. Thanks again ;-)
This strategy works after penguin?
Hey Rogger, yes it still is working for me, however, the way things are going with Google… I’d now advise to simply get links without worrying at all what the anchor text says. The more variation, the better.