What is 'Anchor Text'?
Anchor Text is the text that people click on to get to your site. For example, if I link to my site like this: http://www.HomeInspectorPro.com then the anchor text is the address itself.
The type of link I listed above is pretty much useless to search engines as the link often says nothing about what the page is about. And worse of all, it contains none of the words that someone will be searching for in a search engine.
What's a better link? How about this: Home Inspection Software . That link goes to the SAME SITE as the previous link, but the text that I'm using contains what I think people will type into a search engines when looking for a program, "Home Inspection Software." By using the keyword in my anchor text I'm telling google, hey, this page is about Home Inspection Software!
This is probably one of the top 3 ways to get good search engine rankings. One caveat, do not use the same anchor text over and over again, that looks too obvious to Google and the other search engines. Try different links.
Lets look at an example of ways to link to Bob Elliot's site: http://www.elliotthomeinspection.com/
We could do the generic link which does little to help us:
http://www.elliotthomeinspection.com/
Or we could start using keywords.
Chicago Home Inspections
Chicago Condo Property Inspections
Chicagoland Really Cool Home Inspector
If the marketing section of the forum was open to google, then within a week or so if you googled "Chicagoland Really Cool Home Inspector" Bob's site would be number 1.
Note that Anchor text is important for people linking TO your site and also in how you link from one page on your site to another WITHIN your site.
Make sure to check out the previous SEO tips to make your website rise to the top
List yourself in our Home Inspector Directory for free too!Disclaimer: All my competition must ignore this thread
