Top Webmaster Headlines Microsoft Exits Classified Listings Business Google App Engine "Accidentally" Blocks PayPal Does Apple's Steve Jobs Have Cancer Again? AOL Announces Revenue Sharing for Open AIM Yahoo, Carl Icahn wrestle for shareholder votes Breaking Blog News New 3G iPhone 2.0 Gets Loopt Trust the Linkers, Not The Links How to Explore Backlinks Anchor Text Google Maps Adds Richer Data to Search Friendfeed will Change Journalism, PR and Marketing US Blog Readership Stands in the Shadow of the UK

Become an SEO Pro with 3 Simple Strategies By Michael Small (c) 2008
	Google is all about linking. And if you want to snatch a top spot in Google's search results you need to link like a pro. But don't worry. Linking is a whole lot easier today than it was a few years ago. Experience has taught us a lot and with the information in this article you won't need to worry about endless trial and error. We have a repeatable process that anyone can do, as easy as 1, 2, 3. Permanent PR0-PR6 One Way Link Building Service Only $1.4 / Link! Benefits:    1. Permanent Link Guarantee. Removed links replaced for FREE.    2. Our service includes 28 FREE SEO and 5 FREE Link Building Services.    3. Our links will come from high PR pages: up to PR6! Link Samples.    4. 16 different SEO reports will be provided to you upon completion.    5. 60+ positive client testimonials posted on forums since 2005.        Link Building Prices That said; let's take a look at the linking strategies that Google will give you the most credit for... Link Strategy 1: Reap the Most Benefit from Anchor Text You probably already know that anchor text is the clickable word or words that make up a hyperlink. But what you may not yet fully realize is just how powerful anchor text is. Want to see for yourself? Try a simple experiment... Go to Google.com and search for "click here" (without quotes.) Did you get a link for Adobe Acrobat Reader at number 1? Why is that? Check out the page. They have no mention of "click here" anywhere on the page or in the META tags. So why does it rank number 1 on Google for "click here"? It's all thanks to anchor text. More specifically, it's because of the countless pages that have "click here" as anchor text that links to Adobe's Acrobat Reader download page. Did you notice how many competing pages there are for "click here" on Google? Almost Two Billion! Anchor text is extremely important. Here are a few rules of thumb to get the most from yours... A.) Use your three most important keywords for your anchor text. Specifically, your most important word 60% of the time; your second most important keyword 25% and your third keyword 15%. And that is for every page you link to (each page should focus on two to three keywords.) B.) Use "long tail" keywords when appropriate (3 or more words in the keyword phrase.) C.) If your anchor text is part of a paragraph, like a signature block, make certain the surrounding text is optimized for the keyword you want or close variations. And make sure that text is varied. You want to have plenty of versions of the surrounding text block so Google doesn't ding it as duplicate content. Link Strategy 2: Make Your Target URLs Laser Accurate URL accuracy, or format consistency, is extremely important. Be sure to use the exact same URL whenever you request a link. Even though a URL link beginning with "http" or "www" (or both) might resolve to the same webpage, Google sees them as different destinations. Want to see for yourself? Go back to Google.com and enter "Links: http:// " (without quotes) followed by www... any domain name you want. This will give you the inbound links for that specific domain. OK, easy enough. Jot down the number of links. Now try it again WITHOUT the "www." And record the number of links. Now try it a third time with the "www" but NOT the http://". Are you getting different numbers? This is because Google sees them as different link destinations. Link Strategy 3: Go Beyond Reciprocal Linking Reciprocal links just aren't enough any more. Google now discounts the importance of simple link swaps so reciprocal links alone will not do the trick like they used to. But don't worry, with a little time or money or both, you can have the best links imaginable. The two fastest and least expensive ways are by submitting your site to directories or paying a link service, but NOT a reciprocal linking service. Let's start with directories... But before we do, there are two downsides to links from directories that I need to mention. First, Google has been discounting directory links over the past few months. Second, some directories charge a fee to get listed (for example Yahoo charges $299 per year!) But don't despair. Links from directories may not be all they used to, but they still help your SEO efforts. There's a page I like to check out that has the top directories listed as well as links to the site, their GRP (Google PageRank rating), cost (if any) and more; StrongestLinks.com You can click on the column headings to sort by any category you want. This makes finding the freebies, or top GPR sites quick and easy. This site also appears to have some sort of paid membership available, but I just use the free link above and it does all I need and more. Important Note: There is a third possible risk that comes from link farms, which are sometimes very similar to certain link services. That risk is having too many inbound links coming from a single IP range (Internet Protocol address.) Google HATES this and will discount all these links, or worse. As for reciprocal linking services, I recommend you avoid them like the plague. However there is a nice solution called "3 way linking" that still allows you the set it and forget it option. Here's one service I've had great results with... 3WayLinker.com does not link sites back to each other reciprocally. Instead it creates a series of one way links that are counted purely as inbound links by Google. Even more it helps eliminate duplicate content in your link text and makes sure all inbound links are from a wide range of IP addresses. Here's how it works... Site "A" links to site "B". Site "B" links to site "C". And then site "C" links to site "A". So each is a true one way link. This also gives the system more options regarding which sites form a team. With reciprocal links, if both sites use the same hosting provider, there is a very high chance you will be linked within the same IP range. With three way linking this problem is eliminated. So to recap, 1.) Get the most out of your anchor text; 2.) Be very consistent with your link URL, and 3.) Do more than just reciprocal linking. Now go get that top spot you've been after! About The Author Mike Small is a 10 year veteran SEO professional and founder of SEOpartner.com, a free blog dedicated to helping website owners grab the top spots on the best search engines. Printer Friendly Version of this Article

Recent Articles of Interest

June 5, 2008 - How Does a Search Engine Rank Your Page?,    by Chris Wainwright June 6, 2008 - Targeting Niche Audiences - AOL's New Branding Strategy,    by Scott Buresh June 9, 2008 - Using Social Media To Drive Traffic,    by Matt Jackson June 11, 2008 - What Google Thinks Of Your Site?,    by Titus Hoskins Need Content for Your Website - GoArticles.com has 844,700+ Articles Grab a GoArticles RSS Feed or add a Content Feed in seconds from one or more of 90+ article categories.

Have an Opinion on Today's Article? Let's Hear From You. Post Your Comments at SiteProNews.com Participate - Feedback is Welcome

Recommended Webmaster EBooks, Tools & Services

Build Your Traffíc with ABCSearch Google Ranking Secrets Revealed! Boost Your Google Ranking, Get More Orders, And Make More Monëy! Top SEO Tools & Services Sign up for a Frëe 14 day test drive to ExactSEO v6.0, a suite of the best, online SEO, Submission and Reporting Tools available.