Anthony Brewitt is a UK web designer who helps companies get the most out of the web. A specialist in business websites; blog design using Wordpress, & Ecommerce using Shopify.

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Hyperlinks and SEO

43

March 30th, 2007, Category: Website Marketing

I boast some decent results for some keywords in Google and I owe this mainly to hyperlinks. A simple SEO technique that keeps my web design blog near the top of Google, it’s not a breakthrough technique but do I get more visitors directly from Google then ever before.

Content is Queen

I read somewhere that “content is king” and for readers already engaged in your content that’s quite right, but for prospective readers not yet found, that’s wrong! The same article goes on to state that content isn’t king because for SEO there is a new heir to the throne and that content is actually now the queen. There’s a new king in town and he’s blue, underlined and will overthrow google if used properly.

Hyperlinks Reign

Hyperlinks are, in this humble web designers opinion, the most important weapon in our SEO arsenal, I like to think of them as the medieval trebuchet of SEO, that is they look like a weak bit of rope and wood but when they kick in their power overwhelms. Much like hyperlinks if we use them properly for SEO, once these simple targeted hyperlinks kick in you’ll be laughing.

Jolley Rum Case Study

I think this is easiest to explain using a case study so here’s the scenario:

You are making a website for a jewelers whom specialise and are interested in marketing mostly for Pirate Gold, they are called Jolley Rum Jewelers and their domain name is jolleyrumjewelers.com. You have designed them a great website and they have hired you to do a little SEO for them to get it off the ground.

Honest SEO

Firstly you should be honest and tell them that because it’s a new website it will take a little time for it to get indexed properly and to be able to compete with your competitors you will have to wait, but you can give them a boost for when the website is indexed.

Bad SEO Hyperlink

I used to do this and a lot of people still do, the name of the website is Jolley Rum Jewelers so obviously when I get people to link back to the website that will be the link text, so your hyperlink will look like this:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com">Jolley Rum Jewelers</a>

This will help people find the keyword “Jolley Rum Jewelers” which is great because googly will point people in the right direction when they want to find “Jolley Rum Jewelers”. I have heard that adding the keywords to the title attribute will also help, so lets add that in there too:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com" title="Jolley Rum Jewelers" >Jolley Rum Jewelers</a>

We have a perfectly good hyperlink with the name of the company in the link text and also their name in the title attribute to give a little boost too.

At this stage I would like to introduce a missing step that our designer should have taken and that is a simple process of contemplating what words people will input into Googly to find the Rum Jolleys Jewelers website. Do remember that googly try to find the most relevant content to your search terms, Here’s my best guess:

  1. Jeweler
  2. Pirate Gold

Users will not be searching for the website name, nor the jewelers name, users will be entering into Googly what they want and they want a jeweler, and they want Pirate Gold. Now lets have a look at the good hyperlink:

Good SEO Hyperlink

So we have properly identified the keywords that users will use to find the website and they are words that appear in the websites content. What we want to do is have Googly point to the jeweler’s via our chosen keywords. So the link text would want to be a keyword or two:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com" >Jeweler</a>

Actually I would suggest sticking in as many of your chosen keywords as possible but still keeping it readable:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com" >Jeweler's specialising in Pirate Gold</a>

I am not quite sure if this is completely true but I have heard that the link text on the left is more valuable than the link text on the right, so lets not take any chances and get our most valuable keyword “Pirate Gold” on the left most part of the link text:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com" >Pirate Gold specialist Jeweler's</a>

Now we may as well add a helpful title attribute, one that describes to a non visual user the nature of the resource it points too, we can add your keywords as well:


<a href="http://jolleyrumjewelers.com" title="Visit Rum Jolleys , a Pirate Gold Specialist jeweler's" >Pirate Gold specialist Jeweler's</a>

Now spread the word

We finally have a good SEO hyperlink that is optimized for the website now all you have to do is get it out there. I would recommend that you try searching your keywords and see what websites rank the highest. If you can get your link on these websites that’s a great start.

I would also recommend searching your keyword plus the word “forum” and reply to some threads with an answer that just happens to have/need your link within it, even if you cannot get your link in a post most forums allow a signature at the bottom of each post and this could be your optimized hyperlink.

Also do the same in blogs, these are trickier and usually moderated comments will find your hyperlinks and stop you adding them. The best option here is to truly have an opinion on the subject and suggest that you have an article that could help the topic, this article in this case could be “How to tell Pirate Gold from Fools Gold” as the link text of your hyperlink.

Also blogs usually allow you to have your name as a hyperlink, why not stick a keyword in your name for instance “Pirate Tony” or “Tony Gold”, they all add up.

Hyperlinks for SEO Conclusion

Lastly the page you should be directing these links at should be very readable but contain your keywords a handful of times, more importantly they should have your title tag and your first heading of that page should be your chosen keywords. Otherwise all this effort is wasted.

43 comments

  1. Mike Jolley

    Wise words, I will take note because I dident think of that technique, so thanks.

    “Jolley Rum Jewelers” My god thats a great idea lol

  2. Anthony

    lol, I dont know where I came up with that name Mr Jolley, those hyperlinks seem to work for me so give them a go.

  3. garamiz

    Great article about SEO, please write more :-)

  4. PODJA Jack

    Thanks for this article, it seems very useful. All the other articles I have read are all about Page Rank and submitting sites to directories. This one seems easier to understand and more inviting.

    thanks for such a great article!

  5. Anthony

    Glad to be of service, I always seem to get a good response with SEO articles, I think I will post more! :-)

  6. Mike Cherim

    Man, Anthony, you’re such an SEO-whore… just kidding ;-)

    This is pretty good advice and well-taken. In a way, though, a “link” is content and on the web I find the more direct you are the better off you’ll be. Same is true of headings, the title element, and even the text. Content on the web can and will be taken out of context so being clear is quite important.

    Note: I used the term “link” instead of “hyperlink.” I did that because I think “hyperlink” is a term reserved for intra-domain linkage whereas “link” is external. It was a while ago I read that so it’s probably morphed into something else by now but I did want to clarify that as it’s perhaps something worth looking into.

  7. Anthony

    “SEO Whore” LOL. I do agree with directness and Mike will probably appreciate my honest policy on title attribute text. I have stuck with hyperlinks as to not confuse when I talk about “link text”. I will ponder on this though, always a pleasure :-)

  8. Leeds Web Design

    Great article, thanks.

  9. Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines » Beast-Blog.com

    [...] As I mentioned when I started this post, these are solid, ethical practices to help your blog or site be properly and effectively indexed, but they are not the end-all, be-all. You need to write good content, use telling headings, maintain accessibility, and ensure you’re using the right mark-up for the right reasons. Couple these scriptlets with the solid practices mentioned, though, and the next thing you know you won’t need to hire an SEO expert to make you number one. Is this all? No. There are other things you can do to achieve greater benefits. Some will mention that permalink structures are beneficial. I’m not sure about this myself, but then again I can’t say it’d be in any way detrimental so go for it. Also, speaking of links, Anthony Brewitt offers some interesting insights pertaining to Hyperlinks and SEO. [...]

  10. Kevin Gallagher

    there is excellent videos on lynda.com on this subject i have just finished and found them great im new to seo and i think you really need to know some of it if you want your site to rank higher

  11. Anthony

    I often frequent Lynda.com, even if you don’t sign up for membership there are loads of great free video tutorials on a wide plethora of subjects.

  12. James Oppenheim

    Interesting article, it definitely helps to add extra keywords in and around all your href’s. However, I am still unsure what the real benefits are of the title attribute. I can’t hurt though.

  13. Anthony

    I have checked out your article and your blog and indeed you have a nice SEO resource! – I will be visiting more often :-)

  14. Kevin Gallagher

    if you are intrested in more on seo i have wrote an article on the subject you can lots of good resources in the artilce to help you out if you go to my blog you will find article any comments welcome you can find the article here http://umbrellawebsitedesign.co.uk/blog/archives/6

  15. Rukshan Kothwala

    very good tips to offsite SEO.
    The Site Writer :: Digital citizen Maker

    Good Luck

  16. Armen

    Solid advice. You touched on my 1 Stupidly Simple Tip.

  17. website design is the word

    would just like to say if anyone want to read part II of “website design that works” you can now at http://www.umbrellawebsitedesign.co.uk/blog thanks

  18. website design bolton manchester

    Definately an article i’m tagging and if will most probably be linking to it…!

  19. Sanish

    Hey this is an interesting post but with a good deal of solid matter within.
    Thanks for the grt article.

  20. Nick

    Great article. Very clear and to the point.

    Nick

  21. Josh

    This is the clearest linking description I’ve come across. Thanks!

  22. k jones

    Everything you have said about link text is correct. You need the link to tell Googly about your site, so linking to Keyword Keyword is better than linking to www-somesite.com. Now, take it a step further. When your webmaster set up your site, he/she probably did not pay any attention to the link text for the navigation within your site. Most likely you have a navigation bar that has the same link text on every page. So, if your men’s shoes page receives 16 internal links that all are coded “Men’s Footwear”, Googly will be pretty sure it’s about Men’s Footwear, but what if you made two of those links say “Men’s Boots” and two more could say “Men’s Sandals”, and two more could say “Men’s Running Shoes.” Sure, you have keywords on the page for all these things, but it’s the link text that really tells Google what you are all about. Google is just a robot, so you have to spell out what you are all about. See my site: http://www.papazilla.com

    I’ll write more another time if this helps you all.

  23. Ronnie Segev

    these are good pointers, and nice to know how to effectively promote content within the rules.

  24. Athena

    A great article , and some great pointers, SEO is such a closed industry and i think it’s about time these deep secrets should be more available.

    Thanks!

    Steve

  25. kampanye damai

    I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my bookmarking. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.

  26. Trevena

    Great article and straight to the point, a really interesting blog on anchor link text

  27. mp3traker

    I wonder if your idea could be implemented on my blog. I thought it gonna slow down your WordPress install in any way

  28. Deep-Space

    I’m a relative newcomer to blogs and SEO, and i’ve just built a blog as part of my website SEO. And I must say your blog is an inspiration! I will be striving to make my blog as informative and as easy to read as yours. Many thanks! .. and great tip about text links.

  29. Disha Next

    Really good article, I will try out on my site.

  30. Phil

    Random question: I was told to start a blog so that my clients or potential clients could connect with me, I am a photographer. Do you find that happening with your readers?

  31. Jones

    I tried using a blog to get some extra PR, but I find that it’s fun to set up the blog, but then it becomes a chore to keep posting new content. I guess it’s just my personality, I like to learn new things, but I don’t like repetive tasks. Guess I just need to get some discipline!

  32. Kill stuff

    Nice post! GA is also my biggest earning. However, it

  33. Mike

    Yes these are definitely all important point for SEO, and it makes a big difference to your page ranking but at the same time there are other things to take in to account as well that could hinder your sites progress if not payed attention to.

  34. design-singapore

    Nice tip on seo.

    Link building is one of the most important factor in SEO. Thanks for this wonderful post.

  35. Rich Like Us

    You are right in what you have said. I was only thinking this the other day but I think I will now dig a little deeper. Not sure what the last guy meant though!

  36. Alden

    That’s true. It reminds me to go back and update some of my comment button posts, thank you.

  37. Kelly

    Good list on SEO, though it seems for Google, only link building will push pretty much most of the results ranking upwards. Yahoo seems more focus on keywords.

  38. Manini

    suppose if I add an article to blog, how many hyperlinks can I make in an article?

  39. Colin from Norwich

    I know what you mean when you say “content is queen”. It’s a bit like writing a blockbuster and keeping in a cupboard. But I do think that good content should still be at the heart of successful internet marketing. SEO and all that jazz is just the tool of the publicist and although sometimes it’s not very pretty, it is essential.

    Thanks

    Col :-)

  40. Lee (Designer)

    In total agreement. Good to read articles that are correct. keep up the good work.

    Lee

  41. Paulo

    Really great tips and easy to follow – thanks, I will try these for my moonfruit Roman Blind store – http://www.easyproblinds.com. I currently have no inbound links so I have a long way to go!

  42. Tanie Pozycjonowanie

    Very good primer on the subject and should help many businesses better understand SEO. I will be recommending it.

  43. Stacie Dancy

    What really should I do to get my internet site for the top of google do I will need to hire an seo organization or can I do it myself thanks for the help

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