The importance of Anchor text by Ecklund Marketing Group

Anchor text is, literally, the text that constitutes a clickable link on a web page. On the surface, it looks like a mere site navigation tool, with little SEO value. That was once the case too. But now, it's another weapon in your campaign to get your website noticed by the search engines. Skillfully applied, anchor text can improve your ranking for your search terms of choice, like 'Ottawa estate lawyer'.

How does it work? You make your chosen search term part of a link in your site navigation or, even better, an external link to your page from a quality, popular website. Here's an example of this technique being applied to your site infrastructure:

'View our firm's personal injury lawyers'. Notice how we included 'personal injury lawyers' in the link text. This is tremendously beneficial in your endeavor to rank well for the term 'personal injury lawyers' because anchor text is weighted highly in search engine algorithms. It's surprising how many sites do not take advantage of this easily incorporated SEO feature. We still see links that run along the lines of 'To see our firm's personal injury lawyers click here.'

The same principle can be applied when you list your website in directories like LawyerLocate or Rominger Legal. Instead of having your site's link labeled- ABC Law Office, you could request ABC Law Office- Toronto Personal Injury Lawyers.

You may be skeptical that mere link text can make that big a difference. For proof that it really works, recall the 'Miserable Failure' incident, which is a prime example of the phenomenon known as Google bombing. Several anti-Bush webmasters grouped together to create links that included the phrase 'miserable failure' and direct those who clicked on them to George W. Bush's official White House biography page. Their campaign was so successful that Bush's official biography became the top search result for 'Miserable' and 'Failure.' Google addressed this potential for abuse at the end of 2006, by altering its algorithms to reduce the effect of harassment campaigns like the above.

For more information on Search Engine Optimization techniques, please visit this blog regularly. Also browse our website at: http://www.ecklundmarketinggroup.com/