SEO tips: anchored backlinks

There is a universal SEO tip for those who really understand what search engine optimisation is all about: it all about anchored backlinks. On-site optimization like including your keyword in your header, blog title, url etc accounts for maybe less than 20% of your ranking in Google's front page. The rest is dependent on anchored backlinks. That is the SEO tip.

What are anchored backlinks? They are like normal backlinks, but anchored with your keywords, like this:

baseball strength training

Notice how the keywords are used in the links and how it is related to the niche of strength training? That is a anchored backlink.

We all know that links are what drive Google's pagerank. The more links you have, the higher you will get in the Google's result page. You don't need SEO tips to know about this. (Note: this is a simplification of pagerank and there are more indepth articles elsewhere that talked about this_

What a lot of people don't know (and this is the SEO tip) is that Google will also associate the link with the keywords you used to anchor it. If there are many links pointing to my site using the words aaron chua wee nian, aaron chua, aaronchua etc, Google will know that this site is all about aaron chua. The next time somebody searches for aaron chua, my site will be among the top 10.

This is how I get keyword authority. My site is deem by Google to have authority in this keyword.

However, using names as anchor text is exactly what we want to avoid, if you want to get use SEO tip to make money. Would anybody want to advertise on the keyword 'aaronchua'? Of course not. This is the common mistake made by lots of bloggers. They don't understand the use of anchored text and therefore, they don't gain authority in any keyword except for their names, which are completely useless when it comes to advertising.

What you want is to use the proper anchored backlinks to give your niche blogs authority in the keywords you are targeting. Let's go back to the example of strength training for beginners. If I can get many backlinks to a site about strength training using the same or similar keywords, such as strength training, strength training for beginners etc, then this site would gain authority and rise in the Google search result. What happens next is the money making part and where the SEO tip is.

Now, if somebody is looking for information on strength training for beginners, and key in that keyword into the search box, my site will appear in the top 10 result and they will click on it. Because the traffic is so targeted, any relevant ads you show will get them clicking on it. That is why anchored keywords are important.

This applies to any niche you do. Be it cameras, food, shoes etc, you need anchored backlinks to get you to Google's top page and get targeted traffic and clicks. So, if you want to link back to this site, please use SEO tips or best SEO tips or something similar. Don't use aaronchua : )

My next SEO tip will be on how do you get those anchored backlinks without people actually linking to you.

Posted in: seo tips