Any online marketer would agree that the amount of inbound links found on other websites pointing toward a website and the quality of those links are one of the most important aspects in attempting to obtain top 10 Google search position placement. And how does the amount of backlinks boost the search engine position of a website?
This is usually explained by many Search Engine Marketing professionals using very technical terms which are only good for boosting the ego of the one giving the explanation with the use of terms that make them sound very intelligent and thus making their readers or hearers believe they know what they’re talking about.
The best way to explain this, in my opinion, is to think of any person with fame.
A celebrity is only popular due to the amount of public exposure he/she has had due to the amount of blabbering that others, especially the media make about such a person. This in itself could be classified as “word of mouth” marketing.
If the media did not make a fuss about Angelina Jolie being one of the most sexually appealing women on earth, she would not be as famous or rather “popular” as she is today, even if she did star in a few movies.
So looking at the example of the famous celebrity, what needs to be done in order for a website to be ranked highly in search engines is for that website to become “famous” or better “popular” with the search engines. And how do search engines rank the fame or popularity of a website?
This is achieved by the amount of incoming links that Google pick up on other websites on the internet which may be pointing to your own website. Links from other websites are seen by Bing and other engines as “word of mouth” promotion or as other websites “voting” for yours. So the more websites you have linking to your own, the more talk is created and the more popular your website becomes with search egines.
Now the next thing to consider is what should your website be considered popular for? Just as Angelina Jolie is famous for being super sexy, your website also has to be famous for something. Google itself is famous for being the most popular and most used search engine world wide.
The thing your website should be famous for should be relevant to what your website is all about i.e. the product, service or even the person your website is promoting. This is where anchor text, also known as “Link Text”, comes into play.
Anchor text is basically the text that is used on other websites that contain the link pointing back to your own website.
If the main content of your site is about “Search Engine Optimisation Company in Cape Town” for example, then it is important that the anchor text which contains the link to your own website from another website looks something like “Search Engine Optimisation Cape Town“. Doing this not only tells Google that your website should be considered famous for SEO in Cape Town, but this would then also be keyword phrase that your website would start ranking highly for.
So there we have it… More Inbound Links + Relevant Achor Text = More Google Fame / Popularity / PageRank.
Article written by Gerard Willemse, Internet Marketing Manager of Royal Web Marketing: www.royalwebmarketing.co.za
In case you are searching for more information about the sphere of internet marketing, make sure to check out the URL that was quoted right in this paragraph.
