This is a little sequel to the image optimization article. Optimizing links are really easy and will make a difference in the long run.
To optimize your link, you should set it out as follows:
<a href=”URL” title=”Hover Text”>Anchor Text</a>
Explanation
URL: Basically the site’s domain you are linking to.
Hover Text: Text which when you mouseover the link, will display a short message stating the purpose of the site.
Anchor Text: Text which you want Google to see your site as. This is important for SERP ranking and keywords.
Example:
<a href=”http://www.semreach.com” title=”Search Engine Marketing Blog”>Search Engine Marketing</a>
Result
Note how I used “Search Engine Marketing” instead of the site’s name, SEM Reach. I want when people to search “Search Engine Marketing” to see SEM Reach and optimizing links to show that Search Engine Marketing = SEM Reach will be beneficial, and when thousands of people link so, you will be thoroughly rewarded.
Target
If you want to link to another site, its best to add target="_blank" between the URL and Title. This means it will open in a new tab or window. You want users to stay of your site the longest, and so linking to another site, but having it open up/closing your site, will mean people will stay on another and possibly forget yours.
Forums
One other thing which should be considered. On forums, sometimes they do not allow title text for links. For images, they don’t let alternative text. What can you do now? Its best to first add the optimized link (with anchor text) before any image links. This is due to the weighting of un-optimized links vs. un-optimized images.
Related posts:
May 1st, 2010 at 11:06 PM
I know you didn’t go into dofollow and nofollow in this post, but something new i’ve heard of recently is rel=”external” which does the same thing target=”_blank” does apparently. Some people are saying it functions as a dofollow tag, and others are claiming it’s only picked up by the browser, not the search engine, effectively making it a nofollow tag. Just wondering if anyone had heard any finial word.
Leo Ghost´s last blog ..MyBB Needs Your Help
May 1st, 2010 at 11:37 PM
To justify the difference, rel=”external” is javascript activated, whereas target=”_blank” isn’t. Rel=”external” is the valid XHTML Strict alternative to target=”_blank” and so some do use it, although it has minor affect on the validity of the coding.
As for rankings, the rel=”nofollow” element is the only tag that affects Page Rank. As for the rest, it is automatic dofollow, unless the site has nofollow activated for all links.
May 2nd, 2010 at 5:07 PM
[...] of traffic. However, sometimes you have no control on what people use as the anchor text when optimizing links.… Continue [...]
May 9th, 2010 at 5:38 PM
Good tips in this one for getting a little extra edge. Thank you for your additional comment on the nofollw tag. It cleared that up for me.
Sean´s last blog ..Mets Hater on Twitter
May 9th, 2010 at 6:39 PM
No problems Sean. Glad it helped you.