You may or may not have noticed that, in February, Google posted a new, in-depth article on how to get your linking strategy right. The document touches upon a wide range of subjects about linking — and, of course, why wouldn’t you want SEO advice straight from the horse’s mouth?
However, don’t be afraid if the ‘Link best practices for Google’ article strikes you as dauntingly technical. Here are just a few quick tips we have plucked from what Google has to say…
Avoid using generic terms for the anchor text
When you embed a link into text that is visible on a webpage, this text is known as anchor text or link text. However, you ought to be selective about what words are put into it, as this text is meant to provide both your site’s visitors and Google with insight into the page being linked to.
For this reason, you should avoid limiting anchor text to overly short, generic phrases like ‘click here’ and ‘read more’ — you want something more descriptive.
However, don’t allow your anchor text to get too long
What exactly would count as ‘too long’? To many extents and purposes, it’s a subjective judgement — but one reliable strategy would be for you to make the anchor text specific, relevant and detailed without descending into keyword stuffing.
So, while anchor text like ‘best screen protectors for the iPhone 14’ could strike just the right balance, you would be on riskier ground with anchor text that reads more along the lines of ‘best acrylic, glass and matte screen protectors for the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro’.
Resist placing links too close together
One simple reason for you to heed this advice is that, otherwise, visitors to your site could too easily struggle to distinguish between links.
However, another reason is that, according to Google, the words before and after a link provide valuable context to it. You should therefore always be careful to assess the overall sentence or paragraph rather than just specific text in it you want to make a link.
Don’t forget to insert internal links
When building links, you could mistakenly pay too much attention to amassing external links; in other words, links that are posted on other websites but point to your own.
However, you mustn’t be afraid to also include internal links. These are links that would each be placed on one page of your website but direct people to another page of it.
These links can prove useful for your website’s visitors by helping them to find parts of the site that would serve a genuinely meaningful purpose for them.
Make sure the link text is written as naturally as possible
If you wouldn’t exactly deem writing your forte, you could always ask digital copywriters from Webahead to write all the text — both the linked and non-linked sections — for your website.
We can apply our long-honed knowledge of link building principles to your site — and consequently help it to thrive like never before.
