Most people will tell you that diversity is a good thing. Whether it’s your investments or your marketing plan, utilizing a variety of tools, products and strategies gives you the best chance for success.
It’s no different with your SEO efforts. Diversifying your anchor text, for example, offers some important advantages when trying to rank with the search engines. Why? Well, consider this—using the same anchor text keyword(s) over and over in your content:
-
tells search engines that your content may be spam
-
prevents you from ranking for other keywords people are using to search for you
-
runs you afoul of Google’s Penguin update, which now penalizes sites that don't diversify
So take the time to create content centered on a variety of solid anchor text keywords. It’s a wise use of your marketing time and resources. Here are 3 easy ways to do it:
Rotate your keywords.
Keep track of your best keywords and the pages you want them to link to (an Excel document works well for this). Every time you create a new piece of content—whether it’s a blog post, a comment on another site, article, press release or any website content—pick a random keyword from the list to use as your anchor text. Or, rotate your keyword usage by list order. As long as you can incorporate each keyword so that it sounds natural, it will work.
Change up your boilerplates.
Author bios, and other company information that appears as boilerplates at the end of articles, are good vehicles for anchor text. But, if you use the same ones over and over they lose their effect. So, come up with new content and new keywords every so often. For example, if you post every day, then a new boilerplate every couple of weeks would give your SEO efforts a boost.
Use branded anchor text.
Try including your company name and/or brand in your anchor text every once in a while. Mixing in branded anchor text ensures that your name, your products and your services get a little extra attention from the search engines (and consumers). Of course, this type of anchor text should be used judiciously—too much of your brand name in your content can give it a "salesy" flavor. But, it’s a good idea to throw these keywords in at regular intervals.
A diverse mix of anchor text keywords tells the search engines that you want to rank for a variety of search terms. Adding new and different anchor text to your content, particularly that which points to your domain, ensures that your site starts to become associated with all of your best keywords, and that people using those terms find you. And that’s what your SEO efforts are all about, right?
