Keyword rich inbound links

When talking to clients about Internet Marketing we often discuss what constitutes a quality 'inbound link' to a website. There are a large number of factors at work, but one of the most important is the text that forms the link itself. Remember a link (in most cases) is seen as a vote in favour of a page by Google (and the other search engines) - and these links build to form 'trust' in your website.

A link consists of two parts: the linking text that is displayed on the web page and the web page that is displayed when you click on that link. In terms of the linking text - from a Search Engine Optimisation AND customer viewpoint - it is very important that this is 'keyword rich' - i.e. that it contains keywords that match phrases that your customers are searching for. If you can build more keyword rich links to a given page then your site (and that page in particular) will rise up the rankings for searches including those keywords.

Want to see an example of this? Search for "click here" in Google and you will find the Adobe Reader download page ranked number one - that's the free software that allows you to read PDFs. So why does this small page without a single mention of the phrase "click here" seem to defy SEO logic and rank number one for it? Because so many people's websites which include PDFs say something along the lines of "This file requires Adobe Reader. To download it click here" where 'click here' links to this page.

So, the Search Engine Optimisation lesson to be learnt is simple: wherever possible - try to build links which are keyword rich. This isn't easy - hence why it will always be an important measure used by Google in determining page rankings for different pages for a given keyword search, and always an important factor in effective Search Engine Optimisation for a website.