What is Link Text?
Text Links Are the Foundation of the Web
Link text, also known as text links or hyperlinks, are the foundation of the web. Before we had all the fancy graphics and spinning animations on today's web, we had text links connecting information from one page to information on another page. Since these links form the architecture of information on the web, they are used increasingly by today's search engines to help determine the relevancy and value of web pages with keywords as the currency.
Link text is the visible text that is used in a link on a webpage. For example, text links for sale is the link text whick is pointing to our home page. This helps our home page do better in the search engines for the keywords "text links for sale".
Why is it important to have keywords in the text link pointing to your website?
When the founders of Google first developed their search engine, they knew that the text that is used in the link pointing to a website often defined the site sometimes better then the site itself. In other words if I was to place a link to your website on my site and I used the link text of "green widgets" then it is probably a good bet that your site is about "green widgets". By using your main keywords in the link text you are helping Google to identify what your site is about, thus building your keyword relevancy. The more relevant your site is for a keyword, the better your website is going to do in the "organic search results" when somebody does a search for that keyword.
"Organic search results" are the main search results displayed by a search engine. These are not the search results listed as Sponsored Links, Feature Links, or in advertisements down the side, as in Google Adwords ads. Although, sponsored search results definitely have value, many search engine users trust the "organic search results" more and may be more likely to visit those pages.
You can read more about how Google is built by reading the actual thesis that the Google founders wrote when they were Stanford students. Section 2.2 which explains why link text, also referred to as anchor text, is so important.
Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
How are Text Links Going to Help My Link Popularity and Keyword Relevancy?
If you are lucky and you have a very interesting site, other webmasters will link to you and they will help you in your efforts to build link popularity. If you create a lot of content or news articles, this improves your chances of other webmasters linking to your site. For the other 95% of us, it takes a little more involvement.
Finding other websites to link to you is a very time consuming task, though. That is why reciprocal linking became popular. A webmaster would contact another webmaster and offer to place a link on their site in exchange for a link on the other webmasters site. This has been the best way to increase link popularity for a long time; however, there are a few problems with reciprocal links. One of the main problems is that links pages are often penalized by the search engines in terms of passing along Page Rank. So, a link page may actually have a PR of 5. It would not pass as much PR to the sites it links to as another page of pure content. Although still useful, they are not the gold mine that they used to be.
So It's Free, Why Not Just Join a Reciprocal Link Program?
Here are five problems with reciprocal link programs:
1. It is very time consuming to find other websites that are willing to link to you. Even with programs like Linkmanager or LinkExplore, it can still take hours of work every day to find willing sites.
2. Most websites will not trade links with you unless you already have a good page ranking. This was similar to a problem I faced right out of college. Employers wanted applicants to have professional work experience. How are you going to get professional work experience if you can't get a job? In web terms this translates to: how are you supposed to have a good pageranking if other webmasters will not link to you first?
3. In most cases when a webmaster swaps links with you they will put your link on a links page on their website. We have all seen these pages. When you stumble on one, you might even click on a link or two. The main problem with this is that Google hates links pages, and they only give you a portion of the actual value of the link when the link is on a links page. This means that you will have to get A LOT of these kinds of links for them to be worth anything.
4. Most reciprocal links pages have a very low page ranking and will never actually help you get to the page rank that you want. Remember, you must get someone with a page rank that is higher then yours for it to increase yours. The one exception to this rule is if you were to have hundreds/thousands of lower pagerank links. Many low pagerank links can add up to make a higher pagerank.
5. Most reciprocal link programs do not allow you to choose the link text that gets placed in the link that is pointing to your site. This is very important and was explained earlier on this page.
What Else Can I Do to Increase Link Popularity?
NOW, there is another choice. It does not involve reciprocal links. As a matter of fact, it involves only one-way linking where YOU CHOOSE THE TEXT TO LINK TO YOUR SITE.
Your link popularity becomes under your control. It is quite simple actually, it involves purchasing text link advertisements on high-quality, relevant sites to link to your site. Our advertising brokerage system makes it easy for you. You choose the ads you wish to purchase, the text for your ads, and we handle the rest. Your link popularity will increase, and you will have time to focus on other areas of your business. Contact us and let us help you build your link popularity on your website.
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