Okay so I was dead wrong. Not even close. But who knew?

So just what was the misconception of epic proportions I was working under?

Well, you see, I mistakenly assumed that most everyone clearly understood the importance of link text. You know the clickable part of your link? Or the part of your linking info that usually appears in blue and leads off most reciprocal links.

So much so, I felt revisiting this topic would be a total waste of time.

Guess not. Because it seems most still don’t get it.

That’s right. Apparently most don’t understand how critical this collection of choice words can be to their search engine marketing success. Even though the traffic payback can be huge.

So you can forget doing anything clever to make sure your listing shows up near the top of a links page - no matter how many links were on the page before yours. (Which can easily be done by the way.) Looks like most need a refresher course on the basics of what link text to use to begin with.

Link Text – The Study

Now I base this observation on an admittedly small bit of research I did recently while looking for link partners. Out of about 40 potential linking candidates I found that when it comes to link text

3 used their URL
7 used their site name
13 used some non keyword focused descriptor like “Vision Training for Tennis” when their site was about tennis fitness.
Merciful Minerva! In other words more than HALF of these active link traders got it wrong!

And trust me. I was exceedingly generous when it came to awarding style points for getting it right. Or for that matter, even close to right.

Thinking there was something weird about that first group, I looked at some more. Hmmmm. Same thing. Again more than half used less-than-helpful link text. Leaving me to conclude that when it comes to link text most cheerfully ignore their primary keyword phrase altogether. Evidently oblivious to just how important that is.

Hello! You listening?

Given all that let me cut to the chase here.

Link Text – The Big Idea

The big idea is to include the focus keyword of the page you're linking to in the anchor text of your link. Because doing so will enhance your LINK REPUTATION. And link rep is way more important than the more commonly pursued link popularity - which is simply a count of how many sites link to yours.

In fact link reputation will trump just about anything else you can do to rank well. Especially with Google.

I mean let’s say your site is about baby lullabies. But for some strange reason you get a bunch of inbound links using "orangutan chow" as the link text. Most likely Google will conclude your site is about orangutan chow. And rank it right up with the rest of the sites dealing with the grub these hairy forest men eat.

Please don't just flash over what you just read without letting it sink in. It might well make or break your success with search engines actually. It’s that important.

Link Text – The Results

So here’s the action step. If your site is about baby strollers it’s a darn good idea to ask link partners to use those two words as your link text. That way Google can’t help but conclude the page being linked to is about, what else? baby strollers!

Result? Get enough links using those two words as your link text and sooner or later your site will rank well for the search term “baby strollers”. Especially since you know from what was revealed earlier that more than half your competition won’t be using those words in their links. So that even if they are actively pursuing links, they’re only getting some of the ranking boost they might otherwise get from doing it right.

So I beg you. If you aren’t already using your focus keyword phrase as the link text in your link request – start doing so now. Today. It’s a powerful tactic with a big traffic payoff. one that helps you maximize the benefit of link trading. And I’ll bet not half your competitors are even aware of it. Leaving the field wide open for you.

Copyright 2005 John Gergye

About The Author

John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his eBook "Street Smart Linking". Find out more here: http://www.highprlinkclub.com/j/ssl_sya.shtml/ Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml/ and get the free special report "Coming Out on Top".