SEO’s Take a New Strategy with Anchor Text

Don't get nailed by Google's Penguin filters
Don’t get nailed by Google’s Penguin filters

It used to be pre-Penguin era, that you researched your keywords and then actively worked to include the keywords you wanted to place on organically in your anchor text. For some of you who are reading, anchor text is the actually text that is shown that is underlined in a hyperlink. Now, to prevent link spam penalties on Google.com, you’d better mix up your anchor text!How So?

Now it is a big no-no to constantly repeat the same anchor text in on-site and off-site efforts. In fact some SEO’s are moving to general terms such as visit our website, click here, find out more instead of very targeted keyword uses such as Maryland SEO firm, or SEO experts. Google actually recommends using descriptive text for links and not the very general click here types of use. However, some SEOs are trying to mitigate overly optimized strategies now by introducing generic links to move their SEO client sites out from underneath Google’s microscope. Here’s a great article I’ve found that really expounds on that topic. 

So what’s a website owner to do in regards to anchor text?

1. Make sure you do not use the same three to five phrases of anchor text in your website and off-site efforts starting now!

2. Mix it up, use generic text as well as descriptive, but not keyword dense phrases. Consider the reader, use what works best and is descriptive of the link versus a set phrasing albeit even in unnatural wording to not be hit by Google’s Penguin filters.

3. Work to increase your visibility on the web so co-citation can work for you for organic placement. Google is very smart now, you don’t need to spoon feed keywords important to your traffic; rather take time to let others share your content and Google will understand what you do through these offsite mentions.

Just a few tips to help you take a new direction. If you need more concrete help to move your website into becoming a web authority site, make sure to check with McCord Web Services.

Authorship Versus AuthorRank on Google

Authorship versus AuthorRank
Authorship versus AuthorRank

Although these two terms seem similar in fact they are very different. Here’s what to know about each.Authorship
This is not new, but linking your name, website and personal Google+ page together to have your photo appear in search results next to your content is new. Authorship is the online brand that you are establishing to let others know on the Web when something has been created by you and solves much of the problem of letting others scrape your content and passing it off as their own. It’s a way that Google is able to determine that something you wrote is really yours.

By linking your website, articles, and personal Google+ page you verify for Google that content is truly yours.

AuthorRank
This is new. Google’s toyed around with this under different names AgentRank and AuthorRank. In a patent disclosure from Google over three years ago I first saw the use of Agent/Author Rank. I however thought at that time it would be done with a meta tag not the algorithm element that it appears to be. At that time the patent addressed questions such as who issued the content first and so was the owner.

Google has revealed just last week that AuthorRank is real. It is no longer a question mark, and does impact search results.

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.” Eric Schmidt Executive Chairman of Google

AuthorRank is more of a part of the algorithm that Google uses to rack and stack search results. It places importance on locations of content, social sharing, and authority of an author.

Both Authorship and AuthorRank are important new elements of web visibility and share-ability that will impact your organic placement now and in the future.

Should You Be Using Certain Phrases in Your Anchor Text on Your Blog?

Confused about Google version of what web spam is?
Confused about Google version of what web spam is?

I had a blog client just recently send me a list of 5 phrases that he wanted used in his blog posts with all links regardless what they were to point to his home page. This blog post will educate you on why you may not want to use this “old” SEO tactic any more on your blog.Placing on Google has really changed in the last year. It used to be that keyword density and smart use of anchor text in blog posts really worked to boost your Google.com placement. However, now using these same tactics of building keyword density and repeating the same anchor text in blog posts over and over can be considered web spam by Google and can end up winning you not better organic placement but a Google smackdown!

I found this terrific article at the Internet Marketing Blog called “Google Web spam “Penguin” Over Optimization Penalty Hits” It is a good article and one that you should read for more information about what Google considers web spam.

Here are my specific recommendations to my clients on the topic of web spam.

  1. Don’t send your blog writer phrases to use any more. Let us know what is important, but it we use the same phrasing over and over again in your blog posts you will be nailed by Google.
  2. Let the blog writer mix up wording and phrasing so that content reads naturally.
  3. We won’t be working to build keyword density in a blog post as this may really come back to bite you.
  4. We still want great catchy titles in fact this is more important than ever for share-ability of your content.
  5. Allow the blog writer to point to the correct page on your website not just to your home page. Deep linking is good!

Remember the Google spider and algorithm is so smart… you don’t have to spoon feed content, phrasing, keywords, or links. Let content be natural to read, on topic – yes, but not redundant, create great content that is now shareable and authoritative.

Matt Cutts Talks About Negative SEO

You’ll want to watch this YouTube video featuring Matt Cutts from Google talking about how Google feels about your competitors trying to sabotage your Google.com organic placement by setting up spammy sites to link to your website in a effort to push you down in the results if they can’t supersede you. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWJUU-g5U_I&feature=em-uploademail)

Typically small to moderate sized businesses will never run into problems such as this. However for very competitive industries, you may actually run into this problem. Google has created the disavow tool to assist in re-mediating these types of problems.

SEO – Why I Am Watching Co-Citation?

I just asked all the time what are you watching, what’s new and exciting, what trends to you see happening? This week I will be writing three blog posts about what I’m watching and why. Today’s post is about why I am watching co-citation.

Nancy McCord is really watching co-citation for organic search placement.

Google has made really sweeping changes to how it rates websites and what used to work for years to garner organic placement is not considered spammy by Google and may even run into a placement smackdown filter. This is why I am very carefully and intensely watching co-citation.Here are a few articles about co-citation that you may want to read:

SEOMoz take on co-citation

Jim Boykin’s take on co-citation

In lay terms, co-citation is close to link bait and article marketing but with natural growth. Both authors state that Google and Bing as so smart now that they do not have to be fed keyword phrases, they will decide on their own based on the content that links to you. But, here’s the change it is not the link text that they are weighing, but rather the jist of the content where the link to your website is embedded. In fact, the page that links to you may not even link to your service and may not even contain keywords on which you want to place. Instead it is an “authority” factor.

So here’s what I understand so far…

Google and Bing spider the web, they read incidents of mentions of your name and content, they spider your own website and get a picture of the services you provide, then they review how what people say about you and the authority of the site that links to your site talks about you. They then use this in their algorithm to place you in importance to being an authority on a specific topic. Way Cool!

Although I don’t think that anyone in my industry really knows yet what works for organic placement in this new world on Google and Bing, but it is clear that content, the sharing of your content will be a very strong impact for organic placement.

I will be doing further research on co-citation and will let you know what I find out and what I think about it in the months to come.

Big Brands Violate Traditional SEO Practices and Still Get Organic Placement

Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have turned the web upside down leaving SEO experts struggling to understand the what it takes to now earn top organic placement. In this recent article from Website Magazine (a publication that I really like), some tips are revealed that may help you to update your SEO strategy.

First, it appears that big brands are breaking all the rules and getting or retaining organic placement. There are some important take-aways we can glean from the research done for this article.

1. Size and authority of your website are key for organic placement. A 5 page website will never be able to garner organic placement when competing with larger well placed website. Blogging remains the very best way to quickly build authoritative content for small to medium sized businesses who want to compete with big brands.

2. Facebook shares will impact your organic placement. Twitter activity is down the list to number six for impact, but Facebook social signals remain a key indicator of success in placement on Google. That means not just posting on Facebook but having people share your posts that contain links.

3. The content in the <h1> tag and the volume of content on a page for big brands do not appear to impact organic placement.

“Surprisingly, the data show a negative correlation between these factors and rankings – contradicting traditional SEO theory,” explains Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’ CTO. “So, not having keywords in headlines or having less text on a page seems to be associated with sites that rank higher.”

That’s interesting news pointing out that authority of a site actually counteracts the keyword density and using keywords in the <h1> tags for big brand sites. However, that does not mean that smaller brands cannot and should not optimize their page code, but do it smarter and in a natural readable format.

4. Too much advertising on a page even for big brands appears to impact organic placement. This is a direct impact from Google’s Panda and Penguin updates. It doesn’t mean you cannot have ads on your page, but need to not have your page all about ads.

In a nutshell, here are the factors Website Magazine says are important. Make sure to read the full article as it is really pretty helpful.

  1. Facebook shares
  2. Number of backlinks
  3. Facebook total
  4. Facebook comments
  5. Facebook likes
  6. Tweets
  7. Percent of no-follow backlinks – interesting this is a factor too!
  8. Keywords in domain name.
  9. Percent of backlinks with keywords – you’ll take a hit for too many with SEO anchor text