Anchors Away! Your Link Said What?

I’m not going to take up all kinds of time and go over what anchor text is in this post. However, I am going to give you a suggestion with regards to link anchor text and how it relates to building relationships. Holy wow that was a long sentence. 🙂

Link Anchor Text

Uhm, I know I said I wasn’t going to go over this,  but I kind of have to. Now you know that I have no real game plan when it comes to writing up a post! Anchor text is the clickable text within your posts.

It is this text that shows the search engines the relevancy between the post and where you are sending them. So it’s important from an internal linking standpoint that you connect your pages in a relevant manner. You all know this right?!

External Anchor Text Links

I have one huge suggestion for you here. I am beginning to do this with all of my posts and I think it will help you, me, all of us. This simple tip can help forge great partnerships and relationships with other bloggers if done correctly.

We all want other bloggers to link to us. We want to be an authoritative presence out there, so links are huge for search engines to see. We all desire relevant, seo optimized links pointing back to us. How do we accomplish this goal when we link out to others?

Simple. ASK THE BLOG OWNER. Nine times out of ten, you can simple email the blog owner, let them know you are linking to one of their posts and ask them if they have an anchor text they prefer you use as the link.

If you get no response, what I have been doing is using their slug as the anchor text. If you need more information on slugs, you can read this article below.

• Slugging It out: Why URL Is Important On-Site SEO Factor

Benefits of Asking

What are the  benefits of asking? Building a relationship with other bloggers is my number one pick. It’s networking people. Besides that, it gets your name out there to people who possibly have never heard of you. I know…people NOT hearing of you?! Crazy.

This technique is a win-win for everybody. You get noticed by others and they get a link with the exact text they want to rank for. And talk about respect? In my opinion, 🙂 blog owners are more likely to respect people that come to them and say, “hey..I’m gonna link to your genius article, what anchor text should I use?”

So far, I have had pretty good luck with this practice. I am just beginning this step in my reaching out campaign. I think it is the best thing to do for all parties involved. And if you are feeling really special and jiggy, do what Ana Hoffman just did in a recent post. She gave you the anchor text to use if you link to the post! Genius.

The Bottom Line

Now, I have said it before…I’m no genius and this ain’t rocket science folks. This is not some major underground tactic to build relationships and relevant links. It’s a simple, easy to accomplish task that will help you in optimizing your links and anchor text.

I am reaching out to more people now than ever before because I am following my own advice. And because I am linking to them with the anchor text they want…they have a mutual respect for me as well. And who knows, maybe one day when I need a blogging favor, I can call on one of them! So go for it, grab the great relationship at the same time you are using SEO best practices.

Okay. Your turn now. How do you determine your external link anchor text? Will you implement this tip?

Feel free to share the goodness and pass along to your friends.