The value of links to and from your site can not be underestimated in a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) context. Tied into this is the kind of text other sites link to you by. This is otherwise known as anchor text. The frequency of links to your site under certain keyword combinations can determine how highly your pages rank within a search engine. For instance, lots of inbound links from other sites with the words “big apple” would help my sites content appear higher up in searches for those keywords.
This principle is widely accepted as a key, bona fide, SEO techique.
Darren at Problogger recently wrote about how this extends to internal links on your blog
He says:
“When you link to yourself (for example linking to a previous link that you’ve written) you should consider doing so with descriptive words of the post rather than generic words.”
Darren offers the following example:
If I wanted to link to my previous post titled ‘blogging for beginners’ in a post rather than linking like this:
‘you can read my post on blogging for beginners here‘
it would be more powerful in terms of the search engine ranking of the post to link to it as:
‘you can read my previous post on the topic, blogging for beginners‘
This makes perfect sense from an SEO perspective. It is also more meaningful to your readership. i.e their more inclined to click on a link pointing to your archives if they have some idea where it’s going to take them. ’Here’ doesn’t really say much about where a link will take you. I am as guilty as the next man on this point - just to confim that I’m well out of my ivory tower!
Both brands and agencies need to wake up to the power of the blogosphere, they are after all religiously followed by millions of fanatical trend setters hungry for information before everyone else (and his dog) gets hold of it!
Therefore to not integrate a blog strategy for your PR should be a crime. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Popular bloggers are a unique entity in themselves – to get results from them you need to understand how they think. They, just like their loyal followers are passionate about their subjects, and it’s obvious from the opinions they share and the audiences they attract, that some are even becoming celebrities in their own right.
They constantly need feeding with ‘hot off the press’ information related to their subject before any of other bloggers in their field get their hands on it… they are therefore ‘competitive trend setters’. Give them what they want, and in a format they can relate to and they will publish it.
Mailing out a standard release is just not enough; they take too long to read and don’t provide immediate relevance. Make bloggers your best friends and they will count on you for cutting edge information. Remember that they also have the power to slate your product/service, therefore you need to have your wits about you. Treat every single blogger with respect and personalise the information you give them, picking out relevance to their individual blogs and audiences.
Here is a really quick guide to driving more traffic to your blog, some ideas are obvious and some not so. It’s amazing just how many bloggers don’t employ the basics!
1 – Define a consistent style of writing and add some personality to it! Communities want the feeling of belonging and they will do this if you are consistent with your language, reviews and opinions. Don’t forget to make posts interesting. Just cutting and pasting someone else’s article is a big no-no. Inject some humor.
2 – Keywords in titles. This is so key to getting picked up by Google. Decide on the title once you have written the article and ensure that there is at least 1 key word in it. Also, think of yourself as the editor in chief of The Times, and think about how he/she would title the article – grab the audience by the balls!
3 – Keywords in text. Don’t go over the top with your keywords. A few well placed keywords in a sentence is all you need.
4 – Label images. You can actually double your traffic by labeling your imagery well. Yes the people finding your site through an image search will only be interested in finding the picture they want, BUT if you have the right ad programs then it’s a numbers game when it comes to making £.
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