Link Optimization
Link Optimization is a technique for giving your links higher relevancy value in search engines. This can occur on-site, and off-site, and has equal value either place as a marketing and search engine optimization technique.
Link optimization is considered a White Hat SEO tactic - that is, safe and recommended, as long as you do not go overboard, or use unrelated terms. It is a means of insuring that your hyperlinks and your site keywords are related to one another in as many places as possible online.
Onsite Link Optimization.
Use a full URL, not a relative URL. That means, code your links as "http://www.mysite.com/pagewhatever.htm" instead of "pagewhatever.htm". This means that each time you link within your site, the full URL is used in the link.
Use page filenames that mean something. This page has a filename that relates to the primary topic of the page. I don't know if that really helps much, but every little bit, you know...
Use anchor text keywords. Anchor text is the text that the hyperlink is embedded in. In the navigation menu, it is the names of the links to the other pages. Notice I have used very logical keywords for each link. Those keywords now appear on every page of my site, and they are tied directly to the pages that they link to.
Use a simple site structure. This will give your pages and links the full power of your SEO efforts.
When cross linking your sites, use keywords in your links.
Use keywords near your links if they are context or descriptive links. Anchor text is considered to be the most important text, but nearby words are also counted.
Use short anchor phrases. Do not make huge long sentences that are linked, that is considered to be at least Gray Hat SEO, if not Black Hat. Optimize a link for the MOST IMPORTANT keyword or keyphrase only.
If you are using an image link, then use an Alt Tag with your keywords in it. Same rules, keep it short and meaningful.
Onsite, you control everything. You can optimize to your heart's content, and tweak and nudge all you want. Offsite is another story, and you may not have very much control over it.
Offsite Optimization
The same rules apply for linking - use keywords in the anchor text, use descriptive text near the links, and link to full URLs (include the http://, and a pagename if applicable).
You can optimize your links in your signature line. That sig line will find its way around the net in a surprising number of places.
When you cannot use HTML in your sig line, use a full url, with descriptive text near it.
You cannot control what other people do with your link on their site unless you are paying for the link. So don't fret about whether other people optimize your links or not, any link is better than none.
You can put HTML code for text links on your link exchange page, but some people still will not use it. You also end up with all the inbound links looking the same, and variety is actually better even if some are not optimized.
Variety counts. If you do put HTML code on your page for others to use to link to your site, then offer multiple choices or change it a little on a regular basis.
Optimized banner ads are best, but some webmasters won't do it right. HTML code on your page is best for image ads anyway because it allows you to track the ad performance, but some will just want the image and link.
Link optimization is something that you do as you go along. When you create your site navigation and do your linking, the extra second it takes for you to do it right can make a difference in the end.
But it is also not a hugely critical thing. There are tons of sites that use internal catch phrases for linking instead of keywords, that nevertheless do well because of content. So do what you can, and then don't fuss about the parts you cannot control.
Written by Laura Wheeler
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