Links Anchor Text

[thebookiesoffers]

I know all about the value of the text anchor in links pointing inwards but I have a bit of a question. Say im after keywords 'bookies' and 'free bets' would the anchor have much benefit for those if it was 'bookies free bets' or would it just benefit 'bookies free bets'?

[david64]

Yes. IMO its better to get some variety in your link text. If you have more variety in your incoming link text this could be interpreted by a search engine as being more natural in appearance as opposed to links that all say 'free bets', when your site is called TheBookiesOffers.

Also, by putting both of your keywords in the link, you are getting association with the two, rather than one. Although it is arguable whether SEs would split the link equity (juice) between the individual words.

[RedEvo]

Would a natural link profile have lots of links using that phrase?

d

[david64]

Would a natural link profile have lots of links using that phrase?

I can't think of any way in which the above site could obtain such a link by natural means. I must have been a really lousy SEO, since all SEO companies only use ethical and white hat techniques. But it does slip my mind that 'ethical and white hat techniques' equates to 'crap link schemes' in the majority of SEOs vocabularies. Must be the old age kicking in :|

[thebookiesoffers]

I can't think of any way in which the above site could obtain such a link by natural means. I must have been a really lousy SEO, since all SEO companies only use ethical and white hat techniques. But it does slip my mind that 'ethical and white hat techniques' equates to 'crap link schemes' in the majority of SEOs vocabularies. Must be the old age kicking in :|

thats the trouble with my site mate, getting natural links. I've approached people asking to do an article for their blog, ran competitions, simply asked people for a link, joined in communities and gave information etc and all people want is to offer paid links for loads of money for something that will never show a ROI. Gets on my nerves when I spoke to someone and found a competitor had got loads of links by offering £100 for 6 months. I havent got that sort of budget but it seems google doesnt give a toss about paid links really

[david64]

thats the trouble with my site mate, getting natural links. I've approached people asking to do an article for their blog, ran competitions, simply asked people for a link, joined in communities and gave information etc and all people want is to offer paid links for loads of money for something that will never show a ROI. Gets on my nerves when I spoke to someone and found a competitor had got loads of links by offering £100 for 6 months. I havent got that sort of budget but it seems google doesnt give a toss about paid links really


Yeah. You are right with the last statement. So long as you have a legit website (not some thin aff waffle etc.) you can get away with anything. The only things you might get in trouble with are sneaky redirects, mass automatic spam and stuff of that ilk. But you can only get so far with the schemes. Take MoneySupermarket for example, probably the site in the UK that is propped up on more paid and schemed links than any other. It has pretty good rankings, buts its not a rock solid site like something like SEOMoz, which has taken years to build up and no doubt a few million dollars.

You share a problem with many sites. Take my site (which I no longer operate, see in profile) for example. Who in their right mind is going to link to a freelance SEO (someone who probably makes a living out of spinning 1000s of garbage articles, brokering links etc.). A freelance SEO has no value. So, I created some content that I know I could get real links from real sites. Some of this was content I would have created anyway (the icons) and some of it I did purely to get links. I got a lot of good links from a lot of good sites; LunarHosts is one that comes to mind, one of the biggset U.S. hosting companies. But the links I got were still a drop in the ocean. If I wanted to turn the site into an authority site, I would literally have to work on it full time indefinitely.

Another problem is that the majority of the links were to my non-commercial content, which ranks pretty good, but the commercial pages of the site don't rank very well at all. The reason being I only did a bit a crap SEO (the link schemes that most SEOs engage in and call 'ethical & whitehat techniques') before I decided I was going to keep that site clean. SEOs should know that enquiries from the SERPs are garbage anyway.

At the end of the day, you can only get high quality links if you have a huge budget, spend a lot of time working on your site yourself or if you happen to be a well-known or evangelised company like Apple. If you have a serious business and you can't afford to at least employ one person part-time just for your content-based SEO, it won't work.

You mentioned a few things that you did to try and get links. The problem with that is you are just doing them to try and get links, which can be transparent. How long did you spend working on them? How much effort did you put in? Did they have any value? Or were they just quick marketing gimmicks?

Quality begets quality and takes time and effort and you can't get it at a cheaper price from New Delhi, the spam capital of the world. This is one of the things I found most frustrating about dealing with people who wanted top rankings. If you can't put in, you won't get out. Low budget/time = crap links. There is no magic fix. There is no magic SEO person who is better than the next and knows magic schemes to get goods links, but they will keep looking all the same.

No one really wants to link to a crappy SEO, a gambling site, another Magento rolled off the production line and so on. Because crap SEO is cheaper, easier and will get better results quicker in most cases, that is what most people get. My problem with the SEO arena is that is not what most SEOs will tell you. They will dress up their link schemes and outsourcing to India and feed you the 'all our techniques are ethical and white hat' line. And when the client comes on some forum like this and someone points out things like: the SEO company has added hidden links from your site to their site, your SEO company has put a cloaked link farm on your site, your SEO has feed you through the splog factory with a load of stolen content from the New York Times et. al. (all which I have seen brought up on here). They wheel out more lies.

The problem for SEOs is that if you tell people the truth you won't get the business as they want to buy into the idea that they can have top-notch white hat SEO fro £250 a month. So if you tell the truth, you loose out on businsses and they go to someone who does the same cheap tricks but dresses it up as a professional science. Although the people who want to buy into the lies are likely to be more painful clients.

[Vacman2000]

Okay Man after my own heart.
I am working so hard at the moment, and even if I knew how to seo my site to the top, I would not have enough time. I would like to get my set to the top (like everyone wants)
What would be the cost in getting it there
The url is www.leafletflyers.co.uk and the three keyword that i would like to be ranked for are:
1 leaflet distribution
2 leaflet delivery
3 leaflet drop
Thanks Vernon

[seo next]

It would benefit for both keyowrds and will even benefit for the over all authority of the site

[david64]

I would like to get my set to the top (like everyone wants)

Looks surprisingly compet. I would have thought that would be a chicken feed term.

I would give you an on first impressions estimation on price, but no doubt someone will come though and say they can do it for less.

I would recommend having a talk with:

http://www.redevolution.com/

who has posted above. He's not a friend or contact that I am trying to feed an a self-serving, insider association. I've read a lot of his stuff on here and his site as well as looked at the work he does in terms of SEO and found his company to be one of the most credible and transparent. And, on top of that their sites don't look like garbage as so many SEO expert's do.

[I, Brian]

I know all about the value of the text anchor in links pointing inwards but I have a bit of a question. Say im after keywords 'bookies' and 'free bets' would the anchor have much benefit for those if it was 'bookies free bets' or would it just benefit 'bookies free bets'?

Anchor text benefits both the exact keyword phrase, and constituent keywords.

Actually, combining individual target keywords into keyword phrases for anchor text - and varying them - is a very efficient way to target the individual keywords, and ensure anchor text variation.

So don't just go for "bookies free bets", but instead find different ways to cover both constituent keywords, ie, "free bets at the bookies" " looking for bookies who provide free bets".

Of course, also remember semantic relationships, so for "bets" you would be advised to consider link anchor text "bet" and "betting" as well.

[MASSEY]

i dont think i would even contemplate trying to seo for "free bets" or similar without a good few grand set aside to grease peoples palms for links. It might be depressing to think you have to spend so much but you need to work out if the site really is worth the time and money.

[thebookiesoffers]

i dont think i would even contemplate trying to seo for "free bets" or similar without a good few grand set aside to grease peoples palms for links. It might be depressing to think you have to spend so much but you need to work out if the site really is worth the time and money.

its definatley worth the time and money, i love working on it as the whole topic is something i really love, and the money side is definatly there as that why the big players in the sector spend so much money on their sites. Its just having the money in the first place to start splashing around on links, especially knowing you risk picking up a penalty

[david64]

especially knowing you risk picking up a penalty

You won't get a penalty for buying links.

[RedEvo]

The problem for SEOs is that if you tell people the truth you won't get the business as they want to buy into the idea that they can have top-notch white hat SEO fro £250 a month. So if you tell the truth, you loose out on businsses and they go to someone who does the same cheap tricks but dresses it up as a professional science. Although the people who want to buy into the lies are likely to be more painful clients.

Spot on. We lost out on a job with a high profile on-line bookie because they wanted to know how many links they would get for the £x/month they were going to pay. I refuse to play that game, it's a road to nowhere IMHO.

d

[crossdaz]

its definatley worth the time and money, i love working on it as the whole topic is something i really love, and the money side is definatly there as that why the big players in the sector spend so much money on their sites. Its just having the money in the first place to start splashing around on links, especially knowing you risk picking up a penalty

I saw a betting site once - I can't remember what it was called but it was basically an affiliate site like yours.
He had a section where he explained how you could make money by using the free bets and gave examples of what to back on how much to put on.
I'm not interested in betting at all but I thought this was a fairly good approach to adding something more than just a list of bookies.

I don't know if it did him any good but have you thought of doing something like that?

[thebookiesoffers]

Spot on. We lost out on a job with a high profile on-line bookie because they wanted to know how many links they would get for the £x/month they were going to pay. I refuse to play that game, it's a road to nowhere IMHO.

d

was that the one you told me about? if so i would have thought they were more clued up than that

[thebookiesoffers]

I saw a betting site once - I can't remember what it was called but it was basically an affiliate site like yours.
He had a section where he explained how you could make money by using the free bets and gave examples of what to back on how much to put on.
I'm not interested in betting at all but I thought this was a fairly good approach to adding something more than just a list of bookies.

I don't know if it did him any good but have you thought of doing something like that?


you have to be very careful doing that sort of stuff as its called arbitrage betting and the bookies dont want us advertising that as they dont want people winning really, especially not locking in profit then moving on. Thanks for sharing the idea though:)

[bdw]

Google's top twenty results on a search for free bets are dominated by domain names using these words. Perhaps you should consider this?

[DayTrader]

thats the trouble with my site mate, getting natural links. I've approached people asking to do an article for their blog, ran competitions, simply asked people for a link, joined in communities and gave information etc and all people want is to offer paid links for loads of money for something that will never show a ROI. Gets on my nerves when I spoke to someone and found a competitor had got loads of links by offering £100 for 6 months. I havent got that sort of budget but it seems google doesnt give a toss about paid links really

You have only yourself to blame as gambling niche is one of the most competitive niches (if not the most competitive).
The more competitive the niche the more money you need to rank well.
From experience I know that for gambling links you have to pay a premium but paid links do work.

Supposedly google does care about paid links but from my point of view if you can efford to spend £10,000 a month on links and SEO then you surely will invest considerable amount of money for your site content. Don't you think?

BTW: you do need to change anchor texts, and both variations are fine, just make sure you use your primary key phrases more often.

[thebookiesoffers]

You have only yourself to blame as gambling niche is one of the most competitive niches (if not the most competitive).
The more competitive the niche the more money you need to rank well.
From experience I know that for gambling links you have to pay a premium but paid links do work.

Supposedly google does care about paid links but from my point of view if you can efford to spend £10,000 a month on links and SEO then you surely will invest considerable amount of money for your site content. Don't you think?

BTW: you do need to change anchor texts, and both variations are fine, just make sure you use your primary key phrases more often.

yeah im to blame because i control the gambling niche markets.:rolleyes: