Homepage Link or Deep Link?

[andyboss]

Just after a little bit of advice please
I have the chance of link from a fairly decent page rank site, for the anchor text I am targeting would I be better off having the link to my homepage or the actual category page for that particular keyword?
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks

 

[I, Brian]

The link should be to the most relevant page on your website.

For example, if your company sells widgets in general, but especially features blue widgets, then if you are setting up a link for "blue widgets" ensure that points to the blue widgets section of your website.

 

[andyboss]

The link should be to the most relevant page on your website.

For example, if your company sells widgets in general, but especially features blue widgets, then if you are setting up a link for "blue widgets" ensure that points to the blue widgets section of your website.

Thanks for the reply
The reason I asked is one of my main competitors for one of the industries I am involved with who ranks very very well for most of the main search terms has virtually every single link pointing to their homepage, which is why I was a little confused.

 

[sarahjones1]

It is better to provide the link to you Home page, if your website is not a Ecommerce website. Else, you can give link to the subscription or More info page of that particular product or service.

I would probably give the link to Home Page, as I have all the other pages linked to it.

 

[I, Brian]

There are two issues here:

1. Links really need to point to the most relevant page, where possible. There's little point trying to capture traffic through SEO if this converts poorly. I think of links as like PPC - try and link to the most relevant page to maximise traffic benefits not simply through volume but also conversion rates.

On larger websites it's neither possible nor ideal to link to every individual product, but links can still be targeted at relevant category pages - ie, if there are different types of blue widgets, link to the blue widgets section regardless.

2. Secondly, Google does have various link filters, some of which only come into effect when certain signals come into play. What those are exactly will remain subject for debate. However, having too many links just to the homepage has long been seen as a danger signal in link building as something Google could easily recognise algorithmically and devalue accordingly. In other words, your competitor with all the homepage links could be just one update away from losing much of their visibility.

Overall, it makes best sense for users to find as close to the most relevant page for their query as possible, as well as ensuring your website's link profile shows a reasonable degree of variation in link anchors, link targets, and rate of acquisition.

Hope that helps.

 

[headshotlondon]

I think it also depends on your strategy. Your website need to be relevant to the topic or services you are offering and your deep link ratio should be in balance too. The more pages of your website are relevant to specific subject the better! So, homepage is first for me and deep links are second. Both are very important in SEO. Just homepage wont do it I think.

 

[odihost]

It depends on the content of the home page and the category page. Which page do you want people to visit from search engine? That means you need to do SEO to that page, like using keyword on the page title, use H1 tag, and so on.

 

[vietlk]

You should get strong backlink for homepage and more backlinks for deeplink. Homepage always most important page.

 

[andyboss]

I am not sure if I should be posting this on the current thread I have posted
I maybe interested in a full time SEO to work on several businesses - please pm me. Need to see proven results.
Thanks

 

[GDH Web Design]

All link building campaigns should also appear natural to search engines, so it is important to get links across your website. Links to other pages will increase that particular page strength but also your overall domain authority. also make sure that link text differs, again so your campaign apears natural