For most of us, we don’t do SEO so that someone typing in our company name finds us. CleverZebo.com was the first Google organic search result for “Clever Zebo” within days of launching the site. What I really want is for people typing online marketing strategy to find Clever Zebo.
So how do you make that happen? It’s all about anchor text, baby!
When people say that the key to SEO is getting back-links, they’re only half-right. Yes, the more back-links the more Google will view you as a player, but a player on what keywords? Take Unbounce. These guys are hardcore: awesome product, awesome free offer, awesome virality; their brand is doing … awesome. What they need is that when you search for landing page, they’re in the top 3 results.
Anchor Text = Context
Anchor text may tell Google a thing or two about where you’re linking, but its purpose is to assist the reader. Example: As we gear up for the first ever Clever Zebo webinar, I’ve been getting increasingly nervous about the fact that I’m going to have to PRESENT. Luckily, one of our clients is a master of presentation skills training, and I’ve been learning a lot from them, but it’s still scary.
But it’s not always so easy. Some key search phrases we want to target can’t always be grammatical. Let’s jump to the therapy world, where service is often hyper-localized. Take sex addiction Los Angeles — is there really any way to make that fit grammatically in a sentence? Same goes for sex therapy Los Angeles. Yes, a root term such as sex addiction or sex therapy will contribute to your geo-local results, but the exact phrase you’re targeting is best.
Anchor Text is to Title Tags as PB is to J
The sweet spot hook up is when you’re able to align anchor text with the target page’s title tag. As you’re doing your holiday shopping, get your unique invitations and announcements at LookLoveSend.com and notice that their home page title tag aligns with this anchor text.
In a case like Market Fish where they’re already dominating on the long-tail search phrase “list marketing platform,” the generic list marketing is probably more along the lines of where they want to move.
Back to the world of geo-localized optimization, los angeles catering is in perfect anchor text/title tag alignment for LA Spice.
Shameless Post or Vital Online Marketing Public Service Announcement?
You might be thinking, “Josh just wasted 5 minutes of my life plugging companies he likes,” and you’d be correct, but there’s a deeper point here. Google has become one of the most important companies in the history of humanity because it got at a profoundly deep level that ultimately what all humans want is to have our needs met as efficiently as possible. Google is constantly updating its algorithm to make sure that search results actually address a user’s desire, and the algorithm cares what we think.
If you love Alabama football, you want the best, freshest, most interesting Alabama football insights out there from a site like Alabama Intel. You don’t want some generic mega-conglomerate media company who’s throwing money at sub-domains.
Likewise, if you’re looking for free online games, you don’t want some decade-old tetris-clone-mill; you want to blow serious hours of your life at Mochi Games.
Finally, and to seal the point, if you want a kick-ass crew to help you with retargeting across all the networks, go with guys who know what they’re doing.
The point is that Google is asking us to tell it what’s relevant and what’s not relevant. When we lazily insert Google.com, we limit our voting power. Make your link juice voice heard — use relevant anchor text!