Anchor text guide

Anchor text in the SEO world is part of the large determinant of inbound links. In recent years, many SEO campaigns have created high volumes of keyword anchor text links in an attempt to show relevancy.

Post Vince update (mid 2009), webmasters have to consider how to demonstrate to search engines that they are an online brand. Gradually in the last 12-18 months, reputable online PR and SEO agencies have realised that a website's link footprint is an online illustration of its brand values. So image links, domain links, 'click here' type anchor text links and even nofollow links are all indicative of a classic natural link footprint. I've worked on a couple of projects where we've needed to address to the volume of keyword anchor text links - this largely down to inheriting bad SEO campaigns that have placed poor quality site wide links in an attempt to spam SERPs.

So I have 2 bits advice to anyone new to SEO looking to improve a site's rankings and search visibility.

1) If you are working on a new web initiative, be extremely careful when picking your domain. If you select a domain with one or all of your core relevant keyword terms then you give yourself a competitive advantage straight away. If however you inherit a domain like brandname.com without any keywords and it is a well established domain that you/your client wants to keep then adapt your link building strategy accordingly. Basically if you then create a big keyword anchor text link profile this will blatantly not be natural in Google's eyes.

2) Think about the bigger picture. Examine your link profile objectively and if it looks unnatural to you then in the future at any point you have an unquantifiable risk on your hands - you can address this by (a) taking links down and/or (b) redcing the proportional percentage of keyword led anchor text links.

Facebook marketing tips

Increasingly social media and SEO are being pulled together as online marketing disciplines. AS documented on earlier posts, location based marketing the two long term could well merge into one overall best practice methodology.

In chronological order, here are my 6 favourite facebook marketing business page tips:

1) Before you go 'public' (tip: you can put your facebook site in 'dev' mode so that only admins can see it) compose a set of comments moderation processes. E.g. service levels of comment reply time, removal of posts containing abusive/foul language. You can issue this on your 'info' tab just in case you get any troublemakers.

2) Get a vanity URL - business pages come with pretty ugly URLs but if you can show Facebook that you are serious, then you can get a 'simple' or 'vanity' URL. As the great Beatles tune goes 'With a little help from my friends'...get your 25 likes from your colleagues, girlfriend, boyfriend, facebook mates, mum - ... do what you need to do to have a URL that you can market in the offline world.

3) Use the imagery spots wisely. Your avatar and FBML areas can be used to get your brand logo and imagery across - make the most of it!

4) Post video content - video content is great because the user can stream without leaving Facebook. This is a friendly approach and ideally you would provide unique video content that you could then post on to your own website and Youtube account.

5) Use sweepstakes to build fans. This works superbly - why not do regular competitions, it gives your audience a reason to come back to you.

6) Blur CRM and acquisition. Social media offers people a route of getting genuine recommendations and points of view on products/services. People that 'like' you don't need to be heavily sold to. Point them in the direction of offers and exclusive competitions - but use your brand's voice - not 'BUY NOW' or 'XX% OFF - CLICK HERE'.