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Google Traffic Report Card-Does Your Website Pass? Part 1 of 7
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Author: Leah J Bradshaw
Topic: Advertising
Viewed: 52 time(s)
[ Not Rated Yet ]
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This is part 1 of a 7 part series that examines the 7 factors of
incoming links that Google considers when choosing a spot for
your website in it's SERP's.
Why incoming links? First because these are what Google places
the highest value on. But, all incoming links are NOT created
equal. This 7 part course looks at the kinds of links Google
values when "rating" your website in the SERP's. Each type of
link discussed is important to your overall link strategy and
consequently your free traffic levels.
The first factor is of course the anchor text used in your
incoming links. The importance of the keywords used to link to
your website are more important to Google than the content that
is actually on your page. You can generally use anchor link text
with your keywords and not even have the keywords on the page
and still get a good ranking in Google for that term if enough
incoming links have that keyword pharse in them.
If you've heard of the phrase "Google Bombing" then you know
what I'm talking about. Basically it's when a set of webmasters
or blog owners decide to get a page ranked for a certain term
and all leave links back to the selected site with the keyword
phrase that they want that page to rank for.
The most notorious example of this is the "bombing" done by
several blog owners to the George W Bush biograpby page. Several
bloggers left links to the page containing the keyword text
"miserable failure" and consequently this page turns up as the
number 1 result in Google for the term, even though the words
don't appear anywhere on the page.
The "Google Bombing" was done by at most a few hundred links
with this link text pointing to the page. Though more links
would probably be necissary for a more competative term. Still,
it goes to show how important link text is to the rankings of a
page.
Google Bombing is nothing new. But what many people don't
realize is that Google places more relevance on the anchor link
text that it finds when it first discovers a link to your
website. Each consequent link either adds value to that first
impression or subtracts from it.
Many times you can control which link google finds first just by
knowing where google goes regularly (like on a daily basis) and
effectively placing your link in it's path. This is called
"baiting" the google bot to visit your website through this link.
Each link you place after this initial link should further show
google that their first impression (or the first keywords it
discovered that linked to your website) was and still is
correct. Each subsiquent link is a "vote" so to speak to
validate Google's original impression of what your website is
about.
Placing that first link to be found by Google is only the first
step, but a very important one. Choose your anchor text keywords
carefully. Each incoming link you place after this one should
serve to validate this first impression. Part 2 will discuss the
appearance and disappearance of links over time and how they
effect your traffic and search engine placement.
About the author:
Get Leah's Free
Traffic Report; "Jumpstart Your Traffic in as Little as 10
Days". She also authors a Free Traffic Blog for
wahm's to help work at home moms get free traffic.
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