Internal anchor text

[Cornwall]

Hi,

I'm not sure what approach I should be using with my internal anchor text. Ideally I would like to rank well for about 3 keyword variations, so what I am wondering is is this achievable through judicious use of onsite anchor text?

What I'm trying to establish is whether I should focus on just one term throughout and never vary?

Or, should I go for a variety of all 3 keywords?

Should I go for a wide variety of semantically similar phrases.

Where are the most important places for this anchor text?
E.g. home page, main nav, text links within articles?

Should I try and use the full term in my navigation. E.g. instead of using
Pink | Blue | Green
should I go for
Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets

Any suggestions, pointers to useful articles would be very much appreciated.

TIA,
Chris

[djlaidler]

Hi Chris,

Internal linking is an important but not over beneficial part of optimising your site.

Typically a good navigation, possibly a meaningful footer (with links) and breadcrumbs can be helpful for a users navigation. These approaches account for most of the internal linking on a site.

When running with these approaches, I would always recommend text links (avoid images where possible) and ensure above all it gives the user the best experience.

For your example above, writing Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets in the nav might take up to much real estate and look a little sloppy, try a drop down with the main category 'widgets' and run the colours as sub categories. Having a site structure www.example.com/widgets/blue will help to define widgets are an important concept on your site  while also highlighting that you have Pink widgets | Blue widgets | Green widgets. It will be assumed that for the product pages in this example, engaging unique content is available.

That said, if you see the need I would also encourage you to have internal link within your content, WHERE RELEVANT. I have seen to many sites, simply go through their content and pick out the popular keywords linking all over the place. If it helps the user (possibly by defining an unusual term OR refering to a service OR product described on a different page) it's worth doing.

One of my pet hates is finding a keyword on page that links to itself (same URL) because it is a keyword that is being targeted. As a user it's frustrating and personally I immediately leave sites running this practice.

You don't have to continually link to your desired page with the same keywords, in fact it's discouraged. Google are becoming increasingly better at understanding intent, therefore do what is best for your visitors and you will ensure that your site enjoys longevity in search rankings...

Best of success,

Dan

[WebbyNabler]

I think a blended approach would be best. I think a dispersion of 50% exact keyword and 50% variations, but when choosing the specific variations I would verify through any keyword tool that the variations you use have decent traffic.

As for the most important areas to place the anchor text I would say main nav, onpage sitemap and body of content in that order respectively.

Of course this is just my view...good luck with your project!