Still possible to target keywords?

[Jeepster]

If you're a professional SEO and a client wants to target certain keywords, other than on-page tweaks what else is there? Or am I right in presuming there's nothing you can do off-page any more?

[Jeepster]

Again, thank you very very much.

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

Glad to help!

Given that I run a commercial site, do you recommend I completely avoid an author bio and only link (where justified) in the article body?

I would avoid linking out from the bio, that's for sure. That was / is a really common way to get a link (or another link) into a guest post and it's crazily easy to spot. If you link, link to a non-commercial property (this is being very cautious, but since guest blogging was Google's favourite thing to penalise last month, extra caution is okay!).

Some site owners have inserted bylines on my articles, eg: "By Jeepster of Jeepster.com" (followed link), making it clear it's written by a guest. Again, is that to be completely avoided?

A lot of folks have struggled with this. For the time being, I might avoid having a followed link out from a byline like that, especially if the page also says "sponsored" or "guest post" anywhere. Links from the post (which is part of the point, of course) should be okay when relevant to the text, but perhaps be cautious of "extra" followed links from both bylines and bios. There isn't much you can do if someone wants to note that the post was written by someone else, but if the post conforms to all the other quality standards of writers simply writing for each other's websites, it should be fine.

There's a reputable site in my industry that openly asks for guest writers (completely unpaid; and it's not one of those built-for-guest-posts websites). Can I safely contribute to this if my articles contain relevant links?

I would say that this sounds fairly safe, as long as the site also ticks the boxes in that list (i.e. you go through and figure out if it's been abused by SEOs and / or by the site owners for money from guest authors, which it sounds like it hasn't). Google has surprised even the tinfoil-hat-brigade with some of the stuff they've penalised or said is not okay in the last year or so, so any links out from sites that offer guest posting options aren't 100% risk-free nowadays, but I guess the idea is to calculate the risk versus reward when deciding. Sorry to not be definitive here!

I've been granted approved guest authorship to a couple of heavyweight sites in my industry, ie, I submit articles to them which are vetted at their end before going live. Is that still safe?

Same sort of thing as the other site really, although this sounds more like the "authoritative figure writing for a different authoritative site" scenario that is common in journalism, blogging, etc. We can't be sure what Google will choose to crack down on next, but they're already getting heat for trying to control how information is shared on the web and trying to crack down on knowledge being shared like this would be a further step too far, in my opinion.

[Jeepster]

Hi Jane
Thank you very, very much for the detailed, informative response.
A handful of follow-up points/questions:

• I've only ever written for sites in my industry – so I get around the "...totally at odds to the topic of the site..." problem.
• "…posts come with a generic author bio that links to a commercial site…" Given that I run a commercial site, do you recommend I completely avoid an author bio and only link (where justified) in the article body?
• "...The harder you work to "hide" the fact that you're guest blogging..." Some site owners have inserted bylines on my articles, eg: "By Jeepster of Jeepster.com" (followed link), making it clear it's written by a guest. Again, is that to be completely avoided?
• Further to your post here, there's a reputable site in my industry that openly asks for guest writers (completely unpaid; and it's not one of those built-for-guest-posts websites). Can I safely contribute to this if my articles contain relevant links?
• Finally, I've been granted approved guest authorship to a couple of heavyweight sites in my industry, ie, I submit articles to them which are vetted at their end before going live. Is that still safe?

Thanks

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

For the guest blogging point, I would say that the absolute best type of guest blogging achieves two goals:

1. It looks like a guest author, who is an authority of a subject close to the heart of the publishing website, being commissioned to write an article for that website. My father runs a blog about swimming. The website has been online for eleven years. If a swimming coach from a successful program writes a post for him about a new method of training and links either to his / her own website and to a product that helps with the new training method, neither my father's blog, the coach's website nor the product page are ever going to be hurt from doing this. This is a standard practice that happens every day (usually without giving thought to SEO).

How many people sometimes write for big magazines who aren't permanently on staff there? Moz was told that Youmoz was fine. What you need to avoid here are the crappy, "made for low-quality sharing" **posts that are easy to spot.**It can be really obvious posts come with a generic author bio that links to a commercial site, are poorly written, or are totally at odds to the topic of the site. Using the swimming blog example, if he were to publish a piece by a "freelance journalist" about the same new product, link to that product and include a crappy author bio about how "Peter is a freelance journalist who enjoys hiking, traveling and indie music. He is often found working at [COMMERCIALSITE.COM]", then you're in much more dangerous territory.

2. Because the goal is to provide something that is of relatively high quality, both you and Google get what they want: a web with high quality content that provides Google with the signals it needs to rank good content above bad. Essentially, Google has created an environment around guest blogging where you have to do it particularly well in order to succeed. Which is pretty much fair enough. Just a lot more work The harder you work to "hide" the fact that you're guest blogging, the more Google's problem with low quality guest blogs goes away.

So how does this tie together with keyword optimisation? I'd definitely agree that you no longer want to seek links to your car insurance site with the anchor text "car insurance". Some of these are going to pop up; let them appear on their own if they're going to, but don't seek them.

In that regard, on-page targeting is more important than the basic off-page metric of anchor text.

Regarding off page: we have enough reason to believe that Google understands the content of a page that is being linked from and how that relates to the page that is being linked to: a blog post on an 11 year old swimming blog about swimming that links to a swimming accessory with the anchor text "this product here" will still mention most likely ALL of the product's primary keywords. Google indexes the blog post, sees the product's name and keywords about what it does, follows the un-optimised link to the product website and sees those terms (including commercial keywords) again in the product page's title tag and description. Google relied on anchor text in the past, likely because this sort of semantic processing was too hard for a primitive search engine. This requires a much more sophisticated approach to analysing content, but makes it much more likely that the picture Google gets of a website's place on the internet is accurate.

[Jeepster]

Hi Steven
Thanks for the reply. But my question remains:
How can it be possible to "build" links with specific anchors/text around the anchors in an age in which link-building (guest blogging, directories, etc), are all but a busted flush?

[photoseo1]

A great way to rank for a specific keyword I have had great luck with still is making sure the text around the link supports the keyword you are trying to rank for.

Example: Plumber

Here at (making this your anchor text (xyz.com)) we are local plumber doing quality work.

This way you can vary your anchor text and still rank for a specify keyword and not be a spammer. A great example is just searching for any keyword in google and you will see all the words in the title or the description you search for are highlighted. Google is heavily taking note of all words around links looking for consistencies to base what results they return to searchers for your product.

It is still ok to use anchor text as long it is not abused. Always remember you can always use variations of the anchor text: Good plumber, fast plumber, Seattle plumber, plumber Seattle. You just can't use the same anchor text for 99% of your anchor text. 10- 20% anchor text is not going to throw up any signals you art trying to game the system.

[Jeepster]

Thanks for the replies, guys. But I don't think my question has been answered head-on.
In a competitive field, on-page tweaks will get you only so far. Assuming I've done all those, is there anything I can do off-site to influence matters for a specific keyword?
And to Mark, how can it be possible to "build" links with specific anchors in an age in which link-building (guest blogging, directories, etc), are all but a busted flush?
My gut feeling is no on both counts, but I stand to be corrected.

[David-Kley]

Maybe this needs to be asked, why are you not allowed on page tweaks?

"Or am I right in presuming there's nothing you can do off-page any more?" Incorrect. There is plenty you can do off-page, lol. In fact, page titles and meta descriptions are two of the most weighted areas of SEO.

The best way to properly optimize a site: (short version, based upon your question)

1. Think about what the user is going to type to find your product/service, make a list.
2. Check your list using Google trends and Keyword planner tool
3. Make a list of the most popular terms people are searching for, to target the widest audience possible, with the most focused keywords.
4. Begin optimizing the site around what you offer, and the results of your research. Have pages be focused, and not trying to cover 20 keywords on one page.
5. Look at existing authority sites and competitors to see what design or seo elements are working well in that niche.
6. Get content and seo in place, then share across social and relevant media outlets.
7. Submit to GWT and submit sitemap
8. Use analytics to analyze your results, and look for areas of improvement.

Rinse, wash, repeat for keywords you want to rank for. If you are working intelligently, the effort you put into this will be the results you get back out of it.

[maxweb]

From what I've seen, a lot more focus is being put on the onsite content these days. However, I have noticed that websites with keyword anchor text links still perform very well if done properly. General rules I would follow would include:

• Keep keyword anchor text links below 10% of your overall link profile

• Try to have unique anchor text for each of this type of link. Try to avoid using just the keyword, but a short phrase that includes the keyword or a variation of it.

• Avoid sitewide links. I've seen examples of single websites using the same anchor text over 500 times, which destroyed search rankings.

[Jeepster]

Hi Moosa
Thanks for the response. Two things:

• Guest blogging: The overwhelming majority of the "SEO community" says guest-blogging for links is dead. Even assuming it's not, my question stands: if links in the article are meant to be natural and you can't use targeted anchor text, how do you target a particular keyword?
• Infographics. Same thing: the links you get back are natural. All fine and good. But how do you target a particular keyword given you have no control over the anchor text linking back to you?

[MoosaHemani]

If I understand the question correctly, what you are saying is that If you need to target one particular keyword what you can do other than just some on-page tweaks.

I believe there is a whole new world you can attach to it. In the off-page area you can go with the following things:

-          Guest Blogging

Google slams down low quality guest blogging but if you are putting quality, targeting reputable blogs and including the links naturally in the article you probably will achieve your goals.

-          Info-graphics

This sounds like a bad idea but getting links from infographic directly is not the idea here but my idea is to design the infographic launch it on the website and reach out to targeted audience to see if they can talk about it or can re share it.

Once they will re share or write about it, links to your website will be quality, natural and somewhat automate.

Similarly there are other ideas like Interviews, group discussions, round up posts and lot more that you can do to target particular keywords for rankings.

Here are few things you should understand:

-          Do not link to exact match anchor text, instead prefer random anchor text links that point pack to your targeted page on the website.

-          Make sure links are natural and quality, which means no link should be coming from site-wide links, author bio and similar.

-          Get all the links from targeted and relevant websites instead of irrelevant websites.

Hope this helps!