Combining images with text as anchor text

[fablau]

Hello everyone,

I am working to create sub-category pages on our website virtualsheetmusic.com, and I'd like to have your thoughts on using a combination of images and text as anchor text in order to maximize keyword relevancy.

Here is an example (I'll keep it simple):

Let's take our violin sheet music main category page located at /violin/, which includes the following sub-categories:

• Christmas

• Classical

• Traditional

So, the idea is to list the above sub-categories as links on the main violin sheet music page, and if we had to use simple text links, that would be something like:

Christmas
Classical
Traditional

Now, since what we really would like to target are keywords like:

"christmas violin sheet music"

"classical violin sheet music"

"traditional violin sheet music"

I would be tempted to make the above links as follows:

Christmas violin sheet music
Classical violin sheet music
Traditional violin sheet music

But I am sure that would be too much overwhelming for the users, even if the best CSS design were applied to it. So, my idea would be to combine images with text, in a way to put those long-tail keywords inside the image ALT tag, so to have links like these:

Christmas
Classical
Traditional

That would allow a much easier way to work the UI , and at the same time keep relevancy for each link. I have seen some of our competitors doing that and they have top-notch results on the SEs.

My questions are:

1. Do you see any negative effect of doing this kind of links from the SEO standpoint?

2. Would you suggest any better way to accomplish what I am trying to do?

I am eager to know your thoughts about this. Thank you in advance to anyone!

[fablau]

Any more thoughts on this?

[fablau]

Thank you Samuel for your reply as well.

Yes, what you describe is exactly what I also learned: no need to be too much "redundant" about keywords, but SEs will understand from the surrounding context... well, fact is some of our competitors are doing what I am suggesting here and they are dominating the 1st spot on Google for most of the keywords we are competing with. They also have a more clear "siloed" category-sub-category structure than us, which suggests this technique combined with the siloing technique help a great deal (also, note that for most category pages we compete with, we have much more external links than them! Hence my though that a more clear, siloed structure could help)

And of course, anything we do is with the user in mind: ALT text is always meant for users first, but I don't see harm in being a little bit redundant on that if it could help with SEO as well, don't you?

Thank you again very much, and please, any additional idea you may have is very welcome!

[fablau]

Thank you Rob for your extensive reply.

I see what you mean, and I am aware of that. This "link technique" suggestion is part of a bigger plan I am working on where the goal is to create a more "siloed" structure to increase topical relevancy as I have discussed on this other thread of mine:

https://moz.com/community/q/panda-rankings-and-other-non-sense-issues

And even though that's a minor thing, everything adds up. For example, we have recently moved from http to https and that's also is a minor thing, but adds up with all other improvements we are working on.

As for your suggestion:

"I would consider is replacing the example music videos from your specific instruments pages to your home page so visitors know what kind of quality they are getting if they subscribe."

I don't exactly understand what you mean, are you talking about our own produced Music Expert videos or the YouTube videos inside our product pages submitted by the users?

Thank you again

[SamuelLavoie]

Agreed with Robert, that is a minor optimization but I don't see negative effect SEO wise.

Yes, exact match anchor texts can be powerful, but nowadays search engines rely less on it directly and will leverage text found near the links themselves and elsewhere on the page. Let say having this structure should have a pretty similar impact on giving anchor text weight :

<nav>

More violin sheet music categories

Christmas
Classical
Traditional
</nav>

Besides SEO, another thing to consider is the fact that screen readers will read the text in the alt attribute. Think about how it could help (or not) a user to hear : "graphic link christmas violin sheet music" "graphic link classical violin sheet music", etc.

Hope this helps with an added perspective on alt attributes.

[RobCairns]

Hi Fabrizo,

I think I understand what you are asking here, but if not please feel free to rephrase or correct me.

Based on what you are saying, you seem to be going for exact match keywords linked through image alt text for maximum relevancy to your targeted search terms. There aren't really any "problems" with this, but you may be going after a red herring here, even if your competitors are doing well with this tactic:

a) There is no guarantee that this tactic is what is generating the ranking results for their targeted search terms

b) Alt tags and exact match keywords don't carry much weight in terms of your overall ranking potential. That comes from links, content, architecture and various other factors.

I think that you may be expending a bit too much energy on relatively minor factors when you might consider beefing up your link profile, expanding your content base, improving your user experience, etc. This is especially true when you start getting into sub categories - if you are constantly working on the small details you lose the forest because of the trees.

So, to answer your questions directly:

1. No, I don't think there is anything "negative" that will come from this strategy.

2. Yes, I think that this strategy will move the needle but in a very small way compared to building a few powerful, genuine links from relevant sources in your industry. Build up your content, give readers something about violins to be interested in. I took a look at your site and the first thing I would consider is replacing the example music videos from your specific instruments pages to your home page so visitors know what kind of quality they are getting if they subscribe.

It's an uphill battle since your site is effectively an e-commerce store and therefore features a lot of images and uncrawlable content in videos, but adding some content about the value of your service, building links to your category/subcategory pages and improving the user experience is probably where you will get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of rankings.

Hope this helps - I'm always available if you would like to discuss further. Feel free to PM me at any time.

Cheers,

Rob