On Page Optimization vs. Anchor Text
-
Is it hard to get a page to rank for a particular term if the majority of the anchor text pointing to that page is different from your chosen term?
-
I wouldn't say so, if you use brand terms for a specific anchor text terms, and then you join that up with another factor such as an EMD (exact match domain) factor. Connected with correct on page optimization. Then you need to target only a percentage of the natural links you acquire to have the term within the anchor text.
-
Pages can definitely rank for multiple terms, so having anchor text around one term does not necessarily mean you can't rank well for another term (Lots of pages rank for terms other than "click here" despite the majority of their links having that anchor text). Standard practice is to only target one main keyword per page, but that doesn't mean you can't make it work for a page to rank for a couple different major terms.
The main question I have is how different is the term your going after from the anchor text you are getting? I'm of the belief that if anchor text isn't just exact match or nothing. If the anchor text is topically relevant to the terms you are targeting you're in good shape. If that isn't the case why do you have so many links like these pointing to that page?
-
Is it hard to get a page to rank for a particular term if the majority of the anchor text pointing to that page is different from your chosen term?
The question is far too vague to answer.
What EXACTLY do you mean by "rank". Are you trying to earn the #1 spot? The top 3? Any spot on the first page?
How competitive is the term? On a non-competitive term you can provide relatively poor SEO and still rank in the top three spots.
What kind of variations are taking place with the anchor text? Are the variations other ways to say the same word (i.e. Limousine vs Limo)? Are they pluralized forms of the term? Are they other words that have the same meaning as the primary term ("tissue" vs "kleenex")?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there a tool that can alert me whenever the first page of search results change for a certain search term in a specific region?
Is there a tool that can alert me whenever the first page of search results change for a certain search term in a specific region?
Keyword Research | | Amanda_Palmary0 -
Does Google do keyword matching when deciding whether to rank a page?
Hi, another newbie question on keyword research and selection (can't find any information on-line with this low level of detail)... If I've decided that my primary keyword for a given product page is the product name, something like 'AquaPower wet and dry cordless vacuum cleaner', can I assume that it isn't worth additionally optimising the page for 'cordless vacuum' as this has a phrase match in the primary keyword? Is it still worth additionally optimising for 'wet and dray vacuum' which has a broad match within the primary keyword or is Google bright enough to drop the intervening word 'cordless' when deciding whether to rank my page? Thanks for any guidance on this.
Keyword Research | | Alli70 -
Multiple keywords one page.
I want to focus on these 4 keywords. E-waste management
Keyword Research | | themesh
E-waste recycling
E-waste solutions
Brand name Do I need to create a separate page for each or can focus them from home page itself, With title tag like this E-waste Management and recycling company in _Cityname _| Brandname:0 -
General Advice or Strategies on optimizing Non-Plural and Plural
Moz, I was just looking for any insights, advice, personal experiences in optimization for keywords that have Non Plural and Plural variants, Basically from my keyword and traffic research i have gathered the majority of the search traffic i am looking to gain is coming through the singular spelling of the keyword i am currently optimizing and updating our page for, From experience with this we have always ranked for the general non plural quantity page and brought traffic from both, My Example : Our lollipops page which has meta information targeted towards 'Lollipops' rather than the singular 'Lollipop' but links to Singular information pages that are targeting the singular word 'Lollipop' This way seemed to make sense as it wouldn't be good for user experience to have titles and headers on a page listing multiple products as a single instance, the content of the page would mostly reflect this targeting also, To make things worse the page language and content is in German where their seems to be many ways of saying the same word from my understanding, Am i doing the right thing in not sacrificing my user experience to target the singular version of the word ? Just some advice please? Apologies i struggled to get my question across well, Thanks James
Keyword Research | | Antony_Towle0 -
On Page OPtimisation Query
6 weeks ago, we attempted to improve the on page optimisation for the following keyword 'wedding venues ''edited''' on the following page: ''edited'' I just checked when the page was last crawled by google by checking the cache date in the SERPs which is the 27th of May 201?. We have been tracking the keyword 'wedding venues ''edited''' with the moz keyword ranking tool for the last little while and we've seen no real improvement, in fact we've dropped back a bit in the SERPs to 53rd (Moz says 'Not in top 50', it was 53rd when i last manually checked). I understand that we have to be building links to our site, but i still hoped we would be doing better than this for this keyword with the work we've done does anyone have any advice on how we can improve? Have we over optimised? We would really appreciate any help!
Keyword Research | | jennie.evans0 -
Keyword In Page Title
Broad Keyword Usage in Page Title Easyfix <dl> <dt>Page title</dt> <dd>"The Sea Trout Inn in South Devon, Near Totnes - Luxury Bed and Breakfast and Restaurant - Contact Us"</dd> <dt>Explanation</dt> <dd>Search engines consider the title element to be the most important place to identify keywords and associate the page with a topic and/or set of terms. SEOmoz's correlation research has also shown that rankings are heavily influenced by keyword usage in the title tag.</dd> <dt>Recommendation</dt> <dd>Employ the keyword in the page title, preferrably as the first words in the element.</dd> <dd>The keyword is Hotels Totnes, how can I put this in a page title without it looking stupid ?</dd> </dl>
Keyword Research | | Stoz0 -
Optimizing for Local Terms
I am just building my website and planning keyword strategy for my pages. How much is too much in terms of optimizing locally? So if I want "web design firm birmingham al," is it overkill to add that in the URL slug, title tag, essentially all the on-page optimization? /web-design-firm-birmingham-al much uglier than web-design-firm Obviously, would prefer to think big and believe it can go beyond one city to compete in other markets statewide or regionally, thus, optimizing for one city is too narrow (and there's the ugly url thing). I'm working on offsite local optimization, so I'm thinking this will not be necessary. Thoughts?
Keyword Research | | csmithal0 -
Using keywords targeted on one page, on another page?
This has been bugging me for awhile. I am trying to build up some great evergreen/cornerstone content for my site. It's basic stuff that just needs to be there. This problem is affecting me already, and I fear that when I get the main content done I will run into the problem when I start blogging for fresh content. The best way to explain this, is to use an example. Imagine a Jewelry store in a major metro. They are already ranking for a few "city + keyword" combos but are looking to expand their keyword reach and get some better rankings. They might have a page on diamonds, and target "city + diamonds." Then, lets say they are writing about Jewelry and you target a page on "city + jewelry" and on this page, it can be hard to write normal sounding content without saying diamond. AKA "We make shopping for "city + jewelry" super easy. You select a diamond, select your "setting, city + jewelry, or something"" What I would like to know, is if I should go crazy with the targeting and just write about "city + jewelry" on one page, for instance, and make sure not to just mention "diamond" and then make a sub-page or something to target "city + diamond + jewelry" Does any of that make sense? Edit for clarity - targeted keyword phrases bolded - I left my ramble above for historical and comedic purposes. It is hard to talk about jewelry without including some really (basic terms/keywords) that I am targeting on other pages. Is this going to be a problem? I might have a page on engagement rings, and another on diamonds probably targeted to the local area. Later, I might decide to write a blog titled "10 Reasons you need to buy an Engagement Ring" Should I alter that blog to be called "10 Reasons you need to buy a Diamond Engagement Ring" and try not to mention just the word diamond(s) or engagement ring(s) so that I don't confuse the almighty Google? Please advise
Keyword Research | | steven880