Like Scrooge’s ghost of Christmas past, the keyword rich anchor text, once a very much alive and powerful way to get backlinks, has completely gone out of style. It’s no longer a useful tactic for SEO web content. Whether in your blogs, guest blog content, web content or any content published online, it’s good sense to avoid exact match keyword anchor texts.
Let’s explore just why this good old precept is now an outdated no-no.
There was a recent fiasco with Google approaching one of SEO’s biggest blogs in the community, Moz.com. One of the red-flagged items they sent to Moz in a warning email was about spammy anchor text. Oops—to one of the biggest SEO agencies on the web!
We are going to take a look at how you can link in your content without doing too much, if any, keyword anchor texts, as well as just what keyword rich anchor text is.
What Is Keyword Rich Anchor Text?
It is very simple and something we are sure you have done at some point in your content writing. Let’s say you are writing a blog about vegetable hair dye and you link to your product page that is specifically vegetable hair dye; if you link the page to an anchor text of “vegetable hair dye” then you are utilizing keyword rich anchor text in your SEO web content. Easy, right? Well, know that we have cleared that up, you are probably wondering just how you can link people to your website without doing too much keyword linking.
Let’s take a look at a few steps that can help you out significantly when you are either writing anchor text or not.
How Do You Write With or Without Anchor Text?
The good news is it is not very difficult to utilize anchor text in your SEO content. We are going to give you some help when it comes to how to write without keyword anchor text. The steps are as follows:
1. When Using Anchor Text, Use It Once. You can still use anchor text in SEO web content, but it is important that you use it sparingly and do not focus on keyword heavy text. Many websites were going about utilizing keyword anchor text and linking to multiple pages all over their site; this caused problems with Google and was considered to be quite spammy. If the websites happened to use their keyword anchor text only once, linking to the most important page for that particular piece of content, they would have been fine. Because of their mistakes, exact keyword-matching anchor text is something to avoid. When using anchor text in your SEO content, you should always make sure you are making variations because if you use the same anchor text all the time, you will find that things will not really go your way. If you use keyword texts, consider making sure that you only use anchors about use anchors about thirty percent of the time.
2. When Linking Anchor Text, Link to the Proper Landing Page. Linking to a relevant landing page is important for any linking in any post, especially when utilizing anchor text. If you write something about vegetable hair dye, make sure you link people to vegetable hair dye, not brushes or hair dyeing utensils. This will not only look like spam, but will create some upset clients. If they believe you are linking to some spiffy vegetable hair dye, and you don’t, they will leave quickly. Customers never want to feel like they are being scammed into buying something they are not looking for. If you are not linking to a specific landing page, but just want to get people into a general area, then do not use keyword anchor text. Either way is a great recipe for proper linking to make sure you avoid upsetting the Google gods. This makes sure that you use the right amount of links and make sure you stay relevant to your audience. You will find that the more you follow this step, the happier your clients, and potential clients, will be.
3. Never Over-Saturate With Links. It wise to always avoid saturating your website and SEO content with too many anchor texts, especially if these links are not relevant to your SEO web content. This is considered black hat SEO; avoid it. This is similar to keyword stuffing – the more you utilize the links, the more likely Google can think you are spamming readers. It will also read as if you are writing predominately to rank and not for the human clientele you hope to reach. You may feel that it will come across natural, but if you are solely thinking about how to write specifically to rank, you will always forget how to write for humans. Write for a human audience and come up with an anchor text that will be perfectly natural in your sentences. (Just an extra tip: You will find that the most natural sounding anchor texts might be ones that are in the middle of a paragraph instead of at the beginning or end.)
4. Write As Naturally As Possible. As mentioned above, writing naturally is a perfect way to incorporate your anchor text without over-saturating or sounding like you are trying to sell something. This is something that is highly important in content writing whether it is simply writing up web content or if you are writing an anchor text within the SEO content. You do not want to incorporate the anchor text in your writing where it sounds stilted and forced; this is a red flag to readers and Google. Do you remember reading all of those blogs about writing naturally? Have you started to forget them? Well, you should begin to refresh your mind and make sure you incorporate natural writing at all times. This will help your link strategy and will ensure that readers will enjoy reading your material and will eventually become part of your client base.
5. Try Different Anchor Texts For A Landing Page. If you find that one type of anchor text is not really helping the current landing page you are promoting, then it might be a good idea to try out different anchor texts in your content. This is a great opportunity to not use keyword-specific anchors. You do not want to keep doing the same thing if it is not working out for you and your site. In fact, even if your page is successful, it might just be a good idea to change up the anchor text every now and then to keep the clicks fresh for specific landing pages. Make sure you use your analytics to see how different anchors are helping, or hindering, your views.
6. Consider Linking To Three Resources and Three Landing Pages, Maximum. Sometimes, you may find that you want to include multiple landing pages and resources. Consider using three different resources and landing pages throughout your text, but no more. This can help you have a decent amount of coverage, but not so much that you oversaturate your SEO web content. One thing to keep in mind is that the more links you have on a page, the lower your page rank will be. In addition, the more links you have in a post, the more likely your site is going to be considered spam. This goes for your blog posts and any links that are on each landing page. Make sure you do not have an overabundance of links. However, you should always keep in mind that if you make a claim about something, you should have information to back it up.
7. Make Sure You Have A Great Link Strategy In Mind. When it comes to using anchor text in your SEO content, it is important that you have a specific strategy in mind. This will help to make sure you use the right amount of links for your site and can help you adapt easily to any changes Google makes in the future. If you do not have a current link strategy, sit down and look over the various guidelines and suggestions out there. Mold a strategy and then watch it play out. If you find that the first strategy you came up with does not work, never fear, you can keep tweaking your strategy until you find one that works the best for you. This could mean that you make several tweaks before you find the best strategy, but once you do, you will see some amazing results. Again, remember always to pay attention to Google and see what changes are being made so that you can make sure your link strategies are constantly up-to-date.
Avoid Improper Linking… & Use Some Great Anchor Texts
If you follow some of the above tips and utilizing great anchor texts, you will find that you keep away from linking improperly and keep the hounds of Google at bay. A great thing to add to your link strategy is to make sure you incorporate a few great resource links to balance out your commercial links (links that sell one or several of your products). Again, always keep an eye on your analytics to make sure any anchors you have chosen are working. Following the above steps and keeping an eye on your analytics will help you have a tremendously successful link strategy, while keeping you away from bans or penalties. Exciting, isn’t it?
Let’s face it; the New Year is less than a month away and that means it’s time for New Year Resolutions. While most people are talking about the usual — being a nicer person, losing weight, etc. — you should be focusing on how to boost your SEO content and rankings for 2014. If one of your personal resolutions is to make more money through your website, business and better conversions, having serious growth in your rankings is a great start.
3…2…1… Lift Off! Launch Your 2014 SEO Content Plan
You’re not the only one creating content. In fact, about 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared on the Internet every day, according to a blog by KISSMetrics. Yes, you read that right. This fact pretty much spells out this next one—if your content isn’t standing out among the millions, you’re probably not going to get very far with your website in 2014.
The Future (Or As We Call It 2014)
Content marketing is expected to overtake social media. Content will start to deliver in terms of brand awareness, value, links, discussions, etc. Also, 2014 is likely to bring along some better SEO measurement tools, which means you can see how well your content is doing and not keep hoping it’s doing well.
In 2013 it was already pointed out that most businesses and website owners don’t invest in their content. If you’re one of them there’s no need to be ashamed, but it is time to start moving. Content is crucial to the development of your website and brand. Google wants content — if you hadn’t already noticed from their headlines lately.
It means that if you want to get more traffic from Google, you first need to satisfy their thirst for content.
Your #1 on your New Year’s Resolution list should be to improve your website rankings. So where do you start? Well you won’t have to sift through the Webmaster Tools guides or even read multiple articles, because we’ve assembled the best of the best when it comes to boosting your rank for 2014.
Create a Content Calendar, Seriously
It’s time to fill out a calendar for 2014 and we’re not referring to anyone’s birthdates or appointments. A content calendar spells out what you’ll post and when during each month. All you need to get started is a blank calendar — yes, it really is that simple.
You’ll spend some time pre-planning — so don’t write anything down in permanent marker or pen just yet.
If a calendar and your handwriting aren’t appealing, there are more comprehensive planning tools available online (some are free), according to Forbes.
Plan Themes Monthly — Not By the Seat of Your Pants
There is always a time of the year or month that has something theme-worthy. This month, for example, you will have Christmas, New Year’s, etc. January, the first month of the New Year is the start of something new and fresh – a perfect theme for January blogs.
Month-inspired themes make writing more fun and are likely to attract more organic searches than you think. This is because around these times of the year people are searching about that holiday — and if you’re writing about it you might be seen.
Also, themed articles give you an opportunity to link to other articles in that same theme or keep readers coming back to see the newest post by letting them know to “stay tuned”, according to an article from Unbounce.com.
Not sure where to get started for themes? Here are just a few ideas:
January – Time for New Year’s Day, starting something new, resolutions for the New Year, winter, etc.
February – It’s the month of love, do we really need to give you more?
March – Everyone loves St. Patty’s Day -or just theme it on the color green.
April – Spring is in full bloom and so are the flowers. Use that for inspiration.
May – Summer is almost here and there are plenty of holidays to celebrate.
Identify Your Content Goals
What do you want from your content? If you don’t have an obtainable goal, you won’t really have much purpose to your content. For example, if your goal is to get viewers to visit your ecommerce store, do you include links or calls-to-action to encourage them to click over?
Or, for example, if you use your blog to get people to follow you on social media, do you tell them to follow you or include links to your social media account(s)?
Whatever your purpose might be, you need to define it before you write your content. 2014 is all about attracting more attention, but if you don’t know the type of attention you want, you cannot convince the Internet users to give it to you.
Develop your pieces with one of four of the common goals in mind. Don’t try to combine all four goals together. Instead, work all of your pieces toward a single goal each month.
The four most common goals for content include:
Getting Shared
Earning Links To Your Content
Encouraging Comments
Attracting New Leads
Making Sales
Pick one out of these four and use that as your purpose in your content. Your call-to-action should tell the reader your purpose too.
Pick Your Content Strategy
There are pieces of content that work for all strategies and some that should be left out — depending on the goal you choose. Once you’ve selected from the four goals above (remember you should only pick one) it’s time to decide which content types work for your objective.
Think about it: what types of content are shared the most within your goal? What type of content will get the most response?
Some common web content types to choose from include:
Blog posts
Videos
Podcasts
Info graphics
Slideshows
Articles
Tutorials
Press Releases
EBooks
Landing pages
If you’re not writing in the content category that appeals to your goal, you’re wasting time and money.
What you’ve just read is a quick rundown of what makes a good content strategy. At Express, we’ve discussed content strategies in detail quite a few times, but hopefully this refresher jogs your memory for 2014.
Go Long!
No, we aren’t talking about football. We’re talking about the length of your content. These days’ content matters and the days of writing 200 to 500 words are over. Search engines like to see length, because to them length is more in-depth and quality than a short 200 word blog.
So how long should your blogs and articles be? There’s no magic number really. However, Google is favoring longer blogs and guides by labeling them as “important” and ranking them at higher authority than those posting 200 to 500 words.
This doesn’t mean you have to write 10,000 or even 15,000 word blogs daily. But you should have a mixture of long and short posts on your website. Consider writing one or two posts a bit longer (somewhere over 1500 words) posts per week and leave the rest of the week to your short, sweet posts.
Quality Above All Else
Even if you post a 2,000 word blog, if it doesn’t have quality information you won’t get very far with the search engines.
Quality is #1 when it comes to Google. If your 2,000 word blog is nothing but you jabbering on and on about squat you won’t get a high rank for 2014.
Google’s Hummingbird sent a clear and direct message to all content marketers: Focus on the content — don’t worry about the keywords.
Even Google’s quality guidelines state they’re looking for pages that are written for users, not search engines. They want readers to learn and not be deceived. Also, web pages that use tricks to encourage higher rankings will be blacklisted.
So what is good content?
Write content with a purpose. Your content should have a purpose to it and the reader should be introduced to that purpose. You can be as complex or as simple as you’d like — but you need to deliver a message.
Create content with real value — not fluff. Your content should be engaging and useful to your target reader. This mean you will need to have entertaining and positive content that sparks a response of some sort from the reader.
Back up what you say with high-quality links. Links aren’t dead — regardless of what you’ve heard. Your content should be well-researched and attributed. If you use statistics, quote your source and link to a high-quality website. This will not only build your credibility with your readers, but those links to high-ranking sites can help boost your rank too.
If these don’t spell it out enough. Consider these attributes of fine, quality work:
Quality content is something Google feels is worth sharing.
Quality content has real answers to real questions.
Quality content is something people want to read and keep reading.
Quality content is something people are looking for and would talk with friends about.
Quality content gets shared after its read.
Unfortunately quality can be highly subjective. What you consider quality might not be what others consider quality. So where do you start? Your content should be quality as it is defined by your brand. What would your target or current customers expect from your brand’s content and products? The answer to this question is the answer to your level of quality.
8 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare for 2014
You have gotten the basics above about what 2014 has to offer. Now it’s time to give you 12 tasks that you should complete before December 31st comes around. By preparing for 2014 now you’ll be a step ahead of the competition (the people likely to wait until January 1st to start optimizing properly).
Invest Now – Higher quality means you need to invest more. Bottom line. It’s time to hire the best writers and best graphic artists to create your content for 2014. If that means boosting the budget for content creation for 2014, find a way to wiggle a few extra bucks over to the content creation column.
Create a Calendar – Decide when and how often you’ll post and write those dates on your calendar. Stick with them — Google expects it from you.
Change Up Your Strategy – If you haven’t seen a budget in your rank for 2013, don’t expect much difference in 2014. Instead, change up your strategy and create a new one for 2014.
Get to Know Your Readers – Do some research and decide who your readers are. What do they want to read? What content talks best to them? Then, implement it.
Check for Duplicate Content – Run all of your content through a plagiarism checker and make sure it’s 100 percent unique.
Use SEO-Friendly Content – Still use keywords, but don’t stuff your content with them or write for the keywords only. Instead write for the reader first, search engine second.
Use Long Form and Short Form Together – Have a mixture of long and short posts in your content strategy. Try to integrate at least one long post per week to help boost your authority.
Quit Using Poor Quality Backlinks – Axe the backlinks and start focusing on how you can link to other high-ranking sites naturally.
By implementing these tips and preparing before 2014 comes around, you’ll be ready for whatever changes Google plans on making for the New Year. Also, by starting on a plan for 2014 now you can strategize and budget more efficiently, which means you won’t be scrambling like everyone else when a new change does come. Remember how Panda and Penguin hit websites hard (in some cases wiped them out)? Don’t let your website go down — boost it up for 2014.
This blog was originally written in 2013 and has been updated Spring 2019.
For years, the word outsource has had an ugly ring to it in the SEO community.
People used to make assumptions that when marketers outsourced their content, this was sub-par writing. Today, however, outsourcing content has become the law of the land.
The current content marketing industry, worth over $400 billion, is heavily focused on driving more growth to copywriting. Content creation is the #1 area of content marketing with most reported increase in spending over the last 12 months (56%), via CMI’s benchmark reports.
Major companies around the country are using remote teams of freelance writers to improve their content’s SEO value and provide better material to their readers.
If you’ve ever considered outsourcing your content, read on to learn why it may just be the smartest decision you’ve made all year.
[bctt tweet=”It’s time to trash the misconceptions around outsourcing content. @JuliaEMcCoy explains why to outsource copywriting should be your next smart move.” username=”ExpWriters”]
Why Outsource Copywriting in Today’s World?
Today, you have to outsource copywriting to achieve anything.
As it stands now, the demand for content is larger than it’s ever been before, and brands around the country are striving to keep up.
Unfortunately, in-house teams seldom have the time, workforce, or expertise to create high-quality content in the amount and speed required by consumers. Because of this, many major firms decide to outsource web content writing to teams of freelancers or content marketing agencies.
While these experts provide many services, they’ll help companies boost search engine ranking, publish more content, promote engagement with users, and maintain content quality – all while the creator and staff in the organization focus on core activities and build the next steps in their business.
Is that a dream come true, or what?
[bctt tweet=”As it stands now, the demand for content is larger than it’s ever been before, and brands around the country are striving to keep up. Here are the reasons why you should outsource copywriting today.” username=”ExpWriters”]
If you’re still in doubt that outsourcing web content writing could be valuable, consider the following benefits:
Outsourcing helps you reach your target audience more effectively
Outsourcing can make your content more reader-friendly and focused
Professional content creation services understand the content climate, and can keep you on Google’s right side
Content writing services can help you build your brand from the ground up
Content writing services offer predictable, high-quality content for various industries.
Why The Decision to Outsource Copywriting May Be Better Than the Decision to D-I-Y It
While many marketers believe they can create their own content without the help of a content creation team, the fact of the matter is that there is seldom enough time or energy in the day.
Let’s face it: content creation agencies even outsource some of their content!
Writing great content takes time, a lot of it, and it’s tough to manage the demand if you’re also focusing on other aspects of building a business – like marketing, product development, and sales.
What’s more, while many people assume that outsourced content will be low-quality content, the opposite is typically true. When you work with skilled, reputable web content teams, you’ll get professional, high-quality content you can trust, and which reflects positively on your brand.
Finally, outsourcing content writing to a reputable copywriting service will help you benefit from the result-oriented services that they offer. Plus, website content writing rates are typically incredibly reasonable, so you won’t be out a ton of cash.
[bctt tweet=”Outsourcing content writing to a reputable copywriting service will help you benefit from the result-oriented services that they offer. Plus, website content writing rates are typically incredibly reasonable…” username=”ExpWriters”]
When you choose to outsource your web content writing, you’ll get the following benefits:
Search engine-optimized content
Increased conversions and engagement
100% original content written for your company
Content that adheres to current SEO best practices
Improved rankings in the SERPs
Descriptions, headers, and meta content that are optimized for SEO
Fresh, well-written content whenever you need it
Various content types, ranging from blog posts to press releases
4 Stats That Prove the Value of SEO Copywriting Service
As your business grows, the importance of content creation becomes more pronounced. While many people assume they can achieve the same results by creating content in-house as they can by outsourcing their content to a team of skilled professionals, this simply isn’t true.
With that in mind, consider the following four statistics (according to Neil Patel) that prove the value of outsourcing your content creation services:
1. Only 42% of marketers think they’re effective at content
While content is King, only a small fraction of marketers believe they understand what it takes to be effective at it. If this doesn’t indicate a need for professional assistance, I don’t know what does!
While it can be difficult to create useful content that produces good results, the help of a skilled content agency can go a long way.
In addition to understanding which types of content perform bets in a given industry, a content company can also help businesses understand how best to position their content, and what changes the content should undergo to be as efficient as possible.
All of this is invaluable for a company that wants to boost its effectiveness and create a better content strategy.
2. 60% of marketers develop at least a single piece of content every day
While this may sound like small beans, it’s essential to put it in perspective. Even a 1,000-word blog post can take hours when you factor in that it must be written, proof-read, filled with quality links, beefed up with visuals, read again, proofed again, fact-checked, and published. Even that doesn’t take into consideration all of the follow-up work that comes in the form of interacting with followers and replying to comments posted on the piece.
Good content takes time, and even one piece a day can get overwhelming for marketers.
When you outsource your content creation, though, you get the blissful feeling that comes with knowing your content creation is taken care of, which in turn allows you to worry about other things.
Whether your company is growing quickly or you simply don’t have the time to develop your own content any longer, outsourcing it can be a great way to save yourself time and effort – without sacrificing quality.
3. 93% of all B2B marketers are using content marketing
Content marketing is catching on, and companies that have yet to adopt it are missing out on one of the biggest trends in the industry. Because content marketing provides users with relevant, authoritative, unique content in a way that doesn’t push them to purchase anything or make any changes, it’s one of the most welcoming types of marketing out there.
That said, marketers who want to jump on the content marketing train often need a push to help them get started.
This is where a quality copywriting service comes in. In addition to the fact that an excellent copywriting service fully understands the value of copywriting, the professionals therein can also help a CEO or marketer determine which approach to content marketing will be best for him or her.
This, in turn, eliminates much of the guesswork and helps businesses make the transition to content marketing as seamless as possible.
4. 86% of organizations ranked “highly effective” have an outsourced content writer
Content is critical to success in today’s web-based environment, and the best organizations out there know this. Go to the top of virtually any major business today and you’ll find someone whose sole job is to manage content.
If this isn’t a sign that outsourcing content is a smart move, we’re not sure what is.
Because the demand for content increases as a company grows, outsourcing it and hiring a team of people to be in charge of it is one effective way to ensure that the content keeps pace with the company’s growth, rather than being left behind.
[bctt tweet=”86% of organizations ranked ‘highly effective’ have an outsourced content writer. Is this a sign? Read more stats that prove the value of #SEOcopywritingservices” username=”ExpWriters”]
Outsourced Content: The Way of the Future
While purists everywhere have fled from outsourced content for years, the fact is that it can help companies maintain a solid online strategy without becoming overwhelmed by it.
Quality content creation agencies are prevalent today, and content costs are reasonable and accessible to many. Web content writing rates and SEO copywriting rates are typically in the affordable range for many businesses and even companies who thought they couldn’t afford outsourced content likely can.
While it’s true that the decision to outsource web content writing isn’t right for everyone, it can be a smart and hugely useful move for companies who want to grow rapidly and continue to serve customers, without sacrificing quality in the process.
So whether your growth has outpaced your content abilities, or you’re simply ready to take your content creation to the next level, outsourcing your content to skilled content writers may be the best move you make for your company. Are you searching for experienced content writers to handle your content creation? Look no further than Express Writers! Contact us today to learn more about our content creation offerings, and to develop your content plan today!
