Search Engine Optimization For Your Dorum - tip #3

[Brighteyes]

Over time, I have noticed many forum owners dont really know how to link to their forum. Usually I see this:

http://www.ny-dev.com/

or this

http://www.ny-dev.com/forums/index.php

or even this

http://ny-dev.com


None of those are the best way.

When you link to your forum/site, either from another site or within your own site, the best way is to use anchor tags, and be consistant with the URL.

This is the best way:

Link Building

the HTML code for this looks like this:

<a href=http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/link-building.html>Link Building</a>

The difference is the Anchor Text.

My choice for this site would be <a href=http://www.ny-dev.com>Web Development</a> (or web developers)

In a normally built site, anchor text is usually used to indicate the subject matter of the page that it links to. For example, the text "Link Building" indicates to visitors that they can expect to see content about building links if they visit the link. This pattern of usage has been applied in search engine algorithms to enhance the relevance of the page" URL for the keywords appearing within the anchor text.

Anchor Text Enhances the Relevance of the Linked Page

That is, the keywords used in the linked anchor text enhance the relevance of the linked page. While the relevance of the page containing the anchor text is also enhanced to some degree (because of relevant keywords appearing on that page), the real gainer is the target page URL. Use this knowledge to build the relevance of each page of your site, through optimized anchor text containing important keywords, relevant to the theme of such pages, from other pages of your site.

So, you should always use anchor text where possible. (This applies to signatures as well). Further, where possiible, use anchor text that is comprised of the best keyword phrases from an SEO standpoint for the page. What that means is that people search for some terms and phrases more then others. You want to use anchor text that people are likely to look for, while still being descriptive enough so that regular people know what the page content is.