16 replies to this topic

[1dmf]

Hi,

Ok I finaly grasped the inbound links thing, yep 'morning!'

So if we are to add value to our site while boosting SERP and not employ bad SEO practices, can someone point me in the right direction please.

if you wrote an article/blog, how do you do the links, for example , if we were to write an article about remortgaging, would we anchor every time the word remortgage is used to the remortgaging advice page?

or do you write the article and at the end have one link to the relevant page?

I was (due to the industry i'm in) concidering doing a 'Glossary of Terms' page, this would be adding value to the site and offering guidance to our visitors, however, is doing this good SEO and acceptable?

If all other pages where ever the words in the glossary appeared, linked through to the term on the glossary page, would this help SERP while offering added value to the site?

However, I do not want all the pages ending up with alot of the text being a mass of hyperlinks (visibly), I take it as long as the user can see the text, that is not cloacking, how I decide to style the anchor pseudo classes is my choice right and will not affect ranking?

is this a value added SEO idea? and if so , how would you implement it?

I could get the compliance team to start a blog type article based part of the site, there is a lot of legal / regulatory information that would be very usefull to pass on to our visitors, for example HIPS, being the current hot topic.

I'm unsure on how this bit would work, do we create a system to enable them to create/amen/edit the articles themselves, but they no nothing of HTML coding, so would not know what keywords to link or how or to where.

Whic I myself am still unsure of, or do they give me the aticle content and I 'mark it up' again, guidance on what is linked and to where is much appreciated.

Many thanks,
1DMF

[Martin C]

There is a big danger when you embark on article writing with the express view of SEO that you miss the point.

For an article to be effective it must be of interest to people and that normally means on a subject that is of interest, well written and informative. The biggest turn-offs are articles that are nothing more than self promotional advertisements.

If you are going to publish your articles in many of the article directories in the hope that it is going to be picked up by other people and re-published on third-party websites, newsletters, ezines and blogs you will also need to keep within the guidelines of each article website.

Apart from more general rules in most cases article directories will limit the number of links that can be included in the body of the article (anywhere from zero to three is fairly normal). Some will allow HTML and some don't.

A link contained within the authors bio is normally acceptable with some sites allowing more than one.

A good article can have enormous benefits and can be worth the effort even ignoring the SEO benefits, but the most effective articles are those that people want to read and find useful and interesting. Start with that in mind and you will be on the right track.

[1dmf]

Appreciated Martin, of course I am doing this to improve the site, which of course includes ranking.

There is no point in writing articles no-one will ever read if it does not get indexed or improve your site generic listing, I have come to a conclusion that there is a fine line between doing something for your visitors and doing something for SEO.

I am concidering adding stuff to improve SEO and site traffic , but that doesn't mean i'm creating fake content, or rubbish just for SEO, this is very much a two edged sword.

If we start a blog/article section of the site, to help improve ranking as well as the site's offering in general (it seems one is not always exclusive of the other!), the content will be real, tangible, value added content.

Adding content for improved SEO and ranking does not automatically = bad content or SEO practices. I have spoken with our compliance team and they are happy to help and write some articles/news for me.

as per my example HIPS , a hot topic, people want and NEED to know about it, it is a requirement by law, and related to the industry we are in, that's not creating content for contents sake purely for SEO, it adds real value to our site and offers informative information to our visitors, that's a good thing right?

surely there is nothing wrong in taking something that helps SEO and then thinking , right how do I do this properly offering [url=http://searchengineland.com/070531-115312.php]Real[i][/i] Content[/url] and value, while attempting to improve SERP.

this is the correct way of tackling it , isnt it?

Which is why i need pointers on how I do this properly, where and how you apply the links, the style in which it should be written, for example.

(this will be published as content on our site)

if they write an article on HIPS, every time they use the acronym HIPS, should that be anchored to the Glossary of Terms, not I don't mean write an article page saying HIPS HIPS HIPS HIPS, 500 times so we have 500 inboaund links to the glossary, that's not [url=http://searchengineland.com/070531-115312.php]Real[i][/i] Content[/url] and is keyword spamming, maybe as the article only mentions the acronym HIPS 3 or 4 times, that's still 3 or 4 inbound links to the glossary, and if we have an article on the different types of mortgages , Base Rate Tracker, SVR, Fixed, etc.. they would carry a few links each to the glossary of terms.

Is this the right mindset i'm going down? creating [url=http://searchengineland.com/070531-115312.php]Real[i][/i] Content[/url], with real valuse and at the same time building more keyword related inbound links to my site for SEO and SERP.

Please tell me i'm on the right track? (or not however the case may be )

[Martin C]

You seem to be on the correct track, but I would be careful with the number of embedded links.

There is a distinction between website content and articles. Website content tends to lend itself to linking back to itself, unless the article is a reference style document, such as a Wikipedia type 'article' where the links provide a useful cross reference that helps the reader I would treat articles more like that you read in a newspaper and limit the number of links to one or two in the main body of the article.

As I said earlier, if you want people to re-publish your articles you need to confirm to the rules of the article databases. I would suggest you visit a few their rules and and see the format of the published articles, there may be some that are in your area of expertise. An example would be ezinearticles.com but do a search here and I'm sure you will find a list of the most popular article databases. There are hundreds of article databases, some general and some specific.

Once you have a written an article you have a number of options:

Generally a website will have the original copy of any article contained on their website. Some websites have an article section, some have knowledge base areas that contain articles, it really depends on the specific website as to where and if they are displayed.

If you have a blog you can feature new article within the blog.

Some people will say that you should publish the article on your own website first so that the search engine registers you as the original publisher. I'm not sure that the SE take that into account at the moment, but if they don't they may in future and besides it won't do any harm publishing it on your own website first.

Hope the above helps.

[Jill]

if they write an article on HIPS, every time they use the acronym HIPS, should that be anchored to the Glossary of Terms,

I don't imagine it would be any extra help to your users to link EVERY instance of the word. Just link the first instance on any given page, and that should be helpful all around.

[moving this to our internal linking forum as I believe that's what it is about.]

if they write an article on HIPS, every time they use the acronym HIPS, should that be anchored to the Glossary of Terms,

I don't imagine it would be any extra help to your users to link EVERY instance of the word. Just link the first instance on any given page, and that should be helpful all around.

Also, I'd be very careful about styling the links so that they don't look like links. When you do that, you're basically showing that you're really not doing this glossary thing for your users, but for the search engines. (Cuz if the users can't see the links obviously, how is it helpful to them?) The engines won't penalize you for this in an automated fashion, but if a search engineer happens to review your page personally, they may come to that very conclusion.

[1dmf]

Thanks Martin/Jill appreciated.

I'm still a little confused over the styling thing, and what SE's might concider stealth tactics, not underlining or bolding a link can be purely a design thing, I think a page with a lot of links in text that stand out as links looks ugly and detracts from the reading pleasure of a page, and would be the reason I may style links not so obvious.

Maybe other people don't have this problem, I do when reading pages, I find it very difficult to concentrate and read articles correctly when there are loads of links in them, underlined and multi-coloured, but I have a reading disability, so I guess I apply things based on my perspective, which might not be someone elses view point.

It would be discriminatory of google to penalise a site because it is styled to make it easier to read for people with reading disorders, but since when has google ever cared about standards , so I guess i shouldn't be too suprised.

Just linking the first time a word appears is probably a good compromise, though I'm still not sure whether to wrap these things in an <acronym> <abbr> or <dfn> tag, but that's another debate alltogether and on another forum it turned into a 'can of worms' , so I'll just make my own descision and stick with it on that one

Well I guess you guys and gals think a 'Glossary of Terms' is a useful addition and writing articles / blogs which have valuable back links is a good thing, as long as the content has real value and substance, so again thanks for the thumbs up , woohoo , I'm doing something right for once!

regards
1DMF.

[Jill]

I think a page with a lot of links in text that stand out as links looks ugly and detracts from the reading pleasure of a page

Then you shouldn't link them.

Sounds like you're only linking them because you think it's good for the search engines, which means it's a bad idea.

[1dmf]

i'm trying to do both, offer added value and functionality while increasing SERP ranking.

I've come to the descision, "You can please some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time, but never SEO a website unless it makes YOU happy, coz you'll never please anyone any of the time!" - lol

[Carophilly]

Also, I'd be very careful about styling the links so that they don't look like links. When you do that, you're basically showing that you're really not doing this glossary thing for your users, but for the search engines. (Cuz if the users can't see the links obviously, how is it helpful to them?) The engines won't penalize you for this in an automated fashion, but if a search engineer happens to review your page personally, they may come to that very conclusion.

As an SEO who came from a design background, I also battle with the conflict between disguising links 'cos they're ugly and showing them 'cos they're useful. But it doesn't have to be one or the other. Links don't have to be bright blue, bold and underlined. I generally keep them the same color as the rest of the text and just underline them, or leave off the underline but have a color variation. I just choose a color that looks great with the design.

That way the design looks good AND the viewers can see the links!

[Jill]

Agreed, carophilly!

[1dmf]

I have taken this approach on our FAQ page, and decided to highlight (bold) acronymns to try to indicate hovering will give further information, i don't want to colour them as part of accessibility standards are you should never communicate information solely by colour! nor underline, because they are not links, and that usualy indicate a hyperlink.

it's definately a hard one to find a happy medium, but i'll keep on trying

[Randy]

And just to throw a monkey wrench into the already confusing equation, you have to take into account which market segment your site is targeting. As a quick example, from my testing the female audience from a wide age spectrum (teenage to 50's) responds very well to highlighting certain words and links with color changes, if you're using the right color palette.

So even those the Accessibility Guidelines say not to do it, the Usability Guidelines for this specific market segments would say you'd be a blithering fool not to do it.

Yeah, it's confusing. And there really aren't many hard and fast "rules", but lots of "guidelines" - Guidelines that can change drastically depending upon your intended audience.

[1dmf]

And just to throw a monkey wrench into the already confusing equation

was that a pun on my avatar - lol

hey anyway what are rules made for - to be broken - woohoo!

[torka]

One approach that I've seen used on enough other sites that it seems to be lurching toward becoming an almost de facto standard is to underline acronyms with a broken line. You can then use a solid line for "regular" links.

This provides a visual cue (for those who can see the page) that "something" may happen if they mouseover or click those items, but it's not the same as a regular link.

This might be something to consider, at least.

--Torka

[1dmf]

cool , see some good advice can come from a what seems a lost caused thread -lol , as always a pleasure Torka, thanks.

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would that be the kiddie?