On Page Text Link Advantages

The easiest links to control, are those on your own site, but many people overlook the ways in which these links can help to more clearly define what your site is about.

Remember the rules - never try to manipulate search engine results, and always write for people first.

Your site has two classes of links, both of which can affect your site indexing:

• Navigation Links - The links in your standard navigation. You do have a standard navigation area, don’t you? These links state the official reason for being, for each page behind each link. They should serve to tell people (and hence, search engines), exactly what they will find if they click on the link. Use of text links, instead of image links for primary navigation gives you a bit more SEO power, according to most sources.
• Context Links - Links within your content, which refer people to a specific place within another page, instead of the visitor having to go searching in the navigation for the thing you just referred to. Some people overdo these - just keep in mind that if you are creating them to make the site more convenient for your site visitors, they are good. If they don’t help the visitor, don’t bother.

Anchor Text (the text that you put the hyperlink into) is very important to both of these kinds of links.

Keyword stuffing (inappropriate use of keywords in the anchor text) is also a foolish thing to do with either of these kinds of links.

Your navigation links should be ACCURATELY, and INTUITIVELY named. Name them with the words that are most logical. Keep them short and concise, and make sure they sound fairly natural. They are for people to use, remember, and who cares if you get a lot of traffic from a few search engines if the people who come in look at your navigation, assume you are stupid because it sounds so silly, and leave! Keep it natural - that is your best key in knowing you are not overdoing on navigation keyword usage.

Use context links to help your visitors more easily navigate your site. Put the links to the pages within the words that reference the page - avoid use of the words “click here”, or “press here” to put your links in. Keep it natural - again, this is your best guide to know if you did it right. If the page mention and link appear a considerate gesture, you did it right. If it is overused, linked more than once on a single page of content, or if you mention too many other pages within a single page, then you’ll drive off visitors, and risk having your site lowered in value for poor content.

Accurate naming of navigation links, and occasional use of context links can help your site to be more accurately indexed by search engines. And that is the real goal.