Using All Your Keywords as Anchor Text

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Best practice dictates that you can target 2-5 keywords per page during your onsite SEO process. But what happens to all those keywords during the offsite link building and content marketing campaigns? While some site owners might think sticking to the same short list of priority keywords is the best way to go, the Penguin update made anchor text variety even more important. But how can you possibly build links using dozens, if not hundreds, of keywords and their variations as anchor text? The key is to spread the love among your keywords and keep rotating through your list!

1. Write different versions of your boilerplate for press releases.
I worked with a company that had a great PR team. Their editorial calendar was always full and they were easily pushing out 2+ newsworthy press releases each month. PR links can be some of the most valuable and trusted in your link profile! If one of your press releases gets picked up by a news source it could easily morph into a dozen more links on various news sites. But the kicker with this client was that no matter how hard I pushed I couldn’t get their PR team to vary up the links in the press releases. They targeted the same three keywords in the boilerplate and would occasionally throw a link in the body of the release. This is a huge missed opportunity, especially since this client had hundreds of keywords spread out over several niches they were going after. Had they created 5-10 versions of the company boiler plate, each targeting different keywords, and rotated them throughout the press releases they could have given equal attention to all their keywords and not just the lucky three.

2. Create new author bios for all your guest blogging opportunities.
Some sites that allow for guest bloggers create a set author bio that appears next to all your articles. Others have the author bio written in at the end of the article. However your guest blogging opportunities work, be sure to take advantage of them and vary up your anchor text, especially on sites where you can write a new bio for each guest post. I recommend getting at least one full http link in your author bio when possible, and then one or two anchor text links. The key is to have a good mix of branded and non-branded keywords in your author bios so it keeps your link building looking natural. You don’t want to give the search engines any reason to think you are trying to game the algorithm.

3. Target long-tail keywords on your company blog.
When you’re done conducting keyword research, chances are you have dozens of “leftover” keywords that could still apply to your niche but aren’t being actively targeted on your website. These keywords make great fodder for your blog posts! In addition to optimizing posts for the keywords you are targeting on your website, these long-tail variations can help improve your organic SEO results and keep your anchor text list even more varied and natural looking.