A search engine optimization (SEO) rule all bloggers should know

In my opinion, there is one SEO rule all bloggers should know about and use in every blog post. I'll tell you the rule first, then I will tell you why you need to know it and use it. I will also tell you exactly how to implement it.

The Rule:

Put descriptive terms (keywords) in your link text.

If you have not had much exposure to search engine optimization, this rule may not make sense at all. Don't worry, I'll explain everything. On the other hand, if you do know about search engine optimization, you may wonder why I think this particular rule is the top SEO rule bloggers need to know. I'll explain all that and more.

As bloggers, we want people to read what we write. And generally, we are happier when more people read our blogs. We blog for many reasons, including to be of service to our peers, to promote something we believe in, to maintain and establish relationships, and sometimes to earn revenue (from advertising on our blogs or from products or services we promote). If we hope to earn revenue, it is obvious why we want more readers. However, even a purely selfless blogger should desire more readers because without readers no good deeds can be done. It may seem obvious that all bloggers want more readers, but as soon as I mention search engine optimization to a group of bloggers I can be sure that several will respond that they don't get why any blogger would need SEO.

Search engine optimization is the field concerned with making things findable via search. It is a marketing and technology oriented field. Any business selling a product or service wants to rank at the top of the search results when someone types  a search term into a web search engine such as Google. However, as I pointed out above, we bloggers need to be findable too. And we need to be easily findable and highly visible. Fortunately, there are simple things we can do to become more visible.

Even with blog rolls and links to specific articles from your friends's blogs, many readers will first find our blogs by searching. Often they will search using Google -- but I think the same basic rules apply no matter how people search for the information on our blogs. Often people don't know the information exists on a blog (they simply perform a web search) and they certainly may not know my blog or your blog even exits. We want our information to be findable by anyone who searches, no matter how they search and no matter where they expect to find the information. Many of the search techniques pioneered by Google are now in more widespread use (because they work), so in general you can do the same things to increase your findability no matter what tool people are using to search.

For many of us with technology or software development-oriented blogs, it is especially true that readers find articles on our blogs via Google. In my experience, when we post a really useful and helpful solution to a problem, a majority of the long term traffic to that post will come from web searches (either directly or indirectly through another blog pointing to our blog).

Now that I have made my point that bloggers need to be findable and that knowing a few rules of search engine optimization will help make you more findable, I'll explain why I selected the particular rule I selected as the top SEO rule bloggers need to know. I said that the top SEO rule for bloggers is: put descriptive terms (keywords) in your link text.

In the search engine optimization field in general, I feel the top rule is: provide valuable (interesting, useful) content. However, as bloggers, that's already our focus. We are all about providing content. And if we are good bloggers, we are already providing good content.

However, even the best bloggers often fall into a habitual style of creating links that violates everything I know about search engine optimization. Given the value of link text (I'll explain what link text is) and given the absolutely horrible link text I frequently see in even the best blogs, I felt it would be a service to the entire blogging community to point out how simple it is to change this bad habit and how effective the change can be.

Let me provide an example of what you should not do when you create a link to another blog post:

The link text in this bad example is "here". The top search engines look at the link text when indexing content and most weight it fairly heavily in their algorithms. (They also look at surround text, attributes of the html tag, etc. In the above example, all those items are implemented poorly.)

Here is a much better approach to writing this content:

In my "better" example, the link text describes the content. It describes it using terms that people are likely to search for. (These search terms are called keyword phrases.) Knowing that search algorithms often weight the link text heavily, you can easily see that my second example will help the search engines properly index the content pointed to by my link. That in turn will help people find that content. The link text "here" will certainly not help anyone (human or search engine) better define the content pointed to by the link. Therefore, using generic link text terms like "here" represents a poor style of writing online.

Note that what I am advocating could be viewed as a public service for those whose blogs we read. For example, when I point to Phi Haack's blog (one of my favorite tech blogs, by the way), if I pay a bit of attention to the link text I can help the search engines properly index the content on Phil's blog and therefore make his content more findable, more visible.

I'll give an example of one way to link that is good from a search engine optimization perspective:

As you can see, it makes Phil very happy when I use the correct link text to link to his blog ;) And it is really no harder to include descriptive link text than it is to simply use the word "article" or "here" as the link text. By including the descriptive link text instead of a single generic word, I am doing Phil a service by helping the searching engines properly index his content. That leads directly to people more easily finding Phil's content.

Even if I do not send Phil a lot of readers directly from my blog, I am still raising the visibility of Phil's content in the search engines because I have provided useful descriptive text (keywords) in my link text and the search engines incorporate this information into their indexes. Stated another way, I am putting valuable information about Phil's blog post into Google and the other search engines when I link to Phil's posts properly.

BTW, one keyword phrase in the above example is writing readable code. Another is  writing clear code (for a broad match) and yet another is readable code. When people search using any of those terms, my link text above will help them find the content Phil provided on his blog.

Imagine the value we could create if all bloggers used proper link text as described above! I could write a whole new article on how valuable this could be, but I'll assume you get the point.

While I'm on the topic of Phil's blog, I will say that I truly love reading his blog and his blog was one of the things that inspired me to start blogging. However, Phil is just about as bad as the rest of us when it comes to proper use of link text. I could find any number of examples of what not to do on Phil's blog, but I'll illustrate my point with just one. Phil recently started a non-technical blog for his friends and family. On his main (geeky) site, he links to it like this:

Instead, I would suggest that Phil do the following:

Once we understand the rule (put descriptive terms -- or keywords -- in the link text), it becomes very easy to write that way. Doing things correctly is no harder than doing things incorrectly from a search engine optimization perspective. It's just a matter of habit.

We can take this habit to the next level with just a small amount of effort. We could provide a standard "template" others can use when linking to our blog. We don't have to take this next step in order to benefit from the SEO tip I provided above. However, I'm providing this as an optional step we can take. My main tip requires no effort once we break the habit of using meaningless words in our link text. In contrast, this optional steprequires a small amount of effort, but many of us will find it valuable. Continuing to use Phil as my example, Phil could easily post a small note explaining how to link to his non-geek blog. For example, Phil might specify the following and provide it on his site for everyone to copy:

Phil Haack's non-geek blog

If enough people use Phil's recommended link text, at a certain point when someone searches for "non-geek blog," Google will actually suggest "Phil Haack's non-geek blog"! Now that's powerful.

Phil should think about whether he wants to use "non-geek blog" or "non-tech blog" or "friends and family blog" or something else. (There is some branding going on.) Once he decides, offering a standard "how to link to my blog" snippet would help increase the association between those keywords and Phil's blog in the search engine indexes.

Phil may not care so much about lots of people finding his friends and family blog. Or he may enjoy having a huge circle of friends. However, for all of us with blogs that provide information we want to share, increasing the findability of our blogs through these techniques will help everyone on the web. It will help increase traffic to our blogs and it will help the search engines better index our content thereby reducing the noise in search results. In general, this tip will make the web a better place if we all use it habitually.

Remember, when we link properly, we are helping our fellow bloggers and our readers. We can also do the same thing with links to our own blog posts (internal links) thereby helping ourselves. I won't get into the details here except to say that when you link to your own blog posts, follow the rule described above and you will increase the findability of your own posts. (In other words, you can make your own blog posts rank higher in the search results with this technique).

Let me know what you think about this tip.

Copy the following html when you want to link to this post:

search engine optimization (SEO) rule all bloggers should know

Here is how the link looks. You can incorporate that link text into your content any way you wish.

search engine optimization (SEO) rule all bloggers should know