November 7, 2010

Ok, I’ll admit, I just wrote that as a cute title. It really should be “what are your links doing” because really, you want your links to stay out all night. You want them to party like rockstar, spreading viruses with whoever they come into contact with–wait, these metaphors are getting muddled. I’ll explain.

Most people, when they ask for a link to their site, don’t realize that they’re killing most of the potential that link could achieve. Why? Because they link to their domain or company name.

Why is that a problem? It’s not in the particular instance of someone clicking on the name of your business, but if you want Google to get anything out of it, then it’s worthless.

The reason is, Google doesn’t care what your business name is. Because if someone already knows the name to your business, they’re probably not going to have a lot of trouble finding it. But if they’ve never heard of you, they aren’t going to be searching with your name, they’ll be searching for what you do.

A specific example might clear this up.

I just moved a bunch of content to a new domain. A little blog called Organic Evolution. Should I put a link on that name? Heck no. Because no one is searching for that name (unless maybe they’re biology students I suppose).

But if I want people searching for a modern life blog then I’ll put the link on THAT phrase instead. Because THAT kind of link tells Google what the content is about!

All clear?

Of course, where it really gets sexy is when you know what targeted keywords to use. I just chose “modern life blog” at random, because I don’t really know WHAT that blog is about. Actually, there’s a lot of stuff there about emerging consciousness and other bits about transforming society.

Have I illustrated my point?

So then, how do you figure out what are the best targeted keywords to use? (Ahh, here comes the pitch…) Give us a shout and we’ll explain.