Google’s Panda Update – Why The *Quality* Of The Backlink Is More Important Than Ever!

If you’re at all engage in marketing online, you have more than likely heard how important *quality* backlinks are to achieving top rankings. That’s because since Google’s Panda update went into effect in North America earlier in the year there’s more emphasis being placed on the *quality* of the backlinks than ever.

As a result many smart marketers are now striking deals with savvy webmasters (with quality websites) to provide FREE articles in exchange for 2-3 quality backlinks pointing at their site. Most often these backlinks include a keyword-rich phrase most ofter called link text or anchor text.

If you’re needing backlinks (or are new to the concept altogether) it’s more important than ever to know what an anchor text is and how it works. If you’re asking yourself what the role of a anchor text is in SEO then bear with me because I’ll spell it out in just a bit.

But first let me share a quick story.

It Was News to Him!

I recently was called by a fellow marketer asking me to help him with a client who needed to sort out some problems he was having with falling page ranking. A page that had been steadily moving up in the Google rankings, but had suddenly dropped to page 30. What was this fellow doing wrong?

I asked a few questions and quickly ascertained the problem. This guys big strategy was to write articles, and then, using software, submit them to a hundred plus article directories. Theoretically, this would create a hundred plus backlinks.

What’s wrong with that, you may ask? Well, first of all, Google looks at how good a site is that’s giving a backlink. If a backlink comes from a really low (or no) value website, the backlink is also of low (or no) value.

Another problem was this: there was no variation in the anchor text. Every article used the exact same anchor text. If this marketer was using “aviation insurance” as his anchor text, Google was seeing a hundred or so sites using the anchor text “aviation insurance” and linked back to the same page. Does Google see that something is off here? of course. There’s no way a hundred webmasters chose to link back to a page using the keyword “aviation insurance.” It’s at all surprising the site owner’s rankings dropped like a stone.

You Need Variations for Success

Do you still need a better explanation of “anchor text”? Anchor text is really just a keyword or keyword phrase that is hyperlinked back to one of the pages on your site. The success of your site is dependent on the keyword phrases you choose. In other words, the position of your page in Google results is strongly effected by the keyword phrases you choose to be used as the anchor text linking back to you.

Let’s say that you promote Genesis WordPress themes. If you want your page to be well ranked, you need to have lots of variations on your anchor text keywords (WordPress themes for Genesis, Genesis child themes, best premium WordPress themes, etc.) linking to your page.

Google uses these keyword phrases, the anchor text, as indicators to help them determine what your page is all about. Google will see each of these backlinks as a vote of confidence from 15 different webmasters.

Now, Google will look at every word in your keyword phrase to decide where in the search results your page should be.

How Many Backlinks Does a Marketer Need?

Well, there’s no “hard and fast” rule. The number of backlinks needed is going to depend on the *quality* of each backlink and how much competition there is.

It’s reasonably safe to say that if you are facing medium competition, you will need to create between 20 and 30 backlinks (using lots of variations) to start seeing your page rise up through the ranks.

Is This an Overnight Phenomenon?

Absolutely not! You can expect to wait a month or two after you have come up with 20 to 30 quality backlinks before you start to see movement up the ranks. But don’t just sit around waiting! This is your time to come up with new links. At some point your creative well will run dry. That’s the time to go to the Google keyword tool and find phrases that are similar to your chosen keyword phrase. It should put some wind in your sales and allow you to start coming up with variations on the keywords that you’re found.

Yes, submitting links via software is easy. However, there’s no way you’ll reap the rewards doing things that way that you’ll reap by having anchor text on the best quality websites. The time you put into this endeavor will be well worth the time it will take.