A Keyword Anchored Backlink Can Move You Up in the Search Results

I spend some time each week looking through my website stats - the keyword results in particular. Most good tracking software will give you a list of keywords that visitors have typed into one of the popular search engines to get to your site. Today I want to share with you how a simple keyword anchored back link can move you up in the search results for these terms which will result in more traffic to your site. Interested? Here we go...

Start with the keyword or keyphrase whose ranking you want to improve. I like to work with a list of about 5 of them at any given time. Note where you are ranking for each of them right now and keep a record of it (either in a notebook or in a spreadsheet). If you are already getting traffic chances are pretty good that you are ranking somewhere on the first three pages in one of the big search engines.

Now it's time to build a keyword-rich backlink for each of them. A good place to start is to write an article and submit it to a strong article directory like EzineArticles.com. Make sure you use the keyphrase or keyword you want to rank for as the anchor text for the link in your author resource box.

Submit the article, wait for it to get approved and then come back a few days later and check your results. You should notice a rise in the rankings. If you're not quite where you'd like to be, write and submit another article. You can submit it to a different category in the same article directory, or choose another strong article directory.

Another option would be to write a guest blog post on a related blog. The stronger the blog, the better the backlink will be. Rinse and repeat as needed until you are getting the search engine rankings you want.

If you've created a few strong links and are not moving up as much as you like, chances are that this particular keyword is a harder to rank for and that the competition for that term is fierce. Don't give up on it, but consider modifying the term you want to rank for a bit. I like to keep the same main term, but add a modifier. Let me give you an example:

If you are trying to rank for "widget manufacturing" and can't quite get in the top three spots in Google for that term, go after "blue widget manufacturing" or "best widget manufacturing" for now. Change your title tag on that page to reflect this new term and then start building backlinks with this modified keyphrase. You should rather quickly see some SEO Traffic coming in from that modified term and over time you'll improve your rankings for the main phrase as well.