Anchor Text & Google

[epsrx]

My question is about using the anchor text in incoming links to my site and how Google treats them. Let’s say my main keyword I want to people to find my site is “Widget” and my site title is “Buy Widget from a reliable source – WidgetSomething.com”

I am assuming that the best anchor text for incoming links is “Widget” but I read that it is better to have variations in incoming anchor link text (i.e. “Cool Widgets”, Widgets Online”, etc) rather than using “Widget” all the way. Again, I only want surfers to find my site using a single keyword which is “Widget”.

Can someone please enlighten me on whether having varying anchor text (“Buy Widget”) or sticking with one anchor text word (i.e. “Widget”) is better?

[mark1615]

I have this same question and would love to see some comments. We have a "widget" site. We really want traffic to come from searches for "widget" - 2 and 3 word combinations of widget such as "blue widget" are virtually irrelevant for us. The sum of all the 2 and 3 word combos is less than 10% of the search volume for "widget" in our world. But, the big question is, are we better to change our anchor texts sometimes?

Comments?

[prairie]

This is a hard one I think.

No variation is unnatural, but variation may dilute your aim.

I don't want to give advice here, but my best guess would be to dice things up ever so slightly.

[cabowabo]

You can run a small test in your industry - take the top ten results for your ten most important keyphrases and do an analysis of the anchor text across the board. You will have 100 sites to check and this will give you a solid understanding of how Google looks at your industry due to competition varies from industry to industry. Bottom line, you can't paint with a wide brush. What works in one industry often doesn't in another.

Cheers,

CaboWabo

[graywolf]

Have a page cheap-widgets.html all of the inbound anchors to that page would be "cheap widgets"

Have another page discount-widgets.html all of the inbound anchors to that page would be "discount widgets"

Have yet another page new-widgets.html all of the inbound anchors for that page would be "new widgets"

and so on ...

Have all of your onsite links to the home page use the anchor text "widgets"