Keywords and link optimization

link text or surrounding text ?

[fom2001uk]

To get anywhere with search engines, esp Google, I know we have to optimize the (inbound) links for our target keywords.

To have keywords appear in the link (between the href tags) would be ideal, but this is not always possible or practical. Imagine your keyword phrase is quite lengthy !

So what if we can't get link text ? How effective is just having your keywords appear near the link (as a description of the site, perhaps).

Is link text just way better than nearby text, as far as keywords go ?
Or is it worthwhile just making sure the text on the page near the link, has all the important keywords ?

[roscoepico]

fom2001uk, I tend to do much better when I include anchor text as google loves the keyword in the link for the url as opposed to just having the text near the link. I too have some fairly long keywords to optimize for and I try to do my best in shortening up the phrase to the most popular terms within that phrase. For example if your phrase is "buying real estate in california", try shortening it up to something like "california real estate". In my opinion its best to include some of the phrase as opposed to none of the phrase.

[fom2001uk]

Thanks, that confirms what I suspected - anchor text rules.

But I remember reading somewhere that Google prefers pages with text. So a page with links plus text descriptions is rated higher than a page with just a list of URLs.

So maybe we have to get both to really make an impact with Google in particular.

[roscoepico]

But I remember reading somewhere that Google prefers pages with text. So a page with links plus text descriptions is rated higher than a page with just a list of URLs.

You're also right here . You're going to definitely want some text related to your keyword or keyword phrase on the page as well. As google is going to look for some instances of the keyword throughout the page.