If you build up your links in the best ways you can turn your anchor texts into Search Engine bot candy.  And you certainly can’t ignore those bots - or spiders as I like to call them.  So let Uncle Arthur give you the bottom line.

Sure you have to put in some time and effort - so pay attention - to get the best payoff.  Anchor texts give the spiders what they want, so do it right and try not to disappoint - for your sake.  To know what you need to put into your texts, titles and tags you need to know your keywords and what your direct competition is doing in that very same work.

You can measure the opposition by running their URLs through Google link search, MSN site explorer or Yahoo! Site Explorer.  Make sure your semantics are good with complete agreement for the texts of your target pages.  Use the major search engines to research competitors links - especially Google.

TouchGraph has a browser-based utility that is written in Java that shows the relationships existing between sites as seen by Google. And TouchGraph can look for relationships based on keywords or URLs. (This is a must for all you visual learners, like Uncle Arthur - you’ll love it.)

Here is what the first image for Web Templates Blog looks like:

Greg Boser also has a tool called Tattler available, for seeing links from Yahoo’s Site Explorer into a spreadsheet format.  This utility I cannot speak for since he no longer has a demo that I could find on his site.  It may cost money to try it out now.

There are a lot of other articles on building links too - just search this site for “links.”  If you use all these tips then over time you will accumulate a lot of good links.  And then both you and the spiders will be happy.

Linking With a Future,
Arthur Browning