Last night I was at a “spooky” Halloween campout with my homeschooling group. One of the parents asked me about domain names and choosing name for her business and what was best in terms of being able to be found. I get asked this question ALOT.

To many it may seem basic and obvious- I often think it doesn’t need pointing out but I see it over and over and over again and get asked constantly.

Anchor text can be a very powerful tool when looking to get higher rankings in the search engines. Time and time again well meaning site owners will make the effort to find link placements and then inadvertently diminish the power of the link placement.

What are they doing? It’s the use of keywords- or rather NOT using keywords. When submitting your site info to a directory, issuing a press release or putting together a bio for article you can really make the name of your site work for you.

Many times your name all ready has pretty good keywords worked in all ready; like “Flo’s Beauty and Spa”, or “Hamilton Plumbers and Roto- rooters”. Sometimes your name doesn’t tell your potential clients what you are offering. For example- I have 2 different sets of friends with businesses called Three Sisters. Cute name but what do they do? (One is bakery and one is a florist. The name itself doesn’t give a clue as to what they are selling.

If you are just starting out the easiest thing to do is come up with a name that uses keywords in it all ready.

If you are an established business or looking to brand your name then couple your name with keywords. So YOUR NAME + Keyword phrase. Three Sisters Bakery. Three Sisters + Wedding Cakes and so on. Even better- try using 2 keyword phrases. Same amount of effort and more bang for your buck- and not just twice as much bang- but will increase exponentially.

For Example:

“Three Sisters Bakery and Wedding Cakes”
“Three Sisters Homemade Pies and Cakes”
“Three Sisters Organic Bakery and Desserts”

OR

Three Sisters Christmas Flowers and Holiday Plants Three Sisters Bridal Flowers and Wedding Bouquets

When you use anchor text you have optimized for all the words in the phrase. So you have optimized for “Three Sisters”, “Three Sisters Bridal” “Bridal Flowers”, “Three Sisters Flowers”, “Flowers and Wedding”, “Flower Bouquets”, and so on.

It is also basic SEO- but vary your anchor text often, mix it up a little. I will pick terms that I am "close" to ranking for. If through my research I see a company is ranking on page 3 for one phrase and page 5 for another I will attack the higher ranking phrase-it will be the easier one to rank for and get the fastest results. I won't forget about the second phrase- I will just be more aggressive with the higher ranking phrase.

Of course- don't even attempt to start an active link, building campaign without doing keyword research.I did go over basic keyword research in Secrets of a Professional Link Builder Part 1: It’s the Keywords, stupid

Using well researched keywords you are well armed to create powerful anchor text that will work for you and ultimately help your rankings and targeted traffic.

In Secrets of a Professional Link Builder Part 3: Content , Content, Content I will talk about the power of the longtail search.