Text Surrounding the Link

Experts in search engine optimization (SEO) predict that the texts directly surrounding any link might become more important in the future. But in the meantime, some experts are agreeing that these texts, or at least the good ones, are slowly gaining importance. So what makes a text important, and what makes it blah? Why can’t we just post one link after the other and hope for the best? Better yet, why post text at all?

If you are not concerned with page rankings in search engine result pages or SERPs, then don’t post any text. What’s another run-of-the-mill, totally forgettable, really detestable website to net users when there are millions of others out there?

Basically, a link’s primary function is to string together the pages of your site. One click can take you to another part of your page, another page of your site, or even to an external page beyond your domain. Even embedded images and texts can be turned into links.

It is said that next to the actual anchor text, the greatest text analysis for links are the texts directly surrounding them. This holds true for links embedded in the page content. Search engines or SE’s have been noting with greater importance and relevance the text directly surrounding the links (i.e. links from inside an on-topic paragraph), more so than the other text of the page. “Floaties” or floating links outside the primary content areas like footers or sidebars don’t benefit from text as much. It often includes, in the case of lists of links, the descriptions about the “linked to” documents or sites.

It is well known that the anchor text plays a vital role to your site’s rankings. That is why it is imperative that you clearly define what your anchors are, and what the text the surrounding your links are. Make sure that your anchor text is more expressive than “click here” or “follow this link”. And make sure that you write different descriptions for both. Otherwise, the SEs might consider your site as a keyword spammer.

Experts at seomoz.org give the text surrounding the link a high importance rate in ranking attributes. Eight of 10 who spoke agree that this affects rankings. They are also saying that the text directly surrounding links seems to help SEs more than webmasters and surfers. Others, though agreeing that this factor is important, claim that these should have been included in discussions pertaining to page topic, along with the anchor text analysis and maybe even the page theme.

Face-wise, links are always invaluable, especially those which actually lead to sites worth visiting. Just try to make the links appear more natural by using pictures, texts, and so on.