Deep Linking for Greater Link Strength
One of the more common bits of knowledge in the SEO business is the high degree of importance placed on external links that point to your page. The more links directing internet users to your page, the more 'votes' or strength your page enjoys with respect to the search engines. The more 'votes', the better your page ranking on search engine results.
Link campaigns though, can take a variety of forms - some of which have proven quite effective in attracting potential customers. Backlinks pointing to your web environment may be set by blogging, article marketing or through request to other page owners. Regardless of the method used, most beginning SEO practitioners focus their efforts on linking to their site's main landing page. In doing this, they may miss significant opportunities to draw traffic to other important pages deeper in their website.
'Deep Linking' Most company web pages are a collection of several detail pages in addition to the main landing page. Companies usually post product pages or pages dedicated to sharing information about a specific product or service. Webmasters then can optimize those pages for unique keyword phrases or terms relevant to the product and not the company. The term 'Deep Linking' then refers to links set directly to these information or product pages and not to the company's main landing page.
For example, a small business providing something like motor scooters and parts might then also have an ancillary business selling things like clothing, helmets and safety gear made for those that ride motor scooters. The savvy businessperson would then build a page in support of that product line and optimize it for terms like "motor scooter safety gear" or "scooter helmets." This leaves the main page to serve terms similar to "Motor Scooters in Seattle."
Advantages of Deep Linking Many site owners focus only on the main web page. Deep linking or setting links to the product page can offer many additional opportunities to build traffic and reach potential customers. The search engines will also begin cataloguing your pages individually. Search engines seem to like sites that provide a significant volume of detail in several different pages. Deep linking to the product pages help the search engines understand what that page is about and in the end benefits the site owner by earning good placement on search results.
Deep linking also enables the web operator to highlight other keywords with directly focused content. Newer companies will frequently identify a few smaller product niches, exploit them, generate some traffic and link strength to the product page first. Once some traffic is generated, then attention is given to more competitive keyword phrases. This approach is backwards from conventional wisdom, but has worked on occasion.
Setting Anchor Text for a Deep Link Setting deep links really is no different as setting links to the main landing page. The first task is to identify useful keywords and phrases, optimize the 'on page' elements including title, tags and content. After that, external links directly to that page are set using anchor text that mirrors the selected keyword phrases. Because the keyword phrases for a deep linked page will be quite different from those selected for your main page, this expands the opportunity to reach customers searching for different information. (Of course this sounds much easier in concept than it is to implement. The time required to execute an SEO campaign can be significant. )
As you set blog links or embed links in articles you distribute, these same product keywords should appear and be linked back to that product page. A page with the title "scooter safety helmets" would be linked in the blog posts or articles using that exact same phrase. As the page then contains that phrase within the titles and text, the search engines will fully understand the content of that page.
Establishing external links to the product page is an indispensable part of an effective SEO strategy. Many article directories permit the setting of at least a link or two within either the content body or the author's box. One just has to be creative about working the keyword phrases into a sentence so they can be logically linked back to the main site and product pages. Don't let the chance pass to develop additional link strength by setting properly labeled deep links.
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