An SEO Tip – Pay Attention To Your Imbedded Links!
Danny Wirken
Optimizing any web page involves both on-page and off-page
optimization. Whereas on-page optimization emphasizes the use
of carefully selected keywords to write a web page, off-page
optimization is all about building links to the web page from
other web pages as well as other websites. The leading search
engines’ ranking algorithms have placed much importance on
links that it is not possible to achieve a high-ranking based
solely on competitive keywords.
Links
There are two basic types of links used in websites. One is the
navigational link which connects pages within a site. The other
one is the hypertext link which offer parenthetical material,
footnotes, digression or parallel themes that can serve to
provide relevant information in relation to the main content of
the page. Both types of links however, can be disruptive or
problematic in the overall site design when not used in its
proper context.
Links can distract attention especially if a paragraph or text
is filled up with invitations to readers to proceed to other
pages or sites. This threatens the smooth flow of content as
readers jump from one page or site to another. The context of
information can entirely be altered as readers find themselves
in an unrelated territory without the benefit of any
introduction or proper explanation.
The primary purpose of having links is the reinforcement of an
author’s original message by providing a choice of connected
materials. Links should be geared towards pointing to other
resources within the site which uses related texts or visuals.
A reader should be made clearly aware when he/she leaves one
website and enters another through a link.
Good hypertext linking aims to maintain a site’s contact with
its readers. A simple link will usually work within a single
browser window where the original content disappears
substituted by the linked page. This can be avoided by adding
the TARGET = “main” argument to link tags. Through this, the
linked page will appear in a new browser window in front of the
original one which allows the reader to access the new material
without losing visual contact with the original site. The use
of frames is another way to maintain narrative and design
context. Frames can be used to split the browser screen between
site navigation and the material intended to be brought out.
Website navigational links can be provided through plain text
links, JavaScript links, PHP links or graphical links. Plain
text links are the easiest to implement and its use is
recommended even if other link types are being used as a main
navigational structure. All search engines are able to follow
them although it can be very difficult to maintain them for
websites that have more than 50 pages. Providing careful
attention to website design can address problems associated
with this. JavaScript navigation is used to build complex drop
down menus for large websites. It offers the advantage of an
almost effortless change procedure once it is implemented but
it requires more knowledge and expertise to implement. However,
this type of link is not followed by search engines hence the
pages referenced by the said links may not be indexed without
some other form of navigation provided.
Linking in Relation to Usability
Usability is the ability to successfully and confidently learn
or complete a task with a reasonable amount of comfort provided
to the end user. Usability in the eyes of a website designer or
application developer is being able to design and build
websites that can be understood and easy to use in
accomplishing a task. It is essentially about meeting the needs
of customers and anticipating their other needs to help them
reach their goal through a website that is true to its own goal
of providing the right information or at least access to it.
A usable website stands to reap the benefits of conversion and
customer satisfaction. A website should be able to tell the
reader what it is all about, what product or services are being
offered and what procedural steps are being taken that will earn
the trust of customers. Most importantly, it should be able to
meet the needs of both humans as well as search engines. Both
are intent on understanding a web page, knowing how to get to
the next relevant page and being able to find that all
important link. The information structure of a website should
be construed in a way that would enhance the speed and
understanding of it.
The priority of SEOs is to get clients’ web pages into search
engines and directories as well as to have them ranked good
enough to be found by end users. Marketing and usability should
come hand in hand so that the site owner does not only have
prime spots in search engines but also customer conversion as
well. The ultimate challenge of any website developer is to be
able to ultimately build sites for people and not for search
engines only.
A link has two ends – the source anchor and the destination
anchor. The term link however, usually refers to the source
anchor while the destination anchor is called the link target.
The most common link target is a URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
used in the World Wide Web which can refer to a document such as
a web page, other resource or to a position in a web page which
is achieved by means of an HTML element.
Hyperlinks are usually displayed in a web browser by some
distinguishing way such as a different color, font or style.
The usage of a mouse cursor changing into a hand motif may also
indicate a link in a graphical user interface. Links in most
graphical web browsers are displayed as underlined blue text
when not cached and underlined purple text when cached.
Having the right link in the right place at the right time and
page is the dream of any website owner. Most pages have some
type of main navigation to access major categories within the
site. Another set of links pointing to things like a privacy
policy may also be seen. Many sites use secondary navigation on
pages within sections of the site. A different section may
provide a different set of links in the secondary navigation
which can be very helpful to users and search engines. The
navigational links are often seen in a content-rich area on a
page. It is very common to see links embedded within the text
in the content area of web pages which is very advantageous
from a search engine optimization point of view. One of the
existing dangers of this practice is when these links are
missed due to the reader’s natural tendency to just scan the
pages due to time constraints. Embedded links should be placed
within the content in a way that they can easily be seen.
Having too many can make it very difficult to read the text on
a page. Confine these kinds of links to the most important and
outstanding links. The rest of the links can be placed in other
critical parts of the page.
About The Author:
http://www.theinternetone.net
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