• Don’t Say “Click Here” … Utilize Those Precious Keywords •
• Your Visitors & The Search Engine Spiders Will Appreciate You •

There is a lot of neglect given to hyperlinks not only by newbies, but by lots of established internet marketers. I see it all the time. Most notably is the awful use of “Click Here” for the hyperlink’s content.

Why is “click here” wrong? Well, if you have the option of inserting some commentary if you will, whichs helps let your visitor know a little more about WHY they are clicking on the hyperlink, that just helps increase the interaction with your visitor.

Next, you want to insert your targeted keyword phrase into the hyperlink because you give the search engine spiders a good idea about what your page’s content is all about. Hyperlinks with keywords in them are great stuff to help with getting higher rankings.

Remember that it’s a lot of different components of SEO that ultimately adds up to the overall keyword ranking positions. Hyperlinks are just one part of the SERP’s puzzle.

Why You Need To Insert Your Keywords

When your visitors see a hyperlink that contains your targeted keywords (and maybe some additional descriptive text) more than likely they’ll feel compelled to click on it. I am assuming that your site is of an informational type, so your visitors have come to your site searching for answers, solutions, or information. So, stick it clearly under their nose! Write content rich hyperlinks to encourage them to click on them.

If a hyperlink happens to be one that leads to an affiliate product or website, can you see how important a well written, keyword rich hyperlink can be to help encourage your visitor to click … rather than the “click here” alternative?   

Short & Sweet or Very Descriptive

It’s up to you, but you can use just a few words, or your hyperlink can be quite descriptive. I know that the “norm” on most sites are rather short hyperlinks … but there is no rule to this, so get creative if you wish. Hey … if it might compell a potential customer to click on an affiliate product link (meaning you have the opportunity to make some $$ if they decide to buy), then what is wrong with getting very obvious and just a touch pushy that you want them to CLICK on your great hyperlinked text?

The typical way most folks utilize hyperlinks is something like this:
For more information, click here to learn about our New Orleans Getaway.

Getting a little more bold, yet creative, you could try something like hyperlinking an entire sentence, as example:
Sign up for my free Homemade Chocolate Candy Lovers newsletter and receive a valuable Hershey’s chocolate coupon.
Contact one of our Dental Sedation Consultants and we’ll direct you to a qualified Dentist in your area.

Can you see how using a hyperlink in a very descriptive way does have its benefits?? If you’ll notice, I’ve worked in a primary keyword phrase along with a modifier in each sentence. That’s good stuff for the spiders! In addition, you’ve really gotten across to your visitor exactly what will happen when they click the hyperlink. There’s certainly no confusion … you’ve helped push them into the action you desire

• If You Don’t Keep Three Steps Ahead of Your Competition … •
• You’ll Get Trampled in the Search Engine Rankings & Miss Out On Better Visitor Traffic •

What are the most searched keywords for your products or services? I’m sure you know that people use different word combinations, known as keyword phrases, when they search for your products or services online.

In order for your potential customers to find your site when they search, it’s important to use these keywords in your website or blog’s copy.

You can stab in the dark, and try to guess at the keyword phrases you think people are using to find you … or you can do intensive research, just like I do in my capacity as a professional SEO consultant.  You know what, though?  I always seem to get a chuckle when I perform my keyword research for my clients.  Why?  Well I’ll tell you …

I ask my clients many questions to get a handle on their marketing niche.  To help me in my keyword researching, one of the questions I ask is, “What words do you think your customers would use to find you via an internet search?”  Like I just said, I am usually amused at the words they give me … and then normally even MORE amused when I get down to using the professional keyword researching tool that allows me to zero in on hundreds of valuable keywords. 

The reason I normally get a chuckle is that the words they give me are often NOT the words you’d necessarily want to target in the hopes of capturing a broader spectrum of potential visitors/customers.  Sometimes I find that the words they think would be good to bring them traffic aren’t even used by searchers.  And ultimately, after I tell them of my findings, they say something to the effect of  ”… no wonder my site isn’t making me any money …”      

The bottom line is you cannot “guess” at the keyword phrases you use in your Title tag, Description Meta tag or each page or post of content.  You CAN’T!  Even though most internet marketers still have no knowledge of the importance of SEO and keyword research, you can’t take it for granted that YOU can squeak by without tending to these very important and vital components to your online success.

I’ve got a little more information here about using a good quality keyword research tool:  ClaudiaSuggests.com — My Recommended Keyword Research Tool.

Search Engine Optimization No-No:  Hidden Keyword Text
Using “Invisible” Keywords Invites Rankings Disaster

If you want potential customers to find your internet marketing website, then ethical SEO techniques must be utilized, right?  Of course!  Unethical practices normally end up with one end result, and that is … getting banned by the search engines.  Once you’re banned, your website is off the radar, it is nowhere to be found and it is an long, slow struggle to try and undo the damage that was done.

In this article I’ll show you what you should NOT do in an attempt to try and boost your search engine rankings.  The unethical tactic I’m getting ready to share with you is really nothing new.

Chances are, since you are reading this article, is that you’re new to search engine optimization and because of this, you just might be at a point that many website owners get to.  That point is this: you know the importance of writing keyword rich content to help rank well in the search engines and all of a sudden a light goes on and you think, “Well shoot!  What if I add some hidden keywords?  Then maybe I’ll … rank higher, get ranked faster, sooner …”

Hiding Keywords in “Invisible Text”

By what do I mean “invisible text”?  It means that you have HTML coded your targeted keywords in text that is the same color as the background of your website.  So, if I wanted to stuff this blog post with invisible keyword phrases, I’d code the offending text to be white.   

Why not, you may ask?  What harm could there be in adding a few (or a lot) more keywords on your web page to appease the search engine spiders and hopefully boost your rankings?

True story:  I had a client who called me all excited one day “informing” me that she had learned a great method of increasing the number of times she could work her targeted keyword phrases into her content.  When I asked “how?”, I was enthusiastically told that her graphic artist friend told her to just make some of them the color of her background and then she’d not have to worry about trying to write so much content!

Let’s just say I told her that her suggestion was receiving an emphatic NO from me and that I wouldn’t continue SEO-ing her website if she didn’t believe me that it was a huge unethical mistake.  The next day she called to apologize and said she’d done a little internet research and gee … “you are right, Claudia, employing hidden keywords is bad.”

Keyword stuffing via “invisible” means can cause a LOT of harm.  It’s considered spamming and it’s still one of the most common instances of spam on websites today.  Don’t do this!  While almost all forms of hidden text will produce good ranking results in the SHORT term, all major search engines have filters which are capable of detecting hidden text.  Don’t think you or your SEO consultant will out-fool them!

Let me explain exactly what I’m describing to you so that you’ll never allow this mistake to be made on your internet marketing website.  On a side note, I must mention that there are many unethical SEO consultants and search engine optimization services that practice this spamming technique.  Run (don’t walk) away from anyone suggesting you implement this tactic on your website!

Hidden Text Cannot Be Seen By Regular Human Visitors, But Can Be Seen By The Spiders

The theory behind hidden text is that search engines will index the text, even though the text is invisible to human readers, thus making the page more keyword dense.  There are two forms of hidden text — through the use of regular HTML, and through CSS.

As I briefly mentioned above, keywords can be hidden by using HTML coding.  The font color for the keywords and/or keyword stuffed text is coded to be the same as the background color.  Voila!  The coded text now becomes invisible … it seemingly disappears into the background.  However, this form of invisible text is quite easily detected by the search engine spiders.

Hidden text through CSS is more complicated.  The color of the text is defined in an external file, which is not crawlable by search engines.  Without getting into a technical explanation of how this is achieved, let me assure you this attempt at hiding keywords is also going on.

Though the CSS programmers and website owners may have a smug look on their faces right now, guess what?  Good ‘ol Googlebot is, as always, a pretty shrewd little ‘bot and already there is much buzz in the SEO industry that CSS files are not able to hide stuffed keyword content any longer.

The Bottom Line To Achieving Higher Rankings … Slow, Sure, Steady AND Ethical

While almost all forms of hidden text will produce good results in the SHORT term, all major engines have implemented filters which are capable of detecting invisible text.  Websites found to be using hidden text and keywords will almost certainly be permanently removed from the index of all search engines.  For this reason I strongly encourage you to refrain from resorting to this risky SEO tactic.

Hidden text is one of the oldest and dumbest search engine optimization tricks in the book.  If you can’t figure out how to write compelling, interesting marketing copy that also smoothly and naturally incorporates your targeted keywords into it, then you need to stop, sit down, and reassess your (or your hired copywriter’s) writing skills.  Period.