Improve rankings for keywords...you can't display!

[Philoups]

Hey, I've read the art of seo (great book!) as well as numerous publications and blogs, forums, etc., but i cannot quite figure that. We are trying to improve the ranking for a website. Now, our partners don't want to tarnish their image, so we cannot use certain keywords, that we need to rank for (i.e. the users are looking for). With meta keywords being dead, what are the ways we can optimize for these keywords not being conspicuous? All onpage efforts seem vain. To be more concrete, let's say your site is selling widgets from brands A, B and C, and users will look for "widgets" in search engines, but A, B, and C don't want that you advertise/display "widgets" on your site, as it might hurt their brand image. Hos do you do that?!

[RyanKent]

There are numerous methods you can use to improve your results for keywords you cannot display.

Let's take the example of a company which runs a "elderly retirement center". The business might be known under several keywords such as "old folks home", "medical assisted living", etc.

The problem is the owner of the facility wishes to convey a different image. They wish to present it as a "senior community living" and other less popular terms. A few ways you can help improve ranking for other terms are:

• use ALT text of image

• earn links with the preferred anchor text

• use image file names

• earn links from sites related to those industries

• use other terms which have the same meaning

While these can all help, they will not compete as well against a properly optimized page which uses the target keyword.

[KeriMorgret]

Can you write the text such that it isn't conspicuous? Do you have any testimonials that may say something (using Ryan's example) like "I was concerned when my mother needed additional help. I saw relatives in an assisted living facility where the staff just didn't care, and I knew that wasn't what I wanted. I'm so glad I found Sunny Hills Senior Community Living" type of thing?

[SEO5Team]

In this instance your best bet is link building. As Ryan mentions in his response put a lot of focus on beating your competitors with targeted and high quality links with the keywords in the anchor text. Do keyword research on synonyms that are very close to your core keywords. Build a keyword list with those related keywords and do both the on page and off page optimization with those keywords. If your industry is competitive, you're better off focusing on related keywords.

[Andropenis_Australia]

Basically, what everyone has said, take a wide angled approach, which will take time.

[Philoups]

Not really! The only way I see would be to write said keyword and say it is NOT what the website is about. But it's maybe already a little too much.

[RyanKent]

Actually, your idea can work well. An example:

Are you looking for a retirement home? You wont find that here. At Fair Oaks Center, we offer a thriving community for our residents. If you are 50+ years young and would like to maintain an active life style, then.......

Keri's suggestion about testimonials is great as well.

[williampatton]

This one is an almost completely off-page SEO problem. There are small things you can do on-page that won't directly be seen like alt-tags, title attributes and file names but they are only small improvements - and having the keywords on the site will almost always beat those methods in the search results. Using related terms as well will help but it doesn't really solve the problem.

I think the best strategy is a good content marketing plan - spreading out links with the required anchor text for keywords you want to rank for and surrounding the link with text containing related and variations of the primary keywords. Depending on the competition of your keywords this one could turn into a very long-term goal.

The short answer to your question is: anchor text or more precisely a SEO focused content marketing strategy.