What Are The Page Linking Options?

[94501]

Do you guys think there's any hierarchy of link ideas, such as footers not as good as a "popular searches" cloud further up the page?

[SeoStallion]

Provided you don't have an unnatural number of links on the page there should be no reason, the whole page will be crawled - header to footer.

[94501]

I guess I always figured in general that higher up meant more important, but okay you don't think so. I really appreciate your weighing-in.

[SeoStallion]

No problem at all, in fact I've been doing some digging around because I am rather interested in seeing if I can rank another page for a keyword through the alt tag. I will keep you informed but if I can't find a relevant answer I'll try to test it on my sites.

[94501]

What do you think of this:

http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/24587/are-linked-images-with-an-alt-tag-equivilent-to-a-anchor-tag-with-anchor-text-in-terms-of-seo-value

[SeoStallion]

I think that it makes a point that the alt tag does in fact hold more weight than was previously thought (many SEO resources stated that the alt tag was only considered for specific searches). The problem is that the alt tag leaves an open window to exploitation and that at the end of the day as far as I am aware content is still king.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Link equity is not equal across a page.  The two most important types of links are main site navigation and in-content.  Sidebar navigation is close behind.  Footer links are not what they once were.

Think about it from a user experience - how many sites do you go to where you primarily navigate through a site by scrolling to the bottom of pages to find the links you want?  Even high ranking sites that fill their footers with lots of links also have those higher up on the page and those footer links not only don't help, but with so many of them, it just causes topical relationship confusion.

Couple options:

1. change the main nav links to images and use alt text.  Alt text does have as much value when it's images in main site navigation because how else would search engines know the anchor information on those?

2. See if you can get links to some of those internal pages from within the content area of high level pages on the site - within or directly near descriptive text that talks about the focus of those pages you're linking to.

3. Something that hasn't been mentioned so far is also off-site factors.  Without inbound links pointing to some of those internal pages, you're not going to get as much ranking value as you probably need and are trying to get from internal linking.

With inbound links you have more free reign to get the anchor text you prefer, though inbound links should be a mix of keywords, brand and generic words like "for more info".

[AaronSchinke]

Be careful here. This can look very shady to users! Users first! (I swear I'm not a Google fanboy)

[94501]

Hey Alan,

Interesting answer with lots to chew on there. It's kind of hard to rival the homepage for external links pointing to it. And, equally hard to get interior catalog type pages high quality links.

By focusing the inner pages on specific terms, how do you know you're not swapping a good ranking homepage for a more targeted but lower ranking interior page. It kind of feels like bomb disposal. Are there instances where you don't focus interior pages for fear of Google ranking them lower than the homepage? Thanks...Mike

[KeriMorgret]

@SeoStalion That's considered hidden text and not recommended.

[edited for clarity, since threading doesn't occur this deep]

[AlanBleiweiss]

I don't fear Google lower rankings because of home page / interior page swaps.  I make my decisions based on what's best for users.  If an interior page is more appropriate, that's that I focus the attention on.

If that page doesn't rank as high as the home page previously had, there's more work to be done.

But that's the luxury I have being someone who performs audits on really big sites where clients have the budgets and the long-term perspective to get it done.

[94501]

Hi Aaron and Keri,

So, what makes an alt image tag okay vs. "hidden text" and bad? I mean, if a picture/link is of sheepskin seat covers and you alt image tag it "sheepskin seat covers," where does the problem come in? When is an alt image tag not "hidden text?"

[94501]

Okay, so let's say your client doesn't have really deep pockets. My fear is that they would see that I got a page to rank lower than previous for the term and "thanks alot!"  Would one be better off not touching it or trying to get the page's authority up before on-page optimizing it for the term?

[AlanBleiweiss]

If a site owner doesn't have the proper budget for marketing online required to go "all the way" with SEO, then I wouldn't try things out that could negatively impact them.  I'd focus on other tasks, because there are ALWAYS other tasks.

[KeriMorgret]

An alt image tag is there to describe the image if you can't show the image, like if someone was browsing using a screenreader. It is ultimately there to help the user. Text and background the same color is there to serve the search engines one thing while the user sees another thing, which is not OK by any of their guidelines.

[94501]

Yes, I didn't perceive anyone was talking about text and background the same color. You are right, obviously that would be complete ButterScotch.