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 building strategies though, can take a variety of forms depending upon the business type, size and service model. Some of these strategies are quite effective in attracting traffic as well as prospective clients and customers. Link building typically is done through setting them on other blogs, embedding them in articles and by directly requesting link exchanges from other page operators. Most beginning SEO’s though, stick to setting links to their site’s main landing page only. And in doing this, many miss an important opportunity to attract traffic to useful pages and information within their website environment.

‘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.

Small enterprises – such as ones that sell motor scooters and scooter parts might have an additional business providing helmets, clothing and scooter safety gear. The company – if it is seizing the opportunity – would set up a specific web page for this product line and optimize it for term similar to “scooter helmets,” leaving the main page to focus on bigger search terms like “Scooter Parts 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.

The web owner can also highlight additional keyword phrases and use content directly related to the specific product page. Newer organizations sometimes choose a small product niche, exploit it with a well optimized product page to generate some traffic and web strength, and then turn attention to optimizing the main page for more competitive terms. This is a reverse methodology, but has been known to work in some instances.

Setting Anchor Text for a Deep Link Building traffic to a specific product page is no different than the standard SEO effort. Identify meaningful keywords, optimize the page for those keywords in the title and keyword strings, and then generate external link strength. Keywords for specific product pages will be significantly different from the main landing page. As all web page titles should be different anyway, this has to be done anyway. Then simply set your keywords in the keyword file and base your page headers using those keywords as well.

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.

SEO Consultants Denver design and create individually focused strategies to help businesses earn more revenue and drive up sales. For more information, please visit the SEO home home page or review the Denver SEO Consultants Blog. Start winning more customers today!