Why and how to acquire links for your website is controversial. Some bloggers recommend one-way, others suggest two-way or even three-way links.

I recommend you get relevant links and if the other party wants a reciprocal link go for it.  Select a couple of different anchor text phrases that you wish to rank well for and alternate your link text between them.

Some further useful details when trying to determine phrases or for picking the right keywords:

Choosing the correct keywords for link building will determine how successful your link building campaign will be.

Keywords are used in link exchange categories, in fields for automatic news search, as Category Text and as meta data for each category and more.

How to find keywords:

First of all it is not easy, so do not attempt to shortcut the process. If you have keywords that get decent traffic – this is a great start but only part of the overall task. How relevant to your web sites are these keywords for link building? This is where you need to focus your efforts.

#1. To determine how many web sites are linked with your anchor USE:
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allinanchor:”your keyphrase” for Google
inanchor:”your keyphrase” for MSN
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If you submit this line into the search field, search engines will deliver the sites that are linked with exactly the same phrase as anchor.

This will generate relevant results. And for you move up the results ladder you need to compete only with the sites which are linked with “your keyphrase” in the anchor.

#2. To determine how many web sites have your keyword in their title USE:

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allintitle:”your keyphrase” for Google
intitle:”your keyphrase” for MSN
intitle:”your keyphrase” for Yahoo
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This will provide sites using the exact phrase in their page title. Page title is one of the factors that search engines are using to determine their results – so this is also important.

Knowing the REAL level of your competition is vital as this will provide you with a benchmark as to how many links you will need to build.

The work begins, dig your niche for good quality keywords, check for relevant link competition and determine how many links with your anchor phrase your major competitors have.

Filed under: Link Building, anchor text, link building, tutorial