With budgets still tight, how are companies managing to stay connected while bringing engaging and relevant messages to customers?  

Successful companies are learning that if they use interactive elements such as video, polls, FLASH and RSS feeds within their e-mail marketing campaigns, they see higher conversion rates and a stronger connection to their customers.

Video, if created properly, can really enhance your e-mail message and recipient interactivity. By using an enticing image with descriptive impact statements, recipients will be eager to click and link to the video. Include the file size, length of video or formats supported. Use flash video (FLV) whenever possible to achieve higher compression rates. 

• HOW TO: Create Online Video That Works by David Rich

Polls are a great way to entice recipients and engage audiences that want to be heard. Create topics or subjects that will resonate with your intended audience. Provide immediate results, along with associated support material, newsletters or additional links.  

• Best practices: Using polls in e-mail marketing by Karen J. Bannan

RSS feeds are another way to keep customers connected post e-mailing especially if your company has a blog, dedicated community or news section. RSS feeds provide the right amount of content to recipients on their terms making it the perfect connection outside of targeted e-mails.

• Newbie's Guide to Google Reeder - by Josh Lowensohn

In summary, once you have created an on-going e-mail campaign with customers, remember to include interactive elements and content that will continually engage your customers. Remember to measure the effectiveness of each campaign and refine where necessary.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

In today’s plethora of blogs, tweets and slideshare, how can you increase search engine rankings for your own organization? Simply by using social networks to help elevate your brand presence.

For example, I read and routinely respond to industry blogs that have a similar audience as MacDonald Consulting. 

Of particular interest is a blog response to an associate I’ve done work with:

Likewise, I take every opportunity I can to respond to questions on LinkedIn - hallmarking my industry breadth while helping fellow colleagues to be successful:   

Lastly, I’m asked permission to use my blog as an example in this scenario:   

This interaction has garnered MacDonald Consulting high rankings in Google search results while aiding in expanding my own social network.

Take some time each week to answer blogs, syndicate your own blog content and answer LinkedIn questions. See what happens. You’ll be amazed how quickly your own personal rankings now appear on first page results.

Best

Denice MacDonald

MacDonald Consulting has just been notified by Surchur, the dashboard to right now, that it has launched a new socially powered search feature to add to an already advanced set of real time search tools. BTW - this is on top of a record month in which Surchur outgrew every one of the independent real time search engines on the web.

The socially powered search feature aggregates information from twitter, digg, other social sites and their own site users to give a view into the hottest websites for a given topic.

You can view the new feature by visiting a sample ‘surch’ for “social networking” at http://surchur.com/all/social+networking. The new ‘popular tab’ contains the socially ranked results alongside the original related feature tabs: blogs, social news, news, video, pictures and products.

Also, Surchur, is asking if you or your organization is interested, you can interview their founder, Todd Hogan -- he’d be happy to give you a web demo of just how powerful the new set of features are – and why Surchur will be driving the next wave in real time search innovation.

About [from Surchur website] 

“surchur.com is the ultimate dashboard to right now. Built by a team that is passionate about what the real time web can offer, we're constantly improving and updating our site. Our latest version takes a giant leap forward with a massive social implementation. User input is taking a much needed front seat in determining what we show. Check it out - we think you'll swoon.” 

I highly recommend that you take a look at this great search tool! 

Best

Denice MacDonald

Let's face it, successful SEO is hard.  Reason simply, SEO is not a want, it is a necessity.  According to Jill Whalen, CEO and founder of High Rankings, "...a sick web site leaves money on the table".

Without proper web page optimization, an organization is losing out on search engine visibility and possible customer conversion.  One of the first diagnostic tests in your SEO checklist is to see how Google views your home page (or any page of your site) by taking a look at how it looks in Google's "text cache."

Additional warning signs (symptoms) include:

• Missing page content
• Missing navigational links
• List of unlinked words
• Keyword stuffed paragraphs that aren't normally visible

Although a good exercise, it is only the first step in elevating an organization's web page rankings.  

For more information and Search Engine Guidelines visit:

• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
• http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/index.html
• http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx

Lastly, stay connected on latest SEO trends, reviews and content sharing at:

• http://www.SEOMoz.org

Best

Denice MacDonald

[Credit: Jill Whalen, CEO and founder of High Rankings]

According to Nielsen, Bing is the fastest growing search engine. Although Google still leads the pack with a 65 percent share of searches, Bing’s overall search share rose by roughly 22 percent to almost 11 percent of total searches.  

Bing is not trying to grow expedientially – rather, they are trying to build market share one great application at a time. 

Check Out Visual Search! 

Bing continues to tech-up its attractiveness by introducing a visual search feature. When users perform a search and click the ‘visual’ button (left side of screen), search results are arranged into rows of virtual data arranged into galleries. Because most individuals ‘browsing’ the web prefer graphic images over text, this is an awesome solution. 

Take my recent search for ‘movies’ – I am able to view, visually, movies that peak my interest. Or, I can simply refine my search by ratings, genre and more. The only downside to this feature is you will need to have Silverlight enabled. But non-the-less, after using this feature, you have to admit that it’s a great way to search. 

More on Bing:  

Microsoft’s Bing vs.Google: Head to Head Search Results by SearchEngineLand 

Search Smackdown: Bing vs.Google by TechCrunch 

Best

Denice MacDonald

KeywordSpy^TM - a powerful web-based keyword intelligence system - has announced the unveiling of KeywordSpy Version 3.0. 

What’s so great about this upgrade? Version 3.0 is a compilation of user feedback – elevating the product version to an all new level based on customer interaction and use. 

New features include:

1. Daily scans of over 127 million keywords in our database.
2. Advanced searching options including destination url and ad copy searches.
3. ROI Indicator to easily pinpoint profitable keywords and ad copy combination.
4. Competitor sub-domains related & misspelled keyword results.
5. Support over 80 major affiliate networks for a high-end affiliate research.

 If you are interested in learning more about this great product, sign up now for a free trial.

About KeywordSpy

KeywordSpy currently operates in USA, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Through this keyword tool and keyword software, you can perform advanced keyword research and keyword tracking to study what your competitors have been advertising in their Adwords campaigns and Other PPC campaigns. You can now get complete in-depth analysis, stats, budget, affiliates & ad copies of your competitors. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

Many organizations are obsessed with volume – measuring their web metrics strategy by how many web pages that were viewed or by how many people that have visited. In many cases, this type of information is meaningless as it is not directly linked to a web plan or strategy.

Whether its web site traffic analysis, search engine optimization or tracking business success metrics, you need to develop a web strategy ‘up front’ to support measurement objectives. This thought process seems so fundamental but rarely exercised.  Take these simple rules:

A strategic plan for evaluating your web site will help you:

1. Collect only the data you need to make informed, strategic decisions
2. Identify priority “action areas” for improvement, measure the impact of those actions; and keep your customers coming back
3. Determine benchmarks and performance goals you should aspire to, and the extent to which you’re achieving them
4. Determine whether you’re getting a return on the investment you’ve made to build, operate and maintain your web site(s)
5. Evaluate how well your web site is performing relative to competitors, your company's brand, mission statement or hiring criteria

Develop a plan – a strategy – and review and adjust it regularly by asking these questions:

• What do you need to measure
• What are your requirements
• How will you measure it
• What tools will you use
• What methodologies are needed to gather the data you need
• What will you do with the results
• How will the results help meet the goals for your web site and your company's mission
• How does the plan fit with your company's overall strategic and performance plan

Once armed with this process and validation, you will find that your ROI exceeds expectations.

Great Resources:

Coremetrics Web Metrics
Get powerful web site metrics with the leading provider

Web Measurement Data Fast
ClickTracks web measurement shows behavior, conversion, groups, SEO

WebTrends Analytics
Marketing Intelligence Solutions, leading analytic & metrics software

Web Analytics
Compare web analytics products and get a free report sample from CMS Watch

Best,

Denice MacDonald

According to Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Webmaster Central Blog: “URLs are like the bridges between your website and a search engine's crawler.  Crawlers need to be able to find and cross those bridges (i.e., find and crawl your URLs) in order to get to your site's content”. 

If your URLs are complicated or redundant, crawlers are going to spend time tracing and retracing their steps. However, if your URLs are organized and lead directly to distinct content, crawlers can spend their time accessing your content rather than crawling through empty pages, or crawling the same content over and over via different URLs.

Susan provides exceptional learning in a slideshare that can be accessed here.

More tips:

Length of URLs - keep your URLs as short as possible and try to remove all unnecessary folder names. The shorter the URL, the higher the keyword density and the better for your placement in search engine results. Likewise, the closer your main keywords are to the beginning of the URL, the better.

Keywords in URLs - use the same main keywords your webpage is optimized for as this should be the search phrase you want to rank high on. Expanding the range of keywords should not be done in an URL, this should be done in <h2> or <h3> tags or plain text.

Use Hyphens - try not to use underscores in URLs as they are not used as dividers by Google. Use hyphens, periods, or commas instead. Hyphens or dashes are more user friendly and people will find your URL easier to remember. If you use underscore, you will actually have to search on “keyword1_keyword2” to find your webpage. Using hyphens will allow your pages to be found using “keyword1-keyword2” etc. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

There has been a lot written recently on optimization -- so much that most online marketers have a hard time getting their head around all of it. Where to start, what will get more ROI -- or better yet, conversion. Well folks, it's as simple as choosing the right headline. 

When it comes to content created for web sites, headlines ranks as one of the highest priorities. Reason simply, a headline is not to sell, but to connect and resonate with visitors¹. Headlines aid in the visual task of scanning and skimming, which helps visitors organize the information presented².^. Persuasively worded, headlines encourage and guides visitors to go deeper into content within web sites - specifically, headline > subhead > web page content. 

No need to sacrifice integrity 

Headline copy to placate search engines and spam filters can lead to keyword-laden, uninteresting language. But, well thought out headlines targeted around keywords will make the difference between getting somewhat noticed versus noticed and acted upon. If you maintain clarity, relevance and credibility, you are guaranteed you will connect with visitors. Access the links below for specific tips on how to create successful headlines. 

Test your headlines 

Lastly, like any strategy, you will need to test your headlines with Google Adwords or a similar metrics tool. By doing so, you can really hone in on exactly which words are highly rated and resonate with visitors. 

Credits

¹Optimizing Headlines by Marketing Experiments

²Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines by Josh Hay

More Resources

How to Write an Effective Headline - Part 1: Basic Principles by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Web Marketing Today

Writing Headlines That Get Results by Brian Clark

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Common Tag is an open tagging format developed to make content more connected, accessible and engaging. Unlike text tags, Common Tags are references to unique, well-defined concepts, complete with metadata and their own URLs.  

Specifically, Common Tag format is based on RDFa, a standard mechanism for placing structured content within HTML documents. The format uses the URIs of concepts defined on the Web as a way of anchoring the meaning of Tag objects. Common concepts can be found, among others, in two big databases of structured content or controlled vocabularies, as librarians call it – Freebase and DBpedia.  

According to the Common Tag web site, "The Common Tag format was developed to address the current shortcomings of tagging and help everyone - including end users, publishers, and developers - get more out of Web content. With Common Tag, content is tagged with unique, well-defined concepts - everything about New York City is tagged with one concept for New York City and everything about jaguar the animal is tagged with one concept for jaguar the animal.” 

Faviki is involved in the development of the  new open tagging format – Common Tag, together with AdaptiveBlue, DERI (NUI Galway), Yahoo!, Zemanta, and Zigtag. This is the first time that this number of web companies have stepped together from day one to introduce a tagging standard.

Resources:

Common Tag - The New Semantic Layer by Website Magazine, June, 2009

Will You Implement Yahoo's Common Tag? by Search Engine Roundtable, June, 2009

Best

Denice MacDonald

A heat map is a picture of a web page that shows where users click when they visit a particular page.  From a techy perspective, a heat map is artificial intelligence that simulates human vision during the first 5 seconds of exposure to visuals.  

How does it work? 

The areas that are clicked most often appear in red (hot spot), while the areas clicked least often appear in blue or with no color at all.   

Why should you care? 

Heat maps are a tool used by web developers as part of usability testing. Understanding how visitors behave when they visit your web site is crucial to improving its effectiveness – not to mention conversion.  

Looking at the image to the right, it appears that MacDonald Consulting needs to improve image placement on the header and within center copy real estate to increase visitor interaction and conversion. Doing so will encourage visitors to click on header links (top blue area to the right within the graphic).

How to build a website heat map:

Two of the most popular heat map generator applications are FuseStats and CrazyEgg but they charge for their service.  

Feng-GUI, however, offers free access to their service but there are some restrictions.

Best

Denice MacDonald

You probably know that building links into your site is one of the most important things you can do in your efforts to improve your site's ranking.

A lot of people struggle with this process, especially at the beginning. Many questions also arise as to where the link should be placed on the site you are trying to get linked from, along with what kind of sites should you get links from, and what those links should look like.  Linking is no longer a passing fancy, it is a strategy that is relevant and necessary. Consder the following link building strategies:

Social Media: By submitting your site and content to social media aggregators such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other niche social news sharing and bookmarking sites, you introduce their audience to your site and build high authority links to your organization.

Advertising: Text Links which are sold or purchased with the intention of advertising a relevant site or service to the audience of the site which is serving the link ads. These links are valued and treated as authority inbound links by the major search engines.

Editorial: Editorial links are links which are earned via relationships with journalists, bloggers or site publishers. By informing writers about your site and services, you persuade them to write about you.

Directory: Web directories classify sites into organized subjects and listings while also sending search traffic to those sites. Directories are a way to increase search rankings and site traffic.

Blogger Reviews: Similar to editorial links, blogger reviews are when you pay bloggers to take the time and write an honest review about your product, business or site - and link to you. Not only will your link be seen by search engines, but also by the readers and subscribers of these high level bloggers.

Privately Solicited Links: Contact site owners and negotiate private linking deals with your business goals in mind.

Blog Comment Participation: By intelligently adding to blog comment conversations, you build your online reputation along with inbound links to your site.

Resources:

• 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Web Site by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall
• Link Building - Web Site Resource

Software/Tools:

• Axandra
• Zeus
• Link Assistant

Best,

Denice MacDonald

You cannot simply build a web site and wait for visitors to come. You need to market your site online – meaning you need to take action to make your site highly visible to search engines so it gets found by potential customers.

Here are some quick ideas on maximizing your web site through simple optimization.

Keyword research – where to begin? – There are a number of inexpensive keyword research tools that will help you find the keywords and keyword strings for a specific product or service.  My favorite tool has always been Google Keyword Tool - but, Wordtracker is also very popular and very effective. 

Aligning with competitors – Determine how many other sites will be vying for similar keywords or keyword strings. To validate findings, simply type the words into Google and review the number of results. That’s your competition. The higher the position within the result page, the more difficult it will be to rank on that keyword. If you are still having difficulty determining keywords, you can open your competitor’s web site and view their keywords by selecting “View” and then “Source” from the menu. The third line in the source code typically says “Keyword Content” and then lists the keywords used for that page.

Start small – If you are new to the game, it is always advisable to start with 1-2 keywords per page on your site. Reason simply, you want to find the right balance in search volume, review how you’re faring against the competition and grow your program based on sound statistics. Likewise, insure that the content that is written for the site contains an appropriate usage of the keywords.

Site structure – In order for any search engine optimization program to work and track, you’ll need to insure that the site structure is conducive for optimization. To rank higher in search results for your target audience, you must identify the most effective keywords and then place them in the right areas of your site’s content and HTML code including page titles, headers, meta-tags, links and page content.

Site updates – ‘Content is king’ philosophy still rings true for optimization success. Keep your site updated regularly. What is the rule of thumb?  Minimally, weekly!

Linking – I still believe that linking can effectively, and quickly, increase page rankings. If you have a lot of other web sites linking to your site, the search engine spiders will visit your site more frequently and find new content quickly. You can find out who links to you already by typing “Link: yourdomainname.com” in any major search engine.

Measure – It’s all about effectiveness and ongoing metrics. Let your initial search engine optimization initiative run for about 2-3 months. Track how your rankings change week-over-week or month-over-month, and then decide whether more words need to be added or eliminated. Use tools like Google Analytics for web site metrics and SeoDigger for wordtracking performance.

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

If you’re a busy web professional like me, you don’t have time to participate in every event, tradeshow or user group.  Moreover, if you don’t care for daily extensive reading and prefer some face time, a video blog may be your answer. 

WebProNews Blog Videos is your home for ebusiness, tech and search video content. They provide exclusive coverage of conferences, compelling interviews with top names in the industry, practical tips, and online news that matters.

You can watch the blog version with actual clips at events with subject matter experts like Bruce Clay, or you can read the blog.

Either way, you will be able to find current information that would take hours to filter through via daily searches or bookmarking. WebProNews provides RSS feeds and archived blogs.

Here are a couple of interesting, if not edgy, posts:

Bruce Clay - SES NY 2009 - Mike McDonald sat down with Bruce Clay for an interview at Search Engine Strategies, NY on a follow-up to ranking being dead, and changes to search results based on behavioral and intent-based data.

SES NY - Twitter Exclusively as a Marketing Tool? - Discussion on Guy Kawasaki's presentation at the Search Engine Strategies, NY.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Everyone wants to create useful rich content. But it's not as easy as it sounds. Content needs to reflect user needs and requirements, contain an adequate amount of words to support search engine optimization while reflecting the organizations' unique brand proposition. 

Know Your Industry - Know Your Customer.

In order to create relevant content for your web site, gather information about all aspects of your industry – including competitors. Then, determine exactly who your customers are.  Are they busy professionals or non-techie information gatherers?    

The More Relevant Content You Provide on Your Site, the Better.

Relevant content is not only helpful in gaining the interest of search engines, it also piques the interest of diverse web site visitors. Let visitors know quickly that they are on a site that has information related to what they are interested in. Doing so will help lessen friction in the users experience and lead to conversion (act or buy). 

Summarize, and then Expand.

Most content developers start with bloated brochure copy. Instead, begin with a well thought summary picture paragraph (100 words) and then provide additional content within your site’s category subpages to provide more information regarding expanded learning. Well-written, persuasive copy should be moderate and to the point.

Place Top Keywords within Your Text.

Search engines have always loved content paragraphs and keywords. In order to further optimize your site, combine the two by placing relevant keywords within each content paragraph

Check out these great resources: 

How to Create Web Content that Works by Leanne Bergey

Web Content, Writing for Web Sites by WebsiteTips.com

Best

Denice MacDonald

How are you really going to fare during this tough recession? Simply by measuring everything you do on the web. So to help you out, I'm providing all the great tools that will accelerate conversion rates and increase web ROI -- not to mention tools to help you keep an eye on your competition! 

Once you start diving into a few of these, you will get the gist on which ones will meet your needs.

1 -- Rankings, Demographics and Usage

• http://www.quantcast.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .      

2 -- Key Organic Words and Adwords Traffic

• http://www.semrush.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

3 -- How Your Site Fares Against Your Competition

• http://www.compete.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

4 -- Reciprocal Links/Keyword Ads and Variations

• http://www.alexa.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  

5 -- Paid Words

• http://www.keywordspy.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  

6 -- SEO Competitive Analysis/Benchmarking

• http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

7 -- Sign up for Website Grader

• http://website.grader.com/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

8 -- Web Analyzer (analyzes customer web logs – this one is free)

• http://www.quest.com/funnel-web-analyzer/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

9 -- All types of SEO Tools for Free

• http://www.seomoz.org/

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

10 -- Web Analytic Thought Leaders

• http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/

Best

Denice MacDonald

The following is a YouTube link to a fantastic video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Bronman.  

I wouldn’t even attempt to write a summation of the video – you will need to view it firsthand. Trust me -- it is worth five minutes of your time!

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Clients were the driver for most of the blog content written in 2008 for MacDonald Consulting. The blogs ran the gamut from brand awareness, product review, transitioning web technology and metrics reporting. Because of their key ranking (and as evidenced by subscriber page views), the following "Top 5 Blogs" are a reflection of issues facing B2B and B2C marketers. 

McDonalds Marketing Strategy - This blog elevated MacDonald Consulting Services to a top organic spot on Google. The purpose of the blog was to show clients how easy it is to elevate listings by concentrating on keywords that are both related and non-related relative to SEO efforts.  

Creating iPhone Microsites - With iPhones flying off the shelf, online marketers and advertisers are working diligently to get portions of their web site to emulate via mobile technology. This particular blog focused on a short-term solution to 'right size' a web site for a B2B client.

Kindle: Amazon's Reading Device - Amazon's top selling reading device for e-books was the topic for a client seeking a hand-held device for leisure reading as well as periodicals. As a product review blog, the topic was the center of conversation with team members who were reluctant to use advanced technology.

Content is King! Evaluating Content Management Systems - This particular blog was used in numerous instances for clients moving from static to dynamic web sites. Inundated with numerous choices, clients were happy to learn that there was a process of evaluating the right content management system - one that meets their demands today but agile enough to manage long-term needs.

The Key to Great Tradeshow Exhibiting is Marketing - Although online marketing continues to take a large portion of marketing dollars, it's interesting that many clients still use tradeshows as a major marketing initiative for lead generation and overall visibility. I found that most clients had a fragmented approach to tradeshow exhibiting. This particular blog is a response to a client frustrated with tradeshow results and was looking for some insight on the effectiveness of an integrated online/offline tradeshow campaign.

Next Top 5:

• Learning from the Best: Blogging Gurus
• Social Networking Can Boost Your Business
• What Makes a Great Blog?
• Business Bonding on Social Networks
• When is it Time to Dump a Client?

Best,

Denice MacDonald

As dollars get scarce and competition grows fierce, marketers are now pondering the direction and mode of maintaining their customer base and market share. Let’s face it, tough times force tough choices – what to keep, what to slice, what to start anew.   

Here’s a few suggestions on channels that will aid marketers to stay ‘in the game’ for 2009:  

Online advertising 

Although price competitive, there will be many ‘opportunity buys’ for online marketers willing to take the plunge.   

Search marketing

Still touted as the best deal, search can be measured and refined – allowing targeted and niche campaigns.   

Integrate

Collaborate online branding with search initiatives resulting in a cohesive and measurable strategy. 

E-mail

No it’s not dead – it's resurrected as a viable and affordable means of staying connected to customers and prospects. 

Service is marketing

The best thing you can do to keep customers and potentially increase sales is to focus on customer service.   

Online video

Video engages and can become a viral strategy. Videos also are well poised for repurposing at trade shows, online and within e-mail campaigns. 

Metrics 

Test, test and retest. You can’t get enough statistics to help gauge and refine both online and offline initiatives.  

The only economic constant is change -- it will be paramount for marketers to stay agile relative to initiatives for 2009.

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

When search engines visit your web site, they take into consideration the number AND type of web sites that link to and from your site. A higher quality backlink will have more weight than a lower quality link. 

Backlinking with reputable web sites 

Backlinks from highly reputable sites on a given topic are highly valuable. If both sites have content around keyword topics, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have a stronger influence on search engine rankings. Careful, though, you don't want to just backlink with anyone. The key to backlinking is assuring that you are in the right neighborhood; that is, you are attracting top notch visitors from comparably valued web sites.  

Double the SEO bang by including keywords in anchor text 

A high quality backlink will include one or more of your web site keywords in the anchor text (the anchor text of a link is the actual part of the link that is clicked and takes the person doing the clicking to your web site). The reason a link with the keyword in the anchor text is given more weight than links without your keywords in the anchor text is that it appears that the links are coming from sites with related information when the keywords are found within the anchor text. 

Where to start 

Step One:  Research! 

Determine how your links are working now (see tools below). Take some time to unearth keywords on your current web site and those of your competitors. 

Step Two:  Existing web content, relationships or campaigns 

Begin linking with existing channels including social networking sites such as mySpace and Facebook, blogs or company press releases. Include links to trade shows, reputable vendors, and even web sites that the company may have given donations. Be very selective about directories though - they need to be scrutinized and directly related to your products or services.  

Step Three: Niche site links 

Begin looking for those valuable web sites that mirror topics or keywords. Take the time to get to know the link owner - call or email. Lastly, don't forget to take advantage of RSS feeds.  

Tools for keyword search and backlink analysis: 

• WebCEO (Free! Download)
• Wordtracker (Free Seven Day Free Trial)
• Backlink Analysis Tool (Membership required)
• Track Your Rivals and Eat Their Lunch! (By Compete.com) 

Best,

Denice MacDonald