For SEO purposes, can I have just a single word link to my website?

1. 85

   ArtVandelay66posted 14 years ago

   For SEO purposes, can I have just a single word link to my website?
   
   When leaving a link for SEO purposes, does the URL need to readable or can another word such as my first name be a hyperlink to my site with the URL not explicitly visible?  Would having the URL be explicitly visible be more helpful for SEO?

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2. 65

   Glenn Stokposted 14 years ago

   It helps SEO by using a longtail URL. And the text link should also be a longtail. Using just a single word will be too general and it will match too many search queries. The result is that your listing will come up way down and if anyone cares to look that far, it most likely will not relate well with their query. That will hurt your ranking as time goes by. Using a longer sentence will help match more precisely with search engine queries and that is the traffic you want.

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3. 68

   megmccormickposted 14 years ago

   I agree with Glenn. You want to decide what targeted audience you want to find your content and then make the anchor text (the words that are hyperlinked) the keywords you think people are searching for as well as the title of the URL that is linked to those words in that content.
   
   For example you would want the words in your article about cat training videos that are hyperlinked to a destination URL something like "my favorite cat training videos" linked to www.cattrainingvideos.com/best-cat-training-videos (no affiliate linking was used in the making of this demonstration! )
   
   Hope that makes sense!

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4. 0

   Rob Bellposted 14 years ago

   You can use a single word as your link to your site instead of your URL. 
   
   The URL does not need to be visible.
   
   It is only good for SEO if the word you are using as your link is a keyword that you are trying win with at the engines. A word you are trying to get found with. The word needs to be winnable.
   
   It also helps if the word you use as your link is used in the page you are linking to.  That makes the link more relevant.

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