The days of stuffing META tags for great search engine ranking are long gone. If you want a top spot on Google today the thing that matters most is how you link. And you need to do it like a pro.

But don't worry. Linking is a whole lot easier today than it was a few years ago. Experience has taught us a lot and with the information in this article you won't need to worry about endless trial and error. We have a repeatable process that anyone can do, as easy as 1, 2, 3.

That said; let's take a look at the linking strategies that Google will give you the most credit for...

Link Strategy 1: Reap the Most Benefit from Anchor Text

You probably already know that anchor text is the clickable word or words that make up a hyperlink. But what you may not yet fully realize is just how powerful anchor text is. Want to see for yourself? Try a simple experiment...

Go to http://www.Google.com and search for "click here" (no quotes.) Did you get a link for Adobe Acrobat Reader at number 1? Why is that? Check out the page. They have no mention of "click here" anywhere on the page or in the META tags.

So why does it rank number 1 on Google for "click here"? It's all thanks to anchor text. More specifically, it's because of the countless pages that have "click here" as anchor text that links to Adobe's Acrobat Reader download page.

Did you notice how many competing pages there are for "click here" on Google? Almost Two Billion! Anchor text is extremely important. Here are a few rules of thumb to get the most from yours...

A.) Use your three most important keywords for your anchor text. Specifically, your most important word 60% of the time; your second most important keyword 25% and your third keyword 15%. Remember that is for each page you link to (every page should focus on 2 to 3 keywords.)

B.) Use "long tail" keywords when appropriate (3 or more words in the keyword phrase.)

C.) If your anchor text is part of a paragraph, like a signature block, make certain the surrounding text is optimized for the keyword you want or close variations. Be sure that text varies as much as possible. You want to have plenty of versions of the surrounding text block so Google doesn't ding it as duplicate content.

Link Strategy 2: Make Your Target URLs Laser Accurate

URL accuracy, or format consistency, is extremely important. Make certain you use the exact same URL string whenever you request a link. Even though a URL link beginning with "http" or "www" (or both) might resolve to the same webpage, Google sees them as different destinations.

Want to see for yourself? Go back to Google.com and enter "Links: http://" (without quotes) followed by www... any domain name you want. This will give you the inbound links for that specific domain.

OK, easy enough. Jot down the number of links. Now try it again WITHOUT the "www." And record the number of links. Now try it a third time with the "www" but NOT the http://". Are you getting different numbers? This is because Google sees them as different link destinations.

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