Do You Prefer Plain Or Text Links?

There are links, and then there are text links. If possible, you should always get a text link, but in some of the link building methods to follow, the best you can do is a plain link.

Text links are important for SEO because it allows you to include your keywords in the link, essentially. A plain link looks like this:

http://www.plainlink.com

A text link, on the other hand, will look something like this:

You’re Keyword or Keyword Phrase

You can also use your marketing message in your text link, but it is essential that the marketing message also contain your keyword or keyword phrase - otherwise, the text link is no better than a plain link. As you can see, with text links, the keywords or keyword phrase is what the viewer sees - not the actual link. You are not trying to hide the link from viewers, however. You are simply trying to give your link more weight, by including the keywords or keyword phrase.

Again, in some instances, you won’t be able to acquire a one-way inbound text link, and you must settle for a plain link, but if you have the option, always go for the text link, and learn how to create text links as well, since many of the techniques to follow will allow you to self-serve.

Make sure that your links are clickable - whether they are text links or plain links! Again, this may require knowledge of the very basic hyperlink tags for HTML, but many websites will automatically make the link clickable. If the link cannot be clicked, the search engines won’t recognize it as a link, and it is pointless.

This is often a problem with email signatures in forums. If the signature is not set up through the profile page, and then automatically added to the bottom of the message after you post it, and is instead just added as a part of the message when you are writing it, it often will not be clickable - unless you are allowed to use HTML tags in your message - which means that if your purpose for posting a message was to build a link, you wasted your time.

Clickable text links is what you want when you have that option. The order of preference should be a clickable text link, with the second choice being a clickable plain link. An un-clickable link shouldn’t even be considered.