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Biggest newbie mistake on EZA

by CyberSorcerer
19 replies
If you are going to get into the Internet Marketing business then there are a few very important skills you need to perfect if you want to succeed. The first of those skills is following what your coach, mentor, membership, or course is teaching you.

While researching EZA resource boxes I’ve notice a VERY bad trend, which includes using ‘Click Here’ as the link text to your sales page, site, offer, etc. It appears people do this without understanding the importance of link text and how it affects your backlinking power from that link.

Backlinks are THE most important part of your SEO campaign for what ever keyword you are trying to rank for, and the text you use for your links are THE most important part of your backlinking strategy. Contrary to popular opinion, link text is even more important than on-page optimization.

Take for example ‘click here.’ There are more people using this in their resource boxes than you can imagine and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with their site, and the page that it’s used on isn’t optimized for it either. So just out of curiosity, who does rank number one for ‘click here?’

Well if you put ‘click here’ in Google, the number one spot is taken by Adobe’s download link for Acrobat Reader. Now think about this very carefully. This is about the ONLY text that people use if they are putting this download link on the page for their visitors to get the reader. Are ANY of the pages this link text is on optimized for ‘click here?’ NO. Is any work, or effort at all put into the link text ‘click here?’ NO. But yet Adobe ranks #1 for it and it is VERY unlikely ANYONE will take over the #1 spot for ‘click here’ from Adobe either.

So bottom line, don’t use ‘CLICK HERE’ as your link text.
#biggest #eza #mistake #newbie
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    I agree with you 100%.

    But I don't think you'll have any more success at persuading people not to do it than I ever have.

    There are even people who've tested various different anchor-texts for EZA resource-boxes and get a higher click-through rate with "click here" than with anything else. (Some people do actually measure their success by monitoring CTR rather than income, you know? It's pretty misguided, obviously, but what can you do?). :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author TimG
    I use "Click Here" as part of my anchor text but that's because there are some of my niches where a resource box containing "Click Here" seems to work better at getting the visitor to my website.

    Once they arrive on the website all bets are off in terms of what keyword phrase got them there because either I convert or I don't....that's the bottom line.

    Of course, on a percentage basis "Click Here" is used a relatively small percentage of the time because I am more focused on using keyword rich anchor text.

    If article marketing is strictly a backlink gainer than "Click Here" is a poor choice but if it is about generating traffic I'd argue that it holds its own in terms of traffic generation.

    Personally, I go for both traffic and backlinks hence it gets mixed in with other phrases.

    Respectfully,
    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author CyberSorcerer
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      Personally, I go for both traffic and backlinks hence it gets mixed in with other phrases.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      Yes I agree, it all depends on what you're using it for as both for traffic and backlinks are useful.

      But also in researching these resource boxes, to the newbies at least, it's unclear to them whether their trying to using it for backlink juice or to get targeted traffic.

      Forget the idea of your links staying there if someone uses your article on their blog, or what ever; because, it's highly unlikely that it will stay there. So try and focus on your resource box as backlink juice from EZA or to bring traffic to your site. Don't depend on it being used when the article is copied and reused, as it should be. Go a head and do your own research on this. Copy the first paragraph of your article and put it into Google to see where it's being used.

      You'll see the article perfect as you wrote it, but the resource box has different links in it and not your links.
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      • Profile picture of the author Bill Jenkins
        Banned
        I cant agree more. The author box is quite lame in many, many articles. You really should use your keyword phrase and anchor text in my opinion.

        Also, these bio boxes that all about the person who wrote the article are very non compelling. I prefer to leave the article open ended and then start the author box with the word "Next". This keeps the flow and whisks them off to your site. That's where the money is!

        Bill
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      • Profile picture of the author TimG
        Originally Posted by CyberSorcerer View Post

        But also in researching these resource boxes, to the newbies at least, it's unclear to them whether their trying to using it for backlink juice or to get targeted traffic.
        Good point....when I responded to this question I was responding with 6 plus years as an article marketer which means every article I create, subit and see published is down with a specific purpose in mind.

        Some are for backlink building, some are for branding, some are to test a niche's potential, some are to rank for a keyword phrase I can't get a page on my own site to rank for and others are for pure traffic generating.

        Developing a true article marketing campaign involves more planning then some people suspect to include developing a sound resource box strategy.

        Respectfully,
        Tim
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  • Profile picture of the author philip750
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    • Profile picture of the author packerfan
      I'd say rule #1 is to learn what works best for your business. Sure, anchor text backlink with your keyword is a good thing. We all know that. But there are actually some people who write articles that want people to actually click that link.

      If they've tested properly, they may show that using click here works better for them than the anchor text "yellow monkey t shirt designs" or whatever.

      I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Have to keep your audience in mind too. There are people that really don't know where to click. If you want those people to actually visit your website, you're going to have to be obvious about it. And "Click Here" is a really, really effective way to tell them where to click.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anthony W
    Agreed.. but what do you think about alternating anchor texts so that your KW isn't the only anchor text that points back to your site.

    I've heard some people talking about rotating anchor texts and throwing in a couple of "click here" and naked links to make everything look more natural
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    • Profile picture of the author CyberSorcerer
      Originally Posted by Tony W View Post

      I've heard some people talking about rotating anchor texts and throwing in a couple of "click here" and naked links to make everything look more natural
      You have to make ALL your backlinks look natural if you want Google to put any authority to your site. This includes having 'dofollow' links along with 'nofollow', because, it isn't natural to ONLY have 500 backlinks and there ALL from 'dofollow' links. Google's algorithm might think, to itself, does this look natural that a site would ONLY get ALL it's links from 'dofollow' site? Not really, sounds to me like someone trying to trick me to get a high ranking.

      The same goes for the type of backlinks your getting and the number per day. I could go on and on about backlinks; because, I've learned through experimenting and research how important they are to getting a good rank in SERP's.

      Always be experimenting with your backlinks, customers, link text, etc. Know where your customers come from, why there coming, and what made them come.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Also there is this SEO idea of not overoptimising so ALL your anchor links use your keywords. That's one reason I have used a call to action instead, like 'click here' and others.
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  • Profile picture of the author traceye
    Originally Posted by CyberSorcerer View Post

    Backlinks are THE most important part of your SEO campaign for what ever keyword you are trying to rank for, and the text you use for your links are THE most important part of your backlinking strategy. Contrary to popular opinion, link text is even more important than on-page optimization.
    Perhaps. Yes anchor text is important, or rather it has been over the past few years, however with all the changes that Google is making lately (and has been since may/june of last year), anchor text is not the magic ranking factor that it once was. Backlinks are still the most important offpage SEO factor, but anchor text - not so much.

    Originally Posted by CyberSorcerer View Post

    Take for example 'click here.' There are more people using this in their resource boxes than you can imagine and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with their site, and the page that it's used on isn't optimized for it either. So just out of curiosity, who does rank number one for 'click here?'

    Well if you put 'click here' in Google, the number one spot is taken by Adobe's download link for Acrobat Reader. Now think about this very carefully. This is about the ONLY text that people use if they are putting this download link on the page for their visitors to get the reader. Are ANY of the pages this link text is on optimized for 'click here?' NO. Is any work, or effort at all put into the link text 'click here?' NO. But yet Adobe ranks #1 for it and it is VERY unlikely ANYONE will take over the #1 spot for 'click here' from Adobe either.
    If I use 'click here' which I have done, and still do occassionally, it's not because I'm trying to rank for 'click here'. Why would I want to?

    Google isn't stupid. It knows what my page is about. I don't need to constantly tell it by using exact anchor text that I want to rank for. That's why most of my sites get traffic from a variety of different keywords and not just from any anchor text I choose to use.

    Now I'm not saying NOT to use anchor text - it still is important and has it's place - what I'm saying is that using other words as well is still a good SEO strategy. In all my recent testing, backlinks are far more important (no matter what text you use) than the anchor keyword you are trying to rank for.

    Originally Posted by CyberSorcerer View Post

    So bottom line, don't use 'CLICK HERE' as your link text.
    eh, you do what works for you, I'll do what works for me. I'll still continue to use a few click here's every now and then.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by CyberSorcerer View Post

      Are ANY of the pages this link text is on optimized for 'click here?' NO. Is any work, or effort at all put into the link text 'click here?' NO. But yet Adobe ranks #1 for it and it is VERY unlikely ANYONE will take over the #1 spot for 'click here' from Adobe either.
      I'm not really sure what this proves? Google are not going to have no results for the term 'Click Here' so obviously some website has to be #1 and Adobe obviously has a lot of people linking to it and in those links a lot of the times are the words 'Click Here'.

      Originally Posted by Tony W View Post

      I've heard some people talking about rotating anchor texts and throwing in a couple of "click here" and naked links to make everything look more natural
      I tend to like this opinion. It is my belief that with EZA you can have two links in your resource box? So why not have one call to action link and one keyword rich link. That way you cater for both types of visitors but still get your keyword rich link. I have always doubted the power of having TWO links on a page pointing to the same external site.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by WillR View Post

        It is my belief that with EZA you can have two links in your resource box?
        Yes, this is right. With up to 3 words of anchor text each for articles under 400 words, and up to 5 words of anchor text each for articles of 400+ words.

        Originally Posted by WillR View Post

        So why not have one call to action link and one keyword rich link.
        Again, it depends on the purpose of your article. But a "call to action" link can destroy all chances of syndication (not many people want an article with a "call to action" on their high-PR, context-relevant authority site, in front of their pre-targeted traffic), reducing the sole benefits of the article to (i) the EZA traffic (which I'd much rather have directly at the copy of the article on my site than the one on EZA's site, for obvious reasons), and (ii) the backlink (which is on a PR-0, non-context-relevant page, even at EZA, and who needs an article attached just to get a backlink, anyway?).

        So it depends why you're writing articles: it's "courses for horses" as the saying goes.

        From my perspective, an overt "call to action" link can devalue an article greatly.

        However, there is an argument for spelling out your site's url in non-anchor text form as well: this is a whole different point, though.
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        • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
          I use "click here" as my anchor text along with my keyword. In all honesty though, more than one backlink from EZA is WORTHLESS so, who cares what the anchor text is?
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall View Post

            who cares what the anchor text is?
            People syndicating the article (or, of course, not).
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            • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
              Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

              People syndicating the article (or, of course, not).
              To be completely honest, with pretty much any campaign or niche that I care about, I DON'T WANT my content syndicated from EZA. If i want my content syndicated there are better and more effective ways to do it.

              In a LARGE NUMBER of cases (not all) in MOST niches the people that are syndicating your articles from a content farm like eza are autobloggers.

              Autoblog gets slapped
              Links get devalued
              Your site takes the hit

              Hell, in a majority of cases, I don't even enter tags in my content because:

              1. they don't really matter
              2. By not including them it stops most of the scraping plugins and apps from finding my content.
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              • Profile picture of the author CyberSorcerer
                Well without getting into a whole discussion of link juice here, my original point was just covering a basic understand of your resource box as used on EZA. And directed toward newbies ONLY.

                Yes, as someone experienced in IM, I would expect you to have fully tested both your backlinking strategy and link text usages, both with keywords and without. But newbies first need some grounding rules to get them started, and then they can start experimenting with different things when they fully understand how those things work.

                I mean this discussion could be expanded into keyword usage & content relevance, raw link juice, anchor text weight, and domain authority but just wanted to keep it directed toward those just starting out. The majority of these that I’ve seen so far are from those just starting in IM. And yes, an experienced marketer can follow your resource links, as I do, for the purpose of analyzing what you’re doing to make money from your article on EZA. After all this is part of researching a niche to see if it’s going to be profitable and what programs others are promoting in this niche.

                Those that posted they do use ‘click here’ I understand, because, I’ve used it myself at certain times and in certain niches. Would I recommend a newbie using it? Depends. I would have some questions for him/her first before I said yes or no.

                Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall View Post

                2. By not including them it stops most of the scraping plugins and apps from finding my content.
                Just curious if it also stops your customers from finding your content too?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ian Varnava
    "Click Here" has been known to get a higher CTR. Ezine Articles allows two links in the resource box. Personally I make the first one an anchor with a keyword, and the 2nd one, usually as the last two words, says "click here". Now you can have the best of both worlds.
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