Well I think it depends on the structure of your blog. What I do is a combination of the above, gradually build links to the home of my blog - going for very competitive pages.

But most of my linking is to targeted to specific pages - I'll target a keyword for a page then build links to support the ranking. It's worth keeping an eye on webmaster tools and analytics to see what phrases are actually generating traffic - e.g if you're picking up traffic from being on page 3 for a certain phrase then build links with that anchor text to push it up to page one.

If the phrase is generating traffic and related to your niche then make sure you maximise the return.

Hope that helps

Neil

Hi Anthony,

A very, very good question you raise. My advice would be to make your entire blog centered around 2 or 3 main keywords, and then expand on these keywords with your individual posts, and include links back to your home page using the long-tail keywords of the individual posts.

For example, your main keyword may be "sound proof headphones". Your individual posts would be long-tail keywords such as "cheap sound proof headphones" or "where to buy sound proof headphones". My recommendation would be to link these long-tail keyword posts back to your homepage with the long-tail phrase, eg: use "cheap sound proof headphones" instead of just your main phrase of "sound proof headphones".

I know others will just put a sitewide link back to their homepage and claim that this will build up their authority under their main keyword term, and I can't dispute this, however there is one big benefit I've noticed of doing it the way I've described, and that is it will build the rankings of your actual index (home page) under long tail keyword terms.

Let's say people will search for the term "cheap sound proof headphones" as opposed to just "sound proof headphones". If you've included an anchored link to your home page with the full text "cheap sound proof headphones" then you're home page is going to gain authority under that specific keyword term.

This will lead to two things -

1) You'll be more likely to have two results in the SERPs for your web page (one for the home page, and one for the individual post) and,

2) Your home page will be more likely to show as the first result, meaning you can focus all your monetization on just the home page.

Hope this helps.

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