Content-laden links
Search engines love context when assigning link values. In-line or content-laden links positioned within deeper page content provide search engines insight into the physical architecture of your website. By placing in-line links within the textual content of your website, you offer search engines a semantic structure to index.
How is this useful? Okay, that all sounds interesting enough - but what does that mean in the real world? When designing the structure of your website (and you are mapping your content before you construct it, right?) a main navigation or link structure is typically created. We will refer to these links as "top level" anchors:
Home - About - Services - Contact Us
Search engines place more value on content-laden links than your "top level" navigational elements. Your main navigation elements are clearly still important - after all, the usefulness of your site is more important than its rank on Google - what good is being found online if nobody finds your site compelling? Luckily content-laden links act as an SEO tool and a benefit to the user experience.
For example, an average website homepage contains some general introductory copy (and typically some imagery to add aesthetic value). Lets focus on the introductory paragraph.
If we target a keyword that has value or describes one of the major aspects of the website and turn that word or phrase into a link driving users to more information about the topic, we have created a useful content-laden link.
Let's say we are discussing a photography website. We will assume that "Wedding Photography" is the principal money maker for the company. So we have selected it as our first in-line or content laden link in our introductory paragraph on the website homepage. The text link "wedding photography" will direct our visitors to a page under the "services" section of the website. More specifically our content laden link will lead to a page called "event photography".
We can choose to make another text-based link from our intro paragraph. However, it is important to note that Google assigns more value to the FIRST in-line or content laden link it encounters. Therefore, you do NOT want to over saturate your homepage copy with links. If you do decide to target a second key phrase in your homepage copy, know that Google will rank its value as less important.
Why where your links point to within your website are very important
This basic hierarchy of creating content laden links establishes page relationships AND dictates the structure of your website to search engines in a meaningful way. Funnel main points or channels of information via in-line links with keyword text across all pages of content. As a result, each main section will refer to a subsequent category/subsection or topic that is more focused and refined. For example, remember we decided to make a link out of the text "wedding photography" in our intro paragraph? Well we should send that link to a sub-page of services. A subpage of services could be "Event Photography." But lets go one step further. Our website should include a whole separate page under "Event Photography" just for wedding photography. So visualize:
HOMEPAGE COPY LINK > SERVICES > EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY > WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
We are basically traversing the page structure down into more specific content. This lets Google know the relationship between these sections and adds value to them (in terms of the hierarchy of importance we've created). This is a way to let Google fully index your content. It shows your site is logical in structure, and your keywords are more effective this way because they are targeted within your own website.
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