NetBusinessBlog

Does Footer Link Optimization have any impact on SEO?

Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by Roy in Business

We have been talking about blogs, blogging and branding for a long time. Now let’s talk about SEO (white hat obviously) of static websites.

For quite a long time, SEOs had some favorite on-page optimization spots like meta data optimization (title, keywords, descriptions…), content optimization, navigation pattern optimization (keywords in internal link’s anchor text, breadcrumb…) etc. Some over enthusiasts also optimized footer links with keyword rich anchor texts.

Now, in this post we would like to talk about footer link optimization practices.

A few months back, Google somewhat declred that they would bring down the value of site wide links. And in the last update, we have seen some changes in PR (perhaps your site’s PR dropped due to huge number of links from different blogrolls). So, do you really think that site wide links in the footer section are really helping you in case of SEO?

As far as my experience and observations are concerned, I don’t think it is of any good in respect to SEO. On the contrary for a developed site (with lots of pages 3 or 4 clicks away from the home page), if you use keywords in the footer links, this may hinder user experience. You cannot deny that, over use of keywords in anchor text, makes things look clumsy for a reader to easily find the content.

What do I do!

1. I try to keep the anchor texts in the footer as simple as possible.

2. I do not use same links in the footer section of all pages.

3. Once the main landing pages are identified, I try to focus on which pages the reader may look for more information on the topic (the connected pages). Analytics report is good enough to tell you these details. You can also look for where the visitors are going from those pages. If it does not serve any purpose, you can try to navigate the readers via those links. Don’t forget to call for action.

4. In SEO, every little bit counts. Do not completely ignore keywords in the anchor text. But use them sensibly to help the visitors.

5. Some links like Home, About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions etc. are stapled links. I always keep them as they are in the footer links.

Do you have any other suggestion? Please share them here:

Tags: footer link, search engine optimization, seo