Once upon a time, choosing anchor text was easy enough. You simply chose the keywords you were targeting, and linked them. How much easier could it get? However, it has become clear over the last few years that Google is penalizing link builders who use the same anchor text over and over.

With that in mind, it’s important that you vary anchor text in all of your link building endeavors. That includes press releases posted on the web.

What if You Aren’t Using Your Press Releases for Link Building Purposes?

Maybe you view press releases in a more traditional sense. You compose them and post them on the web in hopes of attracting a reporter or a blogger who will put your news out for the world to see. And that’s fine. However, whether you like it or not, the links you put in your press releases will affect your site.

Maybe you don’t care to try and raise your rankings. That’s fine. But do you really want to purposely hurt your rankings? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone openly admit to this. It would be foolish. But if you don’t diversify your anchor text, that’s what you’re doing. In other words, by using bad link building techniques with anchor text, you can actually drop in Google searches. So it makes sense for you to follow good anchor text practices, regardless of your purpose for posting press releases.

How Can You Vary Anchor Text in Your Press Releases

So you know you need to diversify the anchor text, but the question is how? Here are a few tips to help you out.

1. Forget the keywords. It’s time to deprogram ourselves to keyword usage. Not only do we need to stop cramming them in all areas of our press releases (titles, summaries, etc.), but we also need to disregard them when choosing anchor text. The idea is to pick anchor text that makes sense. It’s all about what flows naturally.
2. Go long tail. If you are intent on keywords, go long tail. Let’s say your keyword is flower delivery. Well, if you go long tail, then you get more specific. So instead of making your anchor text flower delivery, you might choose flower delivery for an anniversary. Something longer and more specific. This will inevitably bring you more targeted traffic anyway, as you will rank higher in searches for terms more specific to what you actually do.
3. Use the actual URL. Sometimes you may just want to actually type the URL out. After all, that probably makes the most sense, especially if you’re telling reporters where they can go to get more info in a press release. However, if you’re looking to link to a specific page deep within a site, you likely have a messy URL that you don’t want to waste space with. In that case, choose something else.

Keep Up with the Link Building Times

Bottom line, you need to keep up with all the changes that are being made with the search engines. And with just a little tweaking of your anchor text, you can get the most out of your press releases.

How do you go about choosing anchor text for your press releases?

This article is written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases (http://www.ereleases.com), the online leader in affordable press release distribution. Grab your free 160-page copy of the Big Press Release Book – Press Releases for Every Occasion and Industry here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/bigbook.html