When a search engine spider comes to a web page, it scans the page and follows the links on it to other websites. So, when it sees anchor text on a page, it follows the link to the website it is linked to. When you have many different websites linking back to yours, spiders see your page as more important and give it higher ranking it the search results. So, if you have an Internet marketing website about fly fishing, and you write a post in a fly fishing forum, you'll use the phrase "Best fly fishing tips," and you'll make it a hyperlink that points back to your site. When the spiders follow that forum post and land on your website, they'll see your keywords on the page and understand that your site is about fly fishing. You'll get credit for that link. No one is really sure how that all works, since it's part of a search engine's algorithm, but it does work, and well.
This can happen with any word, though, even if it's not pertinent to your website content. For example, the phrase "click here" causes Adobe Acrobat Reader's website to rank #1 for that search term in Google. The reason for this is because so many webmasters use a .pdf file on their website, but want everyone to be able to read it, so they might put the sentence, "If you don't have Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here." Then they hyperlink the "click here" to Adobe. Hence, Adobe ranks for "click here."
You don't want to rank for terms that aren't important to your Internet marketing niche. You want to choose terms that are important to whatever niche or sub-niche your Internet marketing site is in, and to be sure that there are enough searches per month on the keywords you choose, so you get traffic.
It's important not just to choose keywords, but to choose the right keywords. you can go to SEO Book and use the keyword research tool there. Plug in a very general keyword for your niche, like "fishing." See what shows up below. Never use the first word in the list because it will be too competitive. Look down the list, see which words best pertain to your website, but stop at about 10,000 searches for the month. The words below that probably don't get much traffic.
When you understand the importance of anchor text, it will help you to boost your search engine ranking over time. Just think of it as any blue word, which usually means it has a hyperlink. Start placing anchor text links not just in your website, but around the Web from article directories, forums, some blogs, or wherever you can. The more links you have out there pointing back to your website, the better your search engine rankings will be over time.
