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Hi. Thanks for checking in on me.  I have been having a good time checking out your website. Once I got all of my information from your header area of code I hopped in my bot-mobile and took off. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from your page title and description. It didn’t take long for me to hit some text which really gave me a pretty deep insight into the message you are trying to get across.  After I passed by some CSS links and a few other “design” instructions I hit an H1 tag. That was great because it told me what this first section was about. I like that. The text that followed was pretty specific and I even found a couple exits off of your home page to other pages that gave even more detail about the word that was on the exit ramp.

Looking ahead I saw a bunch of signs that told me I could see other areas of your website. It looks like each word on this sign area will lead me to different sections of your website. I am guessing this is your website menu. Thank you for using words instead of images to show me where to go from your home page. I have issues with pictures. What can I say, I am limited in what I can read. I love text.

After a while I came across an image. Like I said before I can’t see pictures.  That is probably pretty good though as I get easily distracted. You were kind enough to tell me what the photo was showing though when you put that “alt” sign there. You know, I have heard of a few “uber geeks” out there who actually don’t like images on their sites so they turn that capability off and they get a red x where the photo should be. But when you put that “alt” tag there they can read what the photo is. I like the way you named the photo with a name that associated the photo with the subject of the page I am on. Once again it didn’t confuse me.

After a few more lines of text I ran into another H1 tag that told me to expect a slight change in what I would find. It appears to still be related to the subject on the page so that is cool. I see some more exit ramps to other pages and you have once again been kind enough to name these exits with key words that tell me what to expect on that page. I really like driving around your website. You seem to have taken some time and planned this page so I can tour it easy.

Wow, it looks like your website is going to be great and I will definitely be back soon. I like the fact you didn’t put too much here on the first page. Sometimes I visit a new webpage and I drive and drive and drive and I start to think will this ever end. Sometimes I get tired and turn around an just go away. Your first page was just right though. Not too short and not too long and you let me know exactly what to expect. Since this is my first time at your site I have collected quite a bit of info for my friends back at the server I am going to turn around and head back home and unpack the info.

I have made a note of those off ramps to other pages on your site and the next time I visit you I will start to take some of those exits and see what I can find. By the way, I don’t mind if you change the text info on your opening page periodically. I am an information junkie and the more new text content I see the better. Think of me as PacMan and your text are the little dots. I eat them and eat them.  Well, I am off to the server  and I’ll be back in a few days.

See you later………… W-Bot7

Hi. My name is W-Bot7 and I am here to check out your website. Since this is my first time visiting your website I hope I can find my way easily. You know sometimes when I come to someplace new I get confused because I start looking around and all of a sudden I run into a dead end and it can be difficult for me to back up. I am sure I won’t have that problem here because you have taken time to plan your website navigation so I can easily find my way around.

Hopefully you will put some things near the top of your code that will give me some idea about what your website is all about. Don’t give me too much info though….. I just get confused and it upsets me when I see the same words over and over again. When that happens I just leave. I suppose I am not a very patient crawler. Anyway, I have just arrived at your site and I am on the first line. I need you to tell me in just a few words what this page is about so I can file it away. You can do this by putting the title of your webpage in an area designated, you guessed it, title. Oh, and do me a favor please. As I visit your website in the future and start to explore other areas, don’t tell me each page has the same title. Like I said before that just confuses me and I don’t like to be confused and I just leave.

You can also leave me a description of what I can expect to find on the page along with a few words about the page subject. Please don’t try to fool me with extra words that don’t have anything to do with your page or site. Like I said before; I am temperamental and I am liable to get an attitude and leave. So now that you have told me what I can expect to find I can start my journey through your index page and hopefully onto other pages of your site. Remember, if you want me to follow the pathway through your site that you develop with you text links, be sure to say ROBOTS” CONTENT=”index, follow” that way it is in big letters and I can’t say I didn’t know.

Now that I have all of my directions and information about your webpage ready and locked in I am going to step on the gas and hit the road as they say.  I am hoping that I will run into some text that gives me more info about your site that way I can share it with my buddies back home at the data center.

Tomorrow I will let you know how my journey through your website is going………  see ya later…..   W-Bot7

There are several different schools of thought when it comes to linking such as where should the link come from, where should it go and how many links is enough. I have been through each of these thoughts and have tried each method plus a few more. Over the past couple of years I have seen some pretty good success with my SEO efforts and have learned quite a bit about the effects of linking and have come to the following conclusion. Deep links are the best.

What do I mean by deep links you ask? A deep link is a link that comes to you from another site but does not point to your index page. But wait a minute…… don’t I want all of my links to point to my home page so people will find out what I am all about? Not necessarily. While links to your homepage are needed and do help people to find your site, wouldn’t you rather have someone refer a visitor via a text link directly to one of your site’s inner pages and provide that visitor with an immediate solution to what they seek?

Another advantage of having a deep link is the originators website will pass “link juice” to your inner page thus making it stronger in value which in turn will have a positive effect on you overall page strength.

Let me use the example of one of my websites which is a trucking industry website. TruckerHub.com is a directory style site that has links to almost every aspect of the trucking industry. While I would certainly like a lot of in-bound links point to my home page, it is advantageous to me to have a trucking website specialty site link directly to a page within my site dealing with that subject. For instance a specialty chrome shop could link directly to one of my inner pages that deal with chrome modification and customization for trucks. The visitor to that page obviously wants chrome related info and by landing on that subject page you save the new visitor time.

Deep linking also helps in your search returns as your inner pages start to show up in better positions for more precise searches such as “chrome plating for trucks”.

If I had my preference I would want 25% of my inbound links to hit my home page and the other 75% to go to inner pages for deep linking.

What are your thoughts on deep linking?