directinc

If you've been trying to market online through the search engines for any amount of time, you are no doubt aware that links play a significant role in determining whether or not your site will be found anywhere near the top of the organic search results. This is the big prize, positioning your site somewhere within the first few pages of Google's (or Yahoo's or Bing's) search results) as you, yourself can testify. When you do a search, how many pages do you scroll through before moving on, or trying a different search? I would bet it's not much more than 3 pages, if that.
So how does one use links to help get those coveted positions? One way is through the use of link reputation and the anchor text you use to create your links.
Link reputation is a combination of several things; the words themselves, their relevance to your site, the words surrounding those keywords, and the relative “weight” of the site where the link comes from. Let's look at these items a bit more closely.
Obviously, you want targeted keywords for your site, and they should be closely related if not matching the content on your web page. It would do you little good to get visitors to your site for the keyword “gerbil food” if your web page is about automatic transmissions.
The words surrounding your link text matter as well. Google looks at not only the link text, but the surrounding words as well to determine the strength of a link. All that this means is make the words around your links as topical as the link itself, and you'll be good to go. The page rank and trust of the site where the link is emanating from also matter. If your link is a front page link from an authority site in your niche, (let's says it “scuba gear”) it will carry a good deal more weight than one from a page full of diverse links on somebody's link pages buried deep within their site, surrounded by links for forex, acai berries, and teeth whiteners. These pages are seldom spidered, and Google sees them for what they are, a list of links, whereas the front page link from that authority site conveys a wholly different message. It says, “This link matters, and you should take a look.”
Aim to structure your links with the following basic ideas in mind:
•    Use relevant anchor text
•    Surround your links with topical words
•    Strive for good neighborhoods” for you links to live in
•    Don't take the easy way out; spend your linking efforts wisely, and you'll be rewarded with links that not only will help you, but last longer.
Many times webmasters, lured by the promise of easy rankings and fast results, opt for linking schemes that are either poor in quality, or worse, will leave a large footprint that screams to Google “link spam". Take the time to do this right. You be glad you did.