Anchor Text for SEO: Anchor text is very important in SEO and has a huge impact on rankings. If you are looking to optimize your blog with an Anchor Text strategy and improve your site SEO rankings, this article is just for you.
How to Optimize Your Blog with Anchor Text: Best Practices for Anchor Text Optimization
An Anchor text is a visible, clickable text in a hyperlink that links two web pages together. It gives a strong indication to both users and search engines about the page you’re linking to and helps you to attain the top rank.
Anchor Text Optimization rules the world of search engine optimization (SEO). When you create a new hyperlink, the anchor text for that link is used to help your website rank higher in the search engines. Improper use of Anchor Text will not only slow down your site’s ranking but also reduce your overall traffic.
Anchor text optimization is beneficial because it helps search engines read your site and understand its relevance to a user’s search and allows you to use the anchor text for external links, which are more likely to increase your click-through rate to your website.
Anchor text optimization also helps strengthen the trust between you and your reader.
In this article, we will discuss the basics of anchor text optimization, as well as some ideas for how to use anchor text to optimize your blog and improve SEO rankings.
Types of Anchor Text
There are a wide variety of ways you can create text links. The different types of anchor text include the following:
Exact match anchor text: It includes a keyword that reflects the page to which it is linked. Anchor text is an exact match when you use the same words as the target keywords for the entire page.
Partial match anchor text: When you include your keyword along with other words which includes a variation of the keyword on the linked page.
Branded anchor text: Branded anchors include your brand name or the name of the site which the link leads to.
Naked anchor text: It is a hyperlink that uses the complete URL as the anchor text.
Generic anchor text: A generic anchor text refers to completely unrelated phrases to link to another page or website and it doesn’t include any text referencing a keyword such as hyperlinks that use words like “website”, “info”, “link” or phrases like “read more”, “click here”, “visit this page”.
Image anchor text: Whenever an image is linked to text, Google will use the text in the image alt attribute as the text link.
How to Use Anchor Text
Anchor text is the text that’s written in the anchor tag on a page. It can be used to link to another page, to a specific section of the page, or even to a particular paragraph. In addition to being used for internal linking, anchor text is often used for external linking.
Internal linking refers to the use of anchor text to link your site’s content elements together, such as linking your homepage to an article. This is usually done using anchor tags with the keyword “home” as part of the link. For example:
This way, if someone searches for “homepage,” they will automatically come to your homepage.
External linking refers to using words or phrases from your site’s content as the link text, such as using “click here” as a link:
The search engine spiders will then see this and link to that section of the page. This is useful for creating interesting and engaging pages that help drive traffic and conversions.
There are many things to consider when determining your anchor text. It’s important to understand that the choice of anchor text has a significant impact on your organic rankings.
At first glance, it seems as if having more generic anchor text will help you rank higher in Google. But often, this is not the case. For example, let’s say that I’m building a website about “famous authors,” and I want to use the anchor text:
“Top 10 Famous Writers.”
This is a trendy and generic term, but it has no real value in my article, and I know that Google will not show it as the first result for my search query. On the other hand, let’s say that I pick:
“What are the top 10 famous writers?”
This is a much better choice because there is actual value in my article, and Google will likely show this as the first result for my search query. This is because I’ve used a specific action that people can take with my article — “what” — instead of using a large variety of words like “classics author” or “famous writers.” This will help me achieve better rankings and increased traffic from search engines.
Few Examples on how to use Anchor Text:
For example, if you have a website about gardening, your title tag should contain words like “gardening blog” or “gardening tips.” If you have a blog about social media marketing, your title tag should include words like “social media marketing tips” or “social media marketing strategy.”
Another example is if you have a landing page for your business that reads “How to Sell Your House Fast, “then the anchor text should not be ‘sell.’ You want it to say something like ‘seller’s guide,’ ‘selling a house,’ etc. This will help you rank well in search engines because search engines pay attention to what people are searching for when looking for what you are selling.
Here is one more last example: A local dog-grooming store posts a link on its blog about how to groom a dog without getting scratches. The link is posted as “Groom Dog Without Scratches.” Let’s say someone clicks on this link and goes to the site and buys a service. Here’s what happens:
1) Google sees that someone clicked on the “Groom Dog Without Scratches” page and now wants to rank for the term “groom dog without scratches.” Google figures that if these keywords are popular enough for someone to click, they probably also rank well in searches for those terms.
2) Google begins looking at the anchor text of this page – “Groom Dog Without Scratches – Instructions – How To Groom Your Dog Without Getting Scratches – Dog Grooming Advice – How To Groom Your Dog Without Scratches – How To Groom Your Dog | Best Way To Groom A Dog | How To groom Your Dog Without Getting Scratches | Easy way to groom a dog | How to groom your dog” – and decides it ranks well for this keyword phrase. In other words, it thinks it’s a good fit for what people are searching for when they search for “groom dog without scratches.”
3) Now Google sees that other pages are ranked for the same keyword phrase, so it starts ranking those pages.
So you’ve heard about anchor text links and how they can help you rank higher on the SERPs. But do you know how they work? Does it matter? And what should you do if you’re unsure about what to use as your anchor text?
Best Practices for Anchor Text Optimization
The more links a page has pointing back to it, the more likely it is that Google’s algorithms will pick up those links. However, there’s a lot more to this than just having a bunch of links pointing back at a page.
Google goes out of its way to make sure that there aren’t duplicate pages – so if two sites have the same exact text – same keywords – they’ll both show up in Google. This is where anchor text can come in quite handy.
Google will give that page a certain number of anchor text links pointing at it from other web pages for every page you put an anchor link on.
When a search engine user clicks on these words, they will follow those hyperlinks and go to that webpage.
The following are some recommendations to optimize anchor text and improve SEO strategy.
Create a natural flow
Writing, in general, should have a natural flow. The same happens with the texts of the links. When adding links, we need to make sure they fit well with the rest of the text. If in the process we find it difficult to include a link in a sentence, it is likely that the link does not belong there, and it is better to put it somewhere else where it can be incorporated more naturally.
Do not deviate from the content
The anchor text should consist of words and phrases that closely match the subject of the secured link and should not deviate from this content to keep the linked texts linking and useful to the content.
Use unique and diverse style of text links
Google’s spam will be turned off if you don’t diversify into different types of text links and just keep going on an exact match.
A unique and diverse style of text links should be used, not just linking brand names to improve your SEO assisting anchor text strategy. Also, use the different types of text because it improves the SEO of the link text on a site.
Make it clear that the link text is clickable
It is important that it is apparent to the reader that the link text is clickable. You can do this by using a different color for the link, underlining it, or both. This makes not only the SEO strategy and the effectiveness of the link itself, but also the honesty with which we address your readers.
Test and track text links
Tracking text links is the only way to test how text links affect your SEO. A variety of text links that are used with content can be tracked using the anchor image taxonomy tools.
Read Also: How to Optimize Your Blog with Anchor Text
Conclusion:
Anchor text plays a crucial role in SEO (search engine optimization). It’s the clickable text within a hyperlink that provides context to search engines and human visitors. To optimize your anchor text for SEO, follow these best practices: choose relevant keywords, prioritize your main SEO keyword, keep it short, use descriptive text, avoid repetition, consider context, and optimize internal links. Remember, anchor text should be natural, concise, and relevant to the target page.
