What Is It & How To Optimize It?

If you’ve been into SEO for a while then you know how important anchor text optimization was back then to rank your websites high in search engines. But is it still important today?

This article gives you an overview of everything you need to know about anchor text, from best practices to what not to do.

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. It allows users to navigate from one webpage to another.

In terms of SEO, anchor text is important because it can help search engines understand what a webpage is about.

Anchor text example

Here is a code example for anchor text:

 <a href="http://www.example.com">Example Anchor Text</a>

Before the Penguin update, having keyword-rich anchor text links was one of the best ways to get your site to the top of search engines.

For example, if I was managing SEO for Rei.com and wanted to rank for outdoor apparel, I would get as many links as possible from high-authority related sites, with the keyword-rich anchor text of outdoor apparel—and boom, you would get rankings on the received first page.

Back then, anchor text links using keyword-rich exact-match anchors got you first-page rankings. Now it triggers a penalty from Google and just doesn’t work anymore.

Types of anchor text

There are many different types of anchor text. Here’s a breakdown of the different types of internal and external links.

Anchor text best practices

There are a few anchor text best practices to keep in mind.

First, make sure your anchor text is relevant to the page you’re linking to. Irrelevant anchor text can confuse users and search engines alike. Second, vary the use of your anchor text.

Using the same anchor text repeatedly can be spammy for both users and search engines.

We often have no control over who links to your site and what anchor text they use to link to your content.

If possible, keep the anchor text to a few words and don’t include a long sentence that doesn’t look natural. The anchor text should describe the page you are linking to and help entice end users to click the link.

Finally, you should keep your anchor text natural. Don’t put keywords in your anchor text to trick the system; this only leads to a potential penalty from Google.

Google’s John Mueller recommended this for internal link anchor text:

“Regarding internal links, give us a context signal. So you’re basically saying, this part of my site is where you’ll find information on the subject.

And that’s what you would use as the anchor text for those internal links.

So this is something where on the one hand you usually want to give the users that context as well.

The type of internal links you would use for users is usually the same as you would use for SEO.

Luckily there is a nice overlap.”

Some great videos can be seen in this article by Roger Montti.

Google’s advice for anchor text

Not sure what counts as “natural” anchor text? Fortunately, Google has provided some guidelines.

According to Google, your anchor text should be meaningful and concise.

It should provide context to the user and help them understand where they are going when they click the link.

In short, your anchor text should give users a good idea of ​​what to expect on the linked page.

What not to do with anchor text

Now that we’ve discussed some best practices for anchor text, let’s look at what Not to do with.

First, don’t overuse keyword-rich exact match anchors. This looks spammy and unnatural and will trigger a penalty from Google.

Second, don’t use generic anchors like “click here,” “read more,” etc. These don’t provide context or information about where the user is when they click the link.

Finally, don’t use excessive crosslinking; Too many links to and from the same pages look suspicious to both users and search engines.

According to Google SEO Starter Guide:

Format links so that they are easy to see. Make it easy for users to distinguish between regular text and the anchor text of your links. Your content becomes less useful if users miss the links or accidentally click on them.

It’s good advice. I can remember reading several articles on the internet, hovering over the content and being redirected to another website.

Most of the time I didn’t know the text was a hyperlink because it looked like regular text.

Avoid:

Using CSS or text styles that make links look like regular text.

Another point to keep in mind is to be careful who you link to. You can transfer part of your website’s reputation to another website if your website links to it.

If you don’t want to pass any value to the page you link to, always make sure you use the nofollow attribute.

Conclusion

Anchor text is an important part of any successful SEO strategy.

When used correctly, it can help improve your website’s ranking and visibility. However, it is important not to over-optimize your anchor text as this can result in penalties from Google.

Use keyword-rich anchors sparingly and make sure the rest of your anchor text is natural and informative.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you create anchors for your website to link internally and externally.

More resources:

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