Out of all the factors that search engines look into when evaluating your website, link building plays quite a significant role. That’s because having a strong linking network is crucial for boosting the ranking of your website on the search engine result pages. It’s common for marketers to focus on researching high-ranking keywords to come up with a solid linking strategy, but we’ve long passed the days of stuffing keywords on a website and calling it effective SEO. The newest search engine algorithms dictate that the phrasing of the links, otherwise known as anchor text, is just as important as using high-ranking keywords.
Wait, aren’t we supposed to use the keywords we’ve researched when linking to and from our websites? Turns out that’s not always the case. In fact, using different approaches to text anchors is key in creating a solid link building strategy. Let’s take a step back and explain what anchor text actually is.
What is Anchor Text, and Why is it Important?
Anchor text is the hyperlinked text you can press on to be referred to another place on the internet. It takes after its literal meaning: a text that anchors two places together. Usually, you’ll be directed to another web page by pressing on the hyperlinked anchor text, but you can also be directed to documents (like PDFs or Google Drive Files) or initiate downloads. That’s a big reason why you should never click on anchor texts on untrustworthy or shady websites. Before clicking on any anchor text, you can hover over it with your mouse to check the legitimacy of the URL (you can find it at the left lower end of your screen).
There are a few reasons why the phrasing you choose for your anchor texts is pretty important. First of all, the anchor text should give your readers an idea about the page you’re referring them to. That’s why it has to be relevant to the context it’s placed in; otherwise, your readers will feel like they’ve been tricked - and that’s never a good feeling. Secondly, search engine algorithms use your anchor choices to get an idea of what your content is about. If you use anchor text that’s irrelevant to the link or vice versa, you risk giving the algorithms the wrong idea about your website. Worse yet, you may get flagged for engaging in spammy activities.
How Anchor Text Affects SEO
The way you use anchor texts greatly impacts your SEO, since the search engines use anchors to build an idea about websites, thus ranking them accordingly. Back in the day, anchor texts were linked to the content on the page the anchor text is present on, as well as the website referred to from the anchor text. Since they were supposed to provide more information about these pages than the rest of the content (thanks to being metadata), the search engine algorithms also relied on them to identify images, programs, databases, apps, and documents that don’t have an indexing copy on the internet.
This strong reliance on anchor texts gave rise to deceptive practices. SEO practitioners figured that if they can use high-ranking keywords and build a linking profile using them, even if these keywords were not at all related to their content, they can pretty much rank on the top five results on the search engine result pages (SERPs). At least, that was true until the search engines realized that and completely changed their algorithms. Following the upgrade, SEO practitioners realized the need for creating sound and legit anchor text strategies to improve their websites’ SEO.
Anchor Text Best Practices
That’s enough history for the day, don’t you say? Now, let’s get down to business. If you’re looking for ways to effectively use anchor texts to boost your SEO, here the top 4 best SEO practices to follow.
Get Your Ratios Right
There are two main strategies you should focus on with text anchors: the home page and the rest of the internal pages. Adam White from https://seojet.net/blog/anchor-text-ratio-seo/ elaborates that the backlink profile of the home page should ideally 75% or more of the backlinks anchored to the brand name or URL. As for the rest of the pages, especially blog posts, it’s better to mix between keyword and non-keyword backlinks anchored to them.
Mix Up Your Anchor Text
This brings us to the next point: how to mix up your anchor texts. In addition to your focus keywords, be sure to variate between generic anchor text (like click here), brand plus keyword, WebsiteName.com, partial keyword, long-tail keywords, page title, and other anchor texts. The purpose of this variation is to make your linking profile look as natural as possible to the search engines.
Be Relevant
Search engine algorithms have come a long way in the way they evaluate anchor texts. Using a high-ranking keyword out of context will not only fail to rank your website on the SERPs, but it may also get you flagged. Instead, your anchor texts should, first and foremost, be relevant to the content you’re publishing. Moreover, they should be relevant to the link they refer the reader to as well.
Be Concise
As of now, there aren’t any rules dictating a certain limit to the words or letters you use in your anchor texts. However, it’s a good idea to keep your anchor texts as concise as possible. When thinking of anchor text phrases, there are two main things to consider. First, think of the best phrasing that would encourage the readers to click on the link. Second, try to come up with the most accurate and concise way you can describe the link you’re anchoring your text to.
Coming up with the right anchor text strategy is a cornerstone of building an effective linking profile. Although you can still use your focus keywords as anchor texts, using nothing but keywords is going to be counterproductive. Instead, be sure to use the right ratios on your pages, mix up the anchor texts, make them relevant, and be as concise as you possibly can.