What is Anchor text? How to Optimize anchor text for SEO?

If you are an internet marketer then you must surely know the value of an “anchor text” in the search engine optimization. Although we use this term more than often but most of us really wonder what this phrase really means.

Actually, most of the marketers are yet to discover what the real meaning of Google’s Hummingbird and Penguin update is and that is why they are pretty unsure about the significance of Anchor Text in Search Engine Optimization.

First thing first, anchor texts are one of the most significant parts of the SEO link building strategies and this really puts a huge impact on the ranking of the search engine.

If you are using the anchor text on a daily basis and correctly, then you will really witness that your ranks are improving day by day. However, if you are using it without implementing the right strategy, then you might see that your organic search traffic might disappear overnight or sometimes even get penalized. In this article, we will give you a detailed account of what an anchor text is and use them for a better performance of your website.

What Is An Anchor Text? What Is Its Significance?

Sometimes in the website or pages, we come across some type of texts that are lined with some other documents or location on the web. These types of texts are referred to as anchor texts.

So, in a nutshell, it can be said that anchor texts are those texts which are clickable in a hyperlink. For example, if you are writing a sentence which has the word Wikipedia, then the word is the overview of the anchor text.

This can easily be created with the help of simple HTML code. So, until the time the backlinks play an important factor in the SEO rankings, the anchor texts are also going to play an important role. It is added for the betterment of the search engine so as to determine what is the page is about which you have linked to.

Before the 2012 Penguin Update of Google, the anchor text was used by Google to see if the particular websites were relevant or not. In today’s era, most of the sites use the anchor text which serves as a great way for the search engine to find the websites for over-optimization and spam.

Different Types Of Anchor Texts

Improving the. Here we have mentioned all the types of organic anchor text that are mentioned below. anchor text means that you got to have a clear understanding of the different types of anchor. This is going to help you create a link profile that consists of a different range of organic anchors

• Generic Anchors: Now if you go by the name then it will make sense that generic anchors are generally normal anchor texts like “click here” or “go here”. For example, in the sentence “Click here to visit the page to get free eBook”, then click here is the generic anchor.
• Branded Anchor: A branded anchor is that type of text that uses the brand name as text. These kinds of anchor texts are safest to use until and unless the website is the exact match domain. There are many well-known sites and brands that are like the Best Buy and Moz that has the highest number of branded anchor texts. You will find some images in Google with the help of which you see the detailed data regarding the branded anchors.
• Naked Link Anchors: These are the kind of anchors that are linked back to the site by using the URL simply. There are many examples of links which are both naked link anchors.
• Brand+Keyword Anchor: Using the brand and keyword anchor is one of the safest and effective methods that help in building a strong anchor profile. This is generally the combination of the name of your brand and the keyword of your choice. This is basically a combination of the name of your brand and the keyword you choose. For example. “SEO services by Moz” is an example of the brand as well as keyword anchor.
• Image Anchors: In order to diversify the anchor profile furthermore, one of the basic things that you can do is considering the image anchors. In an image, the “alt” texts are read as anchor text by Google. However, if you leave this blank then this will result in a “noText” anchor.
• LSI Anchors: The full form of LSI is Latent Semantic Indexing. It generally refers to the variation of the main keyword or can be said as the synonym of the keyword as well. For example, if you are looking for a “Flower Shop”, LSI keywords should have words like “Flower Shop Online”, “Florist Shop”, “Florist Online” and the list goes on. You can check all the related searches at the end of SERP in each of the queries.
• Partial Match Anchor Text: The partial match anchor text means the partial presence of the keywords in the anchor text which is said to be a partial match. The examples of partial match anchors can be said as “useful link building guide”. “learn more about link building” etc.
• Long Tail Anchors: These type of anchor texts are similar to the partial text anchors. The only fact different from each other is that they are a little bit longer. Some of the best examples of Long Tail Anchors can be said as “anchor text is a crucial part of link building” and “those rankings are the result of the anchor text”.
• Exact Match: The exact match anchors are one of the most significant types of anchor text. Alongside playing an important role in improving the rankings in search engine, they can also become the reason through which Google can penalize you. Now if you go by the name then this name suggests that these matches are the exact match of the target keyword. For example, if you are having a target keyword of “link building” then your text anchor will also be exactly “link building”.

Tips To Optimise Anchor Text

Just like it is mentioned earlier, if you want to optimize anchor texts in your website, it can be a tricky move for you. There are many internet marketers out there that make the mistake of over-optimizing the anchor text and thus lead themselves to huge penalties sometimes. Here we will tell you some of the useful tips that will help you optimize the anchor text and even stay away from getting penalized by Google.

1) Keep Them Relevant

One of the most important things that you need to remember if you want to use the anchor text to your advantage is to keep them completely relevant to the content that you have, The target keyword needs to be completely relevant and the more it is, the better it will be for the content.

Keep that in mind if you want to have the best results for sure.

2) Take Care Of The Distribution

Another important tip for you is that you need to make sure that the anchor text is distributed properly in the article that you have. Improper distribution of the anchor text would make the entire piece of content seem all dull and cluttered. That is something that the search engines pick up on quickly.

So, if you want the search engine rankings for your website to improve, then you definitely need to take care of the distribution of the anchor text to see if it is evenly distributed across the entire content piece.

3) Don’t Link Them To Toxic Sites

The authority links that are occasionally linked into the anchor texts are the ones that help you in reaching a high position in the Search engine results. However, these sites can make or break the ranking that you have on the results as well.

How you might ask? Well, if you link the anchor texts of the articles to the toxic sites then this is something that the Google search engine will definitely pick up on. That can cause the ranking of your website to drop down drastically. Surely you don’t want that to happen to your website, right? So, you definitely need to take care of that.

4) Guest Posts Should Be Relevant

You might just be a little surprised to know that the guest posts that you have on the website are really important, contrary to what you might think. These guest posts help in building the perfect rank profile.

So, you need to write the guest posts that are actually relevant to the anchor texts that you have. This is one of the best ways to improve the rankings of the website of yours.

5) Track The Anchor Texts

Another one of the most important things while building the backlinks is to pay attention to the tracking of the anchor texts. Otherwise, you might just end up taking a particular step without weighing out the consequences. Avoid this mistake at any cost.

In Conclusion…

So, that is all that we have for you today, people.

With the help of the anchor text, you can easily influence the ranking of your websites. So, try it out right now.

You need to implement the right strategies of Anchor Text, as this will enable you to appreciate the well-optimized presence on the search engines that will increase your Search Engine Ranking as well.

In case of any doubts about the Anchor Text and their role in SEO, feel free to write us in the comments below.