Reading time: 13 mins 27 sec

In this article, we are discussing how to properly optimize anchor text which will benefit your website in SERP.

Have you ever heard about Income Anchor Text, if not then there is no need to panic because today we will talk about it?

But before that let us know a little bit about Search Engine Optimization.

Search engine optimization or SEO simply means that you optimize your website properly for search engines and get your website ranked easily in any search engine.

If seen, SEO is mainly divided into three types, On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.

Here On-page & Off-page SEO can be divided into many processes.

Search engine optimization and On-page SEO also have a part called anchor text.

In which people give little importance to them while doing SEO in their articles.

But let me make you clear here that anchor text is as important as other types of search engine optimization in increasing the rank of any website.

That’s why I have brought this article for you so that you can understand its importance and use it properly in your article.

So let us know completely about what is Anchor Text and why it is so important.

Let’s Go 

What Is Anchor Text?

As I told you earlier, it is very important for search engine optimization.

Many such people have read about it and have seen it but they do not pay much attention to it.

But if seen in the right way, then the anchor text has its importance which is very important to know and use properly.

When we read any post on any website, then when we get some links in the post they are a little different from our regular text.

When we click on that text, we are redirected to another page or website, that is what we call anchor text in simple language.

You must have seen that on your laptop, you are reading a post on a website, your head turns into a hand icon by going to any text of that thought, then it is an anchor text and you can click on it.

You must have seen many times in our posts on our website that whenever we write an article, we often end up linking it to someone else.

Also called an internal or inbound link, using a link to a page on your website as a frequent anchor text is also called internal linking.

When this link is a link to a page of another website, then we call it an external or outbound link.

What is anchor text in SEO?

The text that can be clicked to open a hyperlink on a website is referred to as “anchor text” in SEO. 

It is the text that is underlined and highlighted in blue; clicking on it directs you to another website or to a different part of the same website.

Because it gives context and relevance to the linked website and aids search engines in understanding its content and context, anchor text is crucial for SEO.

Additionally, anchor text is taken into account when judging a website’s authority and reliability. 

Search engines recognize your website as a reliable source of information when other websites connect to it using proper anchor text, which can raise your website’s search engine rankings. 

However, using spammy or irrelevant anchor text to link to your website might hurt its search engine rankings and result in penalties from search engines.

In order to boost your website’s search engine ranks and increase traffic, it is crucial to properly optimize your anchor text. 

An effective anchor text will avoid over-optimization and be descriptive, proper, and diversified. 

Additionally, it needs to be constantly checked to make sure your backlink profile is sound and error-free.

Why is anchor text important?

Search engines have to rank the website for a keyword to gather information about the content of the page and what the page is related to.

This is the biggest factor to rank the website and hence link-building plays a huge role here.

Anchors provide references to inbound links to text search engines for it to rank.

This has a direct effect on the organic traffic of the website, thereby increasing the traffic coming to the search engines.

If you use it with your text, then you will improve the rank of the website. 

Many times you also put a penalty on the website in search engines for not doing link building properly.

To avoid that penalty, anchor text should be used correctly and in the right way.

Importance of anchor text in SEO

Because it significantly increases a website’s visibility and search engine ranks, anchor text is a crucial component of SEO. 

An example of why anchor text is significant for SEO is given below:

1. Increases the Linked Page’s Relevance and Context.

2. Increases a Website’s Authority and Credibility

3. Increases the amount of traffic to your website

4. Improving the User Experience

5. Helps in Creating a Strong Backlink Profile

Why Properly Optimize Anchor Text is Important for SEO

For various reasons, proper anchor text optimization is essential for SEO:

• Helps in the context and content of the linked website being understood by search engines.
• Enhances the linked page’s authority and relevancy.
• Can aid in raising the connected page’s search engine ranks.
• Increase the volume of traffic to your website.

On the other hand, the poorly optimized anchor text might hurt your SEO efforts and result in search engine penalties. 

Understanding how to effectively optimized anchor text for your website is crucial for this reason.

How to Properly Optimize Anchor Text for SEO

It’s important to strike a balance between diversity and relevancy when optimizing anchor text. 

The following advice will assist you in correctly optimizing anchor text for SEO:

1. Use Descriptive Anchor Text

Employ Descriptive Anchor Text Descriptive anchor text gives context for the linked page’s content to users and search engines. It informs users of what to anticipate on the linked page and aids search engines in determining the link’s relevance.

Use informative anchor text instead of general phrases like “click here,” such as “learn more about organic skincare products.”

2. Use Relevant Anchor Text

Search engines can better understand the context and content of a linked website when the anchor text is relevant. Additionally, it increases the linked page’s authority and relevancy.

Use appropriate anchor language when connecting to a product page on your website that sells organic skincare items, such as “organic skincare products” or “buy organic skincare products.”

3. Use Diverse Anchor Text

Diverse anchor text enhances the naturalness of your backlink profile and prevents over-optimization. Additionally, it aids search engines in comprehending the volume and quality of the content on your website.

For instance, employ a variety of descriptive and pertinent anchor text rather than having the same wording for each link.

4. Avoid Exact Match Anchor Text

When the anchor text precisely matches the target keyword or phrase, it is referred to as the exact match anchor text. It can be an indication of over-optimization and result in search engine penalties.

For each link, for instance, use a variation of “organic skincare products” rather than the exact match “organic skincare products,” such as “organic skincare products for sensitive skin” or “natural organic skincare products.”

5. Use Branded Anchor Text

Your website’s authority and dependability can be increased by using branded anchor text. Branded anchor text contains your company name or website address.

If you’re linking to the home page of your website, for instance, use branded anchor text like “Visit OrganicSkincare.com” rather than generic anchor text like “click here.”

6. Avoid Over-Optimization

Your SEO efforts may suffer from over-optimization, which can also result in penalties from search engines. Use a mix of descriptive and proper anchor text instead of too many exact matches or advertising anchors.

7. Monitor Your Backlink Profile

You can find any problems with your anchor text optimization and make the appropriate corrections by keeping an eye on your backlink profile. Utilise tools like Ahrefs or Google Search Console to continuously analyze your backlink profile.

Types Of Anchor Text

If seen, there are many types of anchor text, but here I am going to tell you about such types which will prove beneficial for you.

1. Generic Anchor Text

For this category, the generic word for anchor text is used.

A generic word means any ordinary or common word.

Genetic anchor text has no profits for your website in most cases.

Generic anchor text in most cases does not make any profit for your website.

Generic anchor text link does not provide any context about the page it does not benefit their ranking.

Generic anchor text uses the words click here, read more, go to this site, etc. 

If you want to increase the rank of your website then generic anchor text is of no help to you.

2. Branded Anchor Text

If the name of any text is a brand, then it comes under the category of branded anchor text.

In Branded Anchor Text, the brand is used directly like when we will post a link on our website and the title of that link is Amazon.

So it becomes a branded anchor text, and the ranking of this website does not increase much.

If you are doing link-building on your website then this anchor text is going to be of little use to you.

3. Naked Anchor Text

This also comes in the very simple category of anchors, whenever writes the name of a website or other page is in the link directly, it is called a naked anchor text.

We have given a link to Amazon in the post of our website but we have changed its title to amazon.com and are using it in the post of our website, then amazon.com will anchor a link.

4. Image Anchor Text

You must have seen many times that you have clicked on any image, then your browser redirects you to any other website.

Many blogs put an image anchor in their box to refer to the image.

To refer to the image, put an image anchor in your box, whenever you click on that image, you will reach the website from where that image has been taken.

Whenever we do any imaging or link on the website, then the search engine easily locates their content from the alt attribute of the image.

From the search engines, the keywords cannot be found on which keyword to rank the website.

So the search engine can easily gather information about the image with the same alt attribute as the image.

If the image’s ALT attribute is left blank, it doesn’t even help rank in search engines as the image.

5. Partial Match Anchor Text

Some part of anchor text is used Whenever an anchor text is used, our keyword is used in it.

For example, if our keyword is “search engine optimization”, then we can check it in part and make it something like this “Information about search engine optimization“.

Partial use of target keywords in text is called partial mapping match anchor text.

It is considered very important in link building and is very good in increasing the rank of the website.

6. Exact Match Anchor Text

This is the most used anchor text that should prove to be very important in improving the ranking of the website and is considered to be the most useful for increasing the ranking.

If your target keyword is “Search Engine Optimization” and you also use “Search Engine Optimization” in Anchor Text, then it is called exact match anchor text.

The exact match becomes anchor text when the target keyword is used exactly like this.

Sometimes Google penalize the website by checking the exact anchor text, they also have many reasons.

What is anchor text example?

Here’s an example of what the anchor text looks like:

Before the Penguin update, whenever you used anchor text on your keywords on your website, it was used to help your website get a good ranking in a search engine.

Best Practices For Anchor Text

There are some best practices that we need to remember when it comes to anchor text.

First, ensure sure the page you are linking to is appropriate for your anchor text.

Irregular anchor text can normally confuse search engines.

Second, changing your use of anchor text over and over again can be spam to the user and search engine.

We often have no control over who links to your website and which anchor you use as links in your content.

Keep the anchor text as short as feasible; avoid using big sentences that don’t sound genuine.

Anchor text is very important to describe the page you are linking to and help the end user to click the link.

Lastly, keep your anchor text natural don’t run the system and put keywords in your anchor text it will only result in a potential penalty from Google.

Google’s John Miller said in his comments to the uncut text :

Anchor text vs hyperlink

– An anchor text is a clickable portion of a link that takes a user to another page on the site or a page on an external resource.

– Anchors are used for link building and visual design of links in the content.

– Webmasters often do not understand the difference between the anchor and anchor text and want to know the same. 

– Links to a specific part of an article are called anchors.

– When users click on the link, they are brought to a specific section of the article.

– Anchor is very important for search engine optimization because high-quality anchor text increases the effectiveness of link building.

– Anchor greatly helps the search engines to understand the content from the page better.

– With the help of a secure anchors list, it is advisable to examine them and advance your link strategy.

– The best strategy for working with anchors is to use as many options as you can

– Commercial projects should focus on branding whereas informational projects should better opt for naked links and backlinks in the form of images

What Not To Do With Anchor Text

Now that we have looked at some of the best practices for anchor text, let’s see what we shouldn’t do with it.

First of all, never overuse exact match keyword anchors, it seems unwelcome and unnatural to you and can be fined by Google.

The second is never to use generic anchors like click here and read more etc. They do not provide any context or information about what the click link uses to go where.

These do not provide any context or information about whether a click on the link is used.

Lastly, don’t use excessive crosslinking, too many links to and from common queries to both users and search engines alike look suspicious.

According to Google Search Engine Optimization Guide:

This is good advice I remember reading many articles on them hovering over content with a mouse and taking them to another website.

Most of the time I don’t know if the text was hyperlinked because it looks like regular text.

Avoid:

If you don’t want to give any great to the page you’re linking to, always make sure you use the no follow attribute.

Anchor text code

The HTML code for anchor text links on a webpage is called anchor text code. The link and the text are the two major components of the anchor text code.

The HTML “a” tag, which stands for anchor, specifies the link. The href attribute and the target attribute are conditions for the “a” tag.

The URL of the website to which the link should point is specified by the href property. 

This is how it is written: 

<a href=”http://www.example.com”>Link Text</a>

“Link Text” is the text that will be displayed as the clickable link in this example, and “http://www.example.com” is the URL of the website to which the link should point.

The destination attribute describes how to open the referenced website. 

The link can be changed to “_blank” to open in a new window or “_self” to open in the current window.

As an illustration, consider the following anchor text code with the target property added:

<a href=”http://www.example.com” target=”_blank”>Link Text</a>

There are more properties that can be provided to the anchor text code in addition to the href and target ones to give search engines and users more details and context. 

The title attribute, rel attribute, and class attribute are some examples of these.

When a user hovers over a link, a tooltip is displayed using the title attribute. 

This is how it is written:

<a href=”http://www.example.com” title=”Link Title”>Link Text</a>

The relationship between the linked page and the current page is specified using the rel property. 

It can have values like “nofollow”, “dofollow”, “sponsored”, and “ugc” and is frequently used for link building.

In order to apply CSS styling to the link, utilize the class attribute.

It can be used to modify the link’s typeface, color, and other visual components.

Overall, anchor text code must be correctly optimized for both SEO and user experience since it is a crucial component of building clickable links on a website.

Pros and Cons of Anchor Text Optimization Tools

There are several tools for correctly optimizing your anchor text at your disposal. 

Using these tools has the following benefits and drawbacks:

Pros

• Can be used to find chances for optimizing anchor text.
• Can support monitoring and backlink profile analysis.
• Can speed up the anchor text optimization procedure and save time.

Cons

• Certain tools might be quite pricey.
• Over-optimization may result from over-dependency on certain techniques.
• Tools might not always produce reliable outcomes.

Google news	Subscribe to SEOwithSunny’s Google News feed
Telegram	Join Our telegram channel

Conclusion

Today in this entire article we have explained how we can properly optimize anchor text.

Anchor text is an important part of any search engine optimization strategy.

When used in the right way it can help improve both the ranking and visibility of our website.

However, it is very important to avoid over-optimizing your anchor text as this can result in a penalty from Google.

Sticking to using anchors on the right keywords sparingly and making sure the rest of your text sounds natural and informative.

Whenever you create an anchor for internal and external linking for your website next time, keep all these things in mind.

If you liked this article then do share it with your friends and comment below.

Read Also

• Top 65 Technical SEO Interview Questions And Answers
• Does Bold Text Help SEO
• How To Create The Perfect H1 Tag For SEO
• Google Announces Five Changes Coming To Mobile Search
• Benefits Of Using Semrush

FAQ