The anchor text of your links plays a fundamental role in the effectiveness of your link building strategy. This element can significantly influence the performance of your website in search results.
The use of anchor text in a link building campaign is a crucial factor that will determine its success. If you are too aggressive, you risk having Google disavow and ignore the links you build.
Properly optimizing anchor text not only helps improve the relevance and quality of links, but also ensures that your website stays within good SEO practices.
In this article, we’ll explore 12 ways to optimize your link anchor text to maximize its impact and avoid penalties.
1. Don’t over-optimize
If you’ve ever looked into bad links or Black Tail SEO, you already know that there’s such a thing as over-optimization (or even unethical optimization). From buying links to publishing duplicate content, there are a variety of questionable techniques that can get sites into trouble. And, as a key component of any SEO strategy, it’s clear that anchor text can be subject to over-optimization as well.
But what exactly is over-optimized anchor text? It usually has some obvious characteristics, including:
- Too many keywords.
- Too many internal links in one place.
- Text that is not relevant to the link it is attached to.
- A large number of links that share the same anchor text.
Fortunately, all of these problems are relatively easy to avoid. To do so, simply:
Avoid adding more than one or two natural-sounding keywords to any piece of anchor text.
Don’t put hundreds of links on a page that doesn’t need them.
Make sure all anchor text is relevant to the page you are linking to.
Don’t reuse the same anchor text over and over again.
2. Don’t use target keywords for external links
The link to which an anchor text is attached can lead to an internal or external page. And if it leads to an external page, the words contained in the anchor text will affect how search engines view it.
Therefore, it is important for SEO specialists to remember that while external links can benefit their own site’s rankings, they should also avoid using their own target keywords (at least when linking to competing sites).
For example, let’s say you’re optimizing a site for a digital marketing agency. As such, you want it to rank higher for the term “digital marketing.” But on one of the pages on the site, you create an external link that leads to another agency’s website and has anchor text containing the phrase “digital marketing.”
In that case, you’d be telling Google that the other agency’s website should rank for “digital marketing.” For obvious reasons, that’s something you don’t want to do.
This doesn’t just apply to a site’s primary keywords, but also to secondary keywords. In the case of a digital marketing agency, that might include phrases like “growth marketing” and “content marketing agency.”
3. Prepare the reader’s expectations
As with many elements of SEO, it’s important to remember that anchor text doesn’t just exist to serve search engines, it also helps readers by giving them a clear idea of what they’re clicking on.
You can ensure this by writing anchor texts that set the reader’s expectations about what the linked page will contain.
For example:
Home > Digital Marketing > Statistics on India’s digital situation in 2024
The dynamism of the digital landscape in India during the years 2023 and 2024 has been remarkable, marked by continued growth in the adoption of digital technologies and the use of the Internet and social media across the nation. The Digital 2024: Global Overview Report by We Are Social and Hootsuite provides a comprehensive view of this progress, with data updated through January 2024. Throughout this period, Indiahas experienced significant changes in terms of connectivity, digital consumption habits, and platform preferences, reflecting the rapid evolution of the digital landscape in the region. In this article, we will explore in detail the key statistics that outline the state of digital in India during these years, from Internet penetration and mobile adoption to social media usage and digital advertising investment.
If you were expecting the anchor text “Digital 2024: Global Overview Report” to take you right to the report, you were right. That’s what the anchor text implies, so that’s what you’re anticipating.
If the text had arrived at, for example, We Are Social’s Instagram, you would probably feel confused when opening the link and not stay long. And if the anchor text linked to a completely irrelevant page, you might even feel cheated.
With that scenario in mind, it’s easy to see the importance of clear and precise anchor text that lets readers know what they’re about to click on.
4. Adjust the length on a case-by-case basis
While it’s easy to speculate whether anchor text should contain a certain number of characters or words, in Google’s guidelines for link text, they say the following about anchor text length:
“Keep link text short whenever possible. Don’t write long link texts like a sentence or a short paragraph.”
So when you’re trying to determine the length of a particular anchor text, it’s best to let contextual factors decide. For example, does the anchor text give readers a clearer idea of what it links to if it’s three words long instead of two? If so, then three words is the appropriate length for the situation.
5. Use the correct code
If you’re one of our readers with HTML knowledge, feel free to skip to the next tip. But if your coding skills need a refresher, then you might find it helpful to brush up on proper code for hyperlinks.
The <a> tag defines HTML links. The full code for a clickable link looks like this, with the part reserved for anchor text highlighted in red:
The HTML code for a hyperlink, with the portion used for anchor text highlighted in red.
You could use just that basic code for all your links, but if you want them to open in a new browser window or tab, you’ll need to use the “target” attribute. It can have one of four values, with the first being the most relevant for our purposes:
_blank: Opens the link in a new tab or window.
_self: Opens the link in the same tab or window.
_top: Opens the link in the full body of the window.
_parent: Opens the link in the parent frame.
While the value you choose is up to you, it is recommended to use _blank in almost all instances. This allows readers to open new links without losing their place on the original page, which also helps keep visitors on your site for longer periods of time.
6. Prioritize precision
Anchor text accuracy is critical to optimizing your content’s performance in search engines. Google, in its patent for its search algorithm, emphasizes the importance of this accuracy. According to its “Summary of Invention,” Google notes that in some cases, the text on a page that links to another page can provide a more accurate description of the linked page than the content on the target page itself.
This means that when page A links to page B, Google can use the anchor text and surrounding content on page A to determine the relevance and content of page B. In situations where the linking page contains little or no textual information (such as image, video, or program files), the text on the linking page may be the only source of context available to search engines.
Therefore, ensuring that your anchor text is as accurate and descriptive as possible is crucial. This text not only helps Google understand the content of the linked page, but it also influences its ranking in search results.
7. Learn the truth about exact match anchors
Exact match anchor text is anchor text that exactly matches the primary keyword on the target page. For example, imagine you have a page titled “best running shoes.” If you use the anchor text “best running shoes” in a link to that page, you would be using an exact match anchor.
The use of exact anchor texts has been the subject of much debate, especially after Google launched the Penguin update in 2012 to combat manipulative link practices. After this update, many sites that abused exact anchor text links experienced drops in their rankings.
As a result, some SEO experts began advising to drastically reduce the use of exact anchor texts or even avoid them altogether.
To create a good strategy, it is helpful to understand the real impact of exact anchor texts on rankings. A study by Ahrefs shows that the effect is limited: in an analysis of over 19,000 SERPs, they found that “the correlation between exact anchor text and better rankings is minimal to non-existent.”
8. Consider the variants
While it is ideal to keep anchor text as precise as possible, in many cases it is better to use some variation of the text rather than an exact match.
For example, instead of using an exact match anchor text like “best digital cameras,” you could opt for a variant like “recommended digital cameras.” While it’s not an exact match, it still communicates the purpose of the page it links to and has less risk of being considered over-optimization.
9. Use generic text when necessary
While it’s important to keep your anchor text as relevant and descriptive as possible, sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to use generic anchor text. In fact, in some cases, it may be preferable.
Generic anchor text includes phrases like:
Click here
Read more
Visit our site
While these texts are not as descriptive as others, they do have their place in SEO. For example, if you are linking to a page to provide additional information, and the linked page is not crucial to your site’s ranking, a generic anchor text may be a suitable choice.
10. Make sure the anchor text is relevant to the content
This tip may seem obvious, but it’s so important that it deserves a mention. Anchor text should be relevant to both the content of the page it appears on and the page it links to.
If you use anchor text that is not related to the content of the source or destination page, you will confuse both search engines and users, which can hurt your SERP rankings and harm user experience.
For example, if you are writing an article about “how to grow tomatoes at home,” you should not link to a page about “fashion trends” using the anchor text “gardening tips.” There is no clear relationship between the anchor text, the content of the article, and the topic of the landing page.
11. Don’t ignore internal links
While many SEO specialists are obsessed with gaining external links, it is crucial not to ignore the importance of internal links. Internal links not only help search engines understand the structure and content of your site, but they also improve user experience by making navigation easier.
When using anchor text in internal links, be sure to follow the same guidelines you would apply to external links. This includes avoiding over-optimization, ensuring the anchor text is relevant to the linked page, and keeping the text clear and concise.
Also, try to use a variety of anchor texts for different internal links pointing to the same page. This helps prevent search engines from thinking you’re trying to manipulate rankings.
12. Take the context into account
Context is key when it comes to anchor text. Make sure the text surrounding the link is also relevant to the page you’re linking to. Context can help search engines better understand what the linked page is about and how it relates to the content the link is located on.
For example, if you’re writing an article about “the benefits of drinking coffee,” and you link to a page that offers workout tips, make sure the text surrounding the link reinforces the relevance of the target page. Not only does this help search engines, but it also provides users with a more consistent and useful reading experience.
With these tips, you can ensure that your anchor text is effectively optimized for both search engines and users. Remember that the ultimate goal is to improve user experience and provide relevant, quality content, which will ultimately help you improve your ranking in the SERPs.
