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As a business with an online presence, you need to know how to use anchor text to your advantage. Anchor texts are part of the link-building process that will eventually lead to a sales conversion. Knowing what they are and how to use them will help your business grow.
In our article, we have listed 10 types of anchor texts and explained what they are. We also have given you best practices that can help you effectively use anchor text links. Keep reading to learn more.
What Is Anchor Text Optimization?
Anchor text is a portion of clickable text that can lead to another page. On a web page, you can find the anchor texts usually in their blue and underlined format. This is not a rule, but a standard practice. Of course, you can use a different format in your web pages, but make sure that they are easily identifiable by the visitors to your page.
It is the visual portion of a link leading to a different destination from the current page. Therefore, the visible text should be a relevant phrase to where your link is leading. Look at this link leading to our home page. The visual portion is “our home page”, while the link leads to the destination page.
Types of Anchor Text
Anchor texts are crucial for your link-building strategy. They can include both internal and external links. There are various types of anchor texts that can be used for this purpose.
Generic Anchor Text
These types of texts are neither specific to the page nor are they keywords. These use generic words or phrases like;
- Click here
- Download
- More info
- Read more
These generic anchors are useful because of their actionable phrasing. They urge the visitor to take action which can lead to positive conversions.
Exact-Match Anchor Text
Exact-match anchors use keywords that the destination page is targeting. For example, a link leading to this page can use the target keyword “anchor text” to generate an exact-match anchor. However, you must make sure that the keyword-rich anchor text is not overdoing it by stuffing keywords.
Partial-Match Anchor Text
Partial-match anchors can have the keyword with a variation of other texts. They include the keyword with generic or actionable phrases.
Branded Anchor Text
You guessed it right!. Branded anchor texts include the brand name. They help to increase brand recognition and visibility.
Related Anchor Text
When you use phrases that are related to your destination page, they generate related anchor texts. They can help search engines crawlers understand your links better.
Random Anchor Tex
Random and generic anchors can be categorized as the same, but there are differences. Random anchors are not generic as “more info”. They can be specific to the page but not necessarily related to the keywords.
Naked Link Anchors
These are just the naked URLs included on the web page. Search engines prefer these because they are straightforward, and are less likely to be spammy.
Image Anchors
Image anchor text is also known as image alt text. Here, the image acts as the visual component of the link instead of the text. Clicking the image can lead to the destination page just like any anchor text. But the alt text for the image should be keyword rich and exact.
Long-Tail Anchors
These are somewhat similar to partial-match anchors, but with more words. You get to include your keyword phrase with more descriptive texts. Sometimes this can be a complete heading or a sentence.
Brand and Keyword Anchors
These include both your brand and keywords in the link text. These types kill two birds with one stone by building brand recognition and optimizing the keyword.
How to Optimize Your Anchor Text?
So far, we discussed what anchor texts are and the different types of anchors used in websites. But your anchor texts won’t be efficient unless they are optimized. We have 10 best practices if you want to optimize anchor text.
Make Sure the Anchor Text Is Identifiable
You might want the anchor text to blend into the surrounding text to give a better aesthetic to the page. Then it won’t be able to do its job of leading to the destination page. If you don’t like the generic blue underlined text, make a custom format for your site. Make sure that the anchor text is properly marked and clickable by users.
Do NOT Mislead Your Readers
Building and maintaining trust is essential for any business. The same goes for your website. If your anchor texts aren’t delivering what they promise, the users won’t trust your site again. Therefore, make sure your anchors lead where they promise to lead.
Keep the Natural Flow of Your Writing
Though you are trying to do search engine optimization, your target audience is human. You need to make sure that your anchor texts join the flow of natural language smoothly.
Retain the Relevancy of Your Links
The online landscape is ever-changing. You need to maintain the links you build updated and relevant, or else they become bad links.
Always Consider Search Intent
You are creating the content for the users or readers. Therefore, you need to always consider what they are searching for. Their search intent is what you are trying to match with your content.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Search engines will penalize you for over-optimizing your anchor texts and low-quality links. Especially since the Google Penguin update, you need to be careful not to overdo your keyword optimization.
Diversify Your Anchor Text Profile
The diversity of your link profile will keep your webpage from being penalized. Make sure your link-building strategies include creating a diverse link and anchor text profile. Using anchor text variations will increase your chances of ranking well on search engines.
Link Text Should Be Concise
Do not make your anchor texts too long, not even your long-tail anchors. Making a large piece of text into an anchor could get you penalized by both the search engine and user dissatisfaction.
Clean Up URLs When Using Naked Anchors
No one wants to see a long URL with numbers and random characters that don’t make sense. You need to clean it up and leave a short string that makes sense.
Maintain an Inventory of Your Links and Anchors
It is always useful to have an inventory of your assets. Keeping an inventory of your links and anchors will help you monitor them easily. It is also useful for optimizing purposes and when conducting site audits.
Why Is Anchor Text Important?
Anchor texts are important due to many reasons. When a user engages with your content, they might want to gain more information or insight into a specific subject that you may have not discussed in your article or post. Hence, including an anchor text to a page that has the relevant information would add credibility to your content. This will lead to more traffic and help with your search engine rankings.
You need to use anchor texts, but with great care. While anchor texts with high-quality links add value to your site, bad links will get your site penalized. That being the case, you need to identify and select the links very carefully. Furthermore, you need to select the text for your anchor very carefully. Using anchors relevant to the target page will improve your credibility and create trust.
Conclusion
Anchor texts are an essential part of an online business’s link-building strategy. Using relevant, high-quality, keyword-rich anchors will improve your chances of ranking higher on SERPs. While branded anchors can improve your visibility and recognition, anchors with internal linking can generate more traffic. Though they are useful, you need to make sure they are used in a well-balanced manner giving you the best results. At the end of the day, optimizing the anchor texts will give you a competitive edge to thrive in the digital market.