Links are one of the essential parts of SEO link-building strategies and highly impact your search engine ranking. But What is Anchor text and its benefits? What is the role of Anchor text in ranking? How anchor text can improve the ranking and user experience?
To understand the anchor text, you must know what Anchor text is and what common types of anchor text are. In this article, you will understand the common types of anchor text and its importance.
What is Anchor Text in SEO?
An anchor text is a text that links to another location on the web. Text is the only visible part of the link; clicking on a hyperlink will land you another source. Anchor text comprises one or more words, which are keywords that describe the link and what it is all about. The anchor text works as a keyword that informs search engines like Google to know the topic of that link.
How do we create an Anchor Text?
You can use it simply by using HTML code
<a href=”https://www.example.com”>Anchor Text</a>
Anchor text must be succinct and relevant to the target webpage. It is added to tell search engines what the link is all about. Before the Penguin update, Google only used anchor text to understand whether a particular website was relevant. Your site will be penalized if you overoptimize your website with spammy anchor text.
8 Types of Anchor Text
There are many anchor texts, including valuable ones and spammy ones. So, let’s take only the valuable anchor texts suitable for the website and its ranking.
1. Exact match
Exact match anchor text is the most important type of anchor text, which helps your website rank. These anchors are the target keywords and are also called keyword-rich anchor text.
For example, if the target keyword is “SEO Offpage,” then your anchor uses the same as an anchor. The anchor will say, “Here are the best SEO off-page strategies.”
2. Partial Match
The partial presence of the Keyword in the anchor text is said to be a Partial Match. Partial match anchor text has a keyword for a particular page without any localization. It covers the long keywords.
For example, “high Edu backlinks sites” will take you to the page edu backlinks.
3. Brand + Keyword Anchor
Using brands and keywords is another effective way of building anchor text. , the combination of the brand and Keyword of your choice is relevant to the website.
For example, SEO Blog by eBOGTALK will take you to the eblogtalk homepage.
4. Naked link
The naked anchor text is a clickable link pasted from the browser. If the author adds the references at the bottom of the article and includes a link as a source., you can find it
For example www.eblogtalk.com is a naked link for the website homepage. This link could be better than expected, but Search engines like it because it is not spammy to rank for the target keyword.
5. Generic Anchor
The generic anchor text doesn’t have keywords. The users must trust the surrounding words to understand what is behind that generic word. Generic words are unsuitable for SEO, but powerful because they attract direct user attention to the link.
Example: Click here, Read More, More info, Here this page
6. Image Anchor
Google will use this text in the image’s alt attribute as the anchor text.
<a href=”http://example.com”><imgsrc=”http://example.com/sample-image.jpg” alt=”alt as anchor text” /> </a>
7. LSI Anchor Text
It stands for Latent Semantic Indexing which is variation of the main Keyword. For example, If your primary Keyword is SEO services, then your LSI keyword is online SEO services.
8. Long tail Anchor
It is similar to a partial match anchor, except that it is longer than a partial anchor. For example, Backlinks are crucial for link building.
How do we optimize Anchor Text?
Optimizing anchor text can be tricky. Some online marketers make the mistake of over-optimizing their anchor text, which results in unnecessary penalties from Google. Below are some tips for optimizing anchor text.
Relevant anchor text: Links related to the topic of the source page are likely to send a relevant solid signal. Search engines use anchor text as the additional indicators of what the blog is all about.
Succinct anchor text: It is a great idea to keep your anchor text as straightforward as possible. Two main factors should be considered when writing anchor text.
- What is the most accurate way to describe the link to the page?
- What word would encourage the user to click on the link?
Don’t link to toxic sites:
- Ensure your anchor texts don’t link to harmful or spammy sites to win backlinks.
- Don’t waste your time on such sites; focus on healthy, authoritative sites relevant to your niche.
- Go for sites with domain authority above 30 and page authority above 35.
- Look for sites with trust flow above 10, and be sure that the ratio of trust flow to citation flow is around 1:2.
Use a diverse type of Anchor Text wisely
Below is the distribution of anchor text you have to focus on.
- Branded Anchor text: 40%
- Unique/Other anchor text: 25%
- Naked link anchor: 15%
- Brand + keyword anchor: 5%
- Partial match anchor text: 5%
- Generic anchor text: 1-5%
- Long tail anchor text: 2-4%
- Exact Match Anchors: Less Than 1%
Importance of Anchor Text
Using anchor text in your articles and website is essential to improve SEO. Anchor text also helps users find related information and determine what they will read if they click on it.
Always remember the anchor text while making the link building strategy.
Patience is the key to SEO. So, avoid keyword stuffing and always use diverse types of anchor text that link to relevant pages.
Final Thoughts
You know the difference between each type of anchor text and where you can use them. Knowing what anchor text is essential, and you can improve your SEO with anchor text. Build
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More Resources:
> Cannibalization: How to Identify & Fix Keyword Cannibalization to Boost SEO
> What is breadcrumb navigation for SEO?
> Mobile SEO Mistakes
> How do we improve page speed- The Complete Guide
> SEO Myths about website optimization
