What Is Anchor Text?

Not all backlinks are the same—some are much stronger at getting websites to rank on top of Google search than others. And one of the contributing factors to a backlink’s strength is its anchor text.

This post discusses what anchor texts are how important they are in search engine optimization (SEO). We’ll also enumerate the different anchor text types that could help affect the strength of your links. Finally, you get to learn tips on implementing anchor texts the right way in your link building campaign.

Anchor Texts in a Nutshell

Anchor text refers to the clickable text linking to a website from a page.

In the above example, the link’s anchor text pointing to Linkplicity is “blogger outreach agency.”

Here’s how your backlink with an anchor text looks like in HTML:

<a href="https://linkplicity.io/blogger-outreach-service/">blogger outreach agency</a>

Anchor texts are important in SEO because they help provide visitors and search engines context about the link.

Going back to the example above, the anchor text “blogger outreach agency” links to a Linkplicity page about its blogger outreach service. The anchor text describes what the page is about, thus creating a strong correlation between the anchor text and page.

On the other hand, an anchor text like “click here” is not a good anchor text for the same Linkplicity page. It doesn’t adequately describe what the page is about, preventing visitors from clicking on the link.

However, having different anchor texts pointing to a page on your site makes for a natural-looking link profile. This is important if you don’t want the Google algorithm to penalize your site because you’re manipulating your links’ anchor texts.

Again, anchor texts may seem like a small blip in the grand scheme of your link building strategy. But companies offering backlink packages are very wary of anchor text distribution, allowing them to successful rank websites as a result. So, you need to keep anchor text in mind when building your link acquisition campaign.

Types of Anchor Text

Below are the different anchor text types you can use for your link building campaign.

To make sense of the types, we want to link to https://linkplicity.io/guest-post-service/ with “guest post service” as its main keyword.

  • Exact match anchor text – Uses the page’s target keyword as anchor text, i.e., “guest post service”
  • Phrase match -Contains the page’s target keyword along with other words and phrases, i.e., “high-quality guest post service”
  • Partial match anchor text– Has all of the words of the page’s target keyword but not in exact order, i.e., “best service for guest post”
  • Branded anchor text – Uses the brand name, i.e., “Linkplicity”
  • Naked link anchor – Uses the page’s URL, i.e., https://linkplicity.io/guest-post-service/
  • Generic anchor text– Uses generic words and phrases as anchor text without using the target keyword, i.e., “go to this page”
  • Image links – Uses an image to link to a page. Google crawls and indexes the image by reading its alt text, which you should treat as an anchor text.

3 Ways to Optimize Anchor Texts

Now that you’re aware of the different anchor texts you can use for your links, you need to devise a plan that allows you to determine the appropriate anchor texts for the links you’ll build.

Below are ways to help you make the most out of the links you’ll build by optimizing your anchor text.

Variety Wins

Ideally, a backlink with the exact anchor text as your page’s keyword is the most effective in ranking your site.

But as mentioned, you can’t use the exact same anchor text for all your links. Google will penalize your site due to anchor text over-optimization.

So, it would help if you used a mix of different anchor text types for your backlinks to develop a natural-looking link profile. To do this, you must use a tool like Ahrefs that shows the anchor text distribution of the top-ranking sites in your industry.

The goal here is to see the percentage of anchor text type usage among your competitors. For example, the websites ranking on top of organic search for your same keywords have links using branded anchor text. This means you should also build backlinks using branded anchor text.

The fact that using this anchor text type worked for your competitors in the same industry means it should also work for you!

Be Descriptive as Possible

If you can’t use exact match anchors for your links, you have to use other types, which aren’t as descriptive as exact match anchor text links.

But you can still make anchor text variations as descriptive as possible by adding a few words as part of the text.

You can use Linkio’s Anchor Text Suggestion Tool if you need help with ideas for your links’ anchor texts.

Using this tool allows you to create links that are necessary to the sentence. If site owners remove the link or even the anchor text from the guest post you submitted, it will make the sentence, or the content in general, less valuable.

So, instead of removing it, they are more likely to leave it on and maintain the content’s quality.

Context Matters

Using a generic word or phrase as anchor text wouldn’t produce the strongest backlinks. But they help add variety to your link profile, which is just as crucial if you want to rank on Google without triggering any warning signs from them.

Nonetheless, you can maximize the results of generic anchor texts when linking to your web pages. The key is context.

According to a Google patent in 2004, the surrounding text where the anchor text is found creates context and explanation to the link. This means it considers the anchor text as the ranking factor and the words and phrases alluding to the link in the sentence or paragraph.

So, even if your link text is “go here” or “click here,” the surrounding text should be descriptive enough to provide context about why readers and search engines should go to the page or click on the link. This is good enough for search spiders to understand the linked page and index it to its appropriate search queries.

Final Thoughts

Links and anchor text matter in your SEO strategy. You must develop a link building plan to target the most authoritative sites as link prospects and determine the best anchor text for each.

Anchor text is one of the many factors you should worry about when building links, which is a tall order in and of itself. If you don’t have the time or team to help you carry out a link building campaign that will grow your site’s organic traffic, let Linkplicity do the heavy lifting for you.

Our backlink services ensure that you receive the best backlinks with the appropriate anchor texts for each. By securing these links, we encourage Google to rank your site for your main keywords.

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Linkplicity is a dedicated guest posting agency that prides itself on delivering the most relevant and highest quality guest post on the market.

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