What is Anchor Text — Ultimate SEO Guide for Small Business Owners

Among SEO factors there’s one of the most important, the anchor text used in a link. It is a descriptive text added in a link that can influence how relevant the link is for a different keyword.

Google looks primarily at the domain authority of the website that we are trying to link to. It also looks at the keywords used to make the link.

The “anchor text” is also called the “SEO link text.” It is used to optimize websites to get better positions in search engines, like Google.

What is Anchor Text?

The anchor text is the part of the link that is shown to visitors and that they click to access the page’s content. Often, the text is the title, although it can also be a brief summary or the page name.

A hyperlink is a method of providing quick access to external Internet websites, and when used as a ranking factor, anchors facilitate the understanding of the relevance of the website mentioned within the hyperlink. The function of the anchor text is oriented both to the user and to the search engines to facilitate the understanding of the link of a website.

How can you see the anchor text used for a link?

To check the anchor text for a link we need to examine its HTML code. The link's HTML code follows this format:

You can see in this example how an Anchor text of "modern and responsive websites" is used to direct the link to /web-design of the main domain.

You can see the HTML code of any image you click on in the browser by going to the Inspect element option in the pop-up window in the browser.

Anchor Text for Internal Links

Internal linking is essential for a webmaster to enable smooth navigation and improve the user experience. Links inside pages and inside other links help visitors understand where they are linking and what pages linked to the current page.

If you want Google to rank your site more easily, you should focus on using keywords and different phrases as much and as frequently as possible in your anchor text.

An internal link is important for website visitors because it brings your page to the attention of Google’s bots. For this reason, it is a good idea to link content that is related to the topic. If you use irrelevant language or key words, Google bots may rate your web pages less favorably.

Anchor Test for External Links

The anchor text refers to a fundamental element in creating links for your websites.

When we see the results pages of a search engine that has a high rank because it has a lot of incoming links from other web sites, that indicates that this link source is credible and that it is a good way to generate site traffic to your web site. While it may not be easy for you to overtake that position, you can use your link sources to position yourself in the middle or long-tail searches where these large portals do not compete.

In an effective link building strategy, you want to get valuable links from reputable (highly visible and popular websites) that use natural and appropriate anchor text. This can also include the link text that is displayed after an inbound link.

Types of Anchor Text

We can find that there are distinct variations of anchor text based on the type of word/phrases used. These variations include the use of different types of words that are used along with the links.

• Generic — this is text that is not specific about the link; however, it is well-integrated into the context. For instance, it could be, “on this website”, "click this for info", however, In order to use these keywords, you should have a lot of content in the article.
• Branded — Using Brand in anchor text is when the link name is used as the link text of the link; for instance the brand <a href="www.prestigephysiotherapy.com">Prestige Physiotherapy</a>
• Exact Keyword — Exact anchor text. It is used in internal linking when you want to position a back-link as if that post you want to link to from your post about other topics and not to the actual topic you are discussing in that post. So as an example, if this post is about “Abbotsford Physiotherapist” and you want to rank with that keyword in the search engines but you want to back-link in to another post.
• Bare Link — these are links that matches the actual URL that is being linked to. An example of this kind of anchor text would be "prestigephysio.com"
• Image — an image can link to another page or another website. In cases where images are a link, the anchor text is taken after the ALT attributes set for the image
• Long-tailed — long tail anchor text are links that consist of a long description and correspond to long tail keywords. They are generally more striking and coincide many times with long tail keywords for which you want to position.

How to use anchor text correctly

Important guidelines for using anchor texts should include using these tips:

Anchor text Size

The length of the anchor text should not be very long, as it may be confusing for the text, and also be visually unappealing.

If a long tail keyword is used, this is done for an anchor or a graphic. For instance, if “What is domain authority” is used, the domain’s URL or that page is justifiable.

Do not repeat the same anchor text

To reinforce web positioning, when linking to specific content or links, it is recommended that you use anchor text that is different than what appears in the link itself. For example, if a link reads “Read the Blog”

Use the correct type of anchor text

If you want to do well on the SERP’s, you need to know how the different kinds of anchor text work. The brand should be used on the links pointing to branded pages. It should never be used on links to content, and links between pages in the same website should use the same type of anchor text so that Google knows that the links lead to different parts of your website.

Don't forget the user experience

Anchor text is a vital part of a website. It provides the reader with some understanding of the text, so he can move on.

Although creating a relevant link in a piece of writing will make that content more attractive to users, you must be careful that its anchor text will not hurt Google’s rankings.