What is Anchor Text and Do I Need to Use It?
What is Anchor Text and Do I Need to Use It? – What exactly is Anchor Text?
Here is an example of anchor text within a sentence: Can you spot that this is the anchor text in this example.
Yet, as users, we are able to see no more than the clickable area of the anchor text: “this is the anchor text”.
Need for anchor text for Search Engine Optimisation
Among the main relevancy variables for Search Engine Optimisation purposes is anchor text.
Inside the web site page, components such as the meta name, the heading tags, the anchor text as well as the nearby text are components which are perceived as relevancy signals.
The anchor text should include key words which are associated with your targeted search terms.
To put it differently, your text needs to be keyword-loaded if you want to improve your odds of enhancing your keyword positions.
Example of Using Anchor Text
For example, let us say that there is a car garage in Blackpool and among the main services they offer is ”Free MOT Check”.
It would be prudent on the Home or Index page to put a link to a page that has the title “Free MOT Check” so as when you click on the link for Free MOT Check, it takes you to a new page which gives you more details about this service.
If instead you said something like: To get a free MOT check click here.
The link will take you to the same page okay, but what information is it telling the search engines or what link juice is it giving? NONE!
Whereas the first example has the keywords you want to rank for actually in the anchor text.
So, when your internal link building strategy is being worked on, attempt to prevent two things:
- Don’t use zero anchor texts, like ‘Click Here’…
- Don’t use the exact same anchor text a lot of times, as search engines like Google will perceive it as a sign of victimisation because of this crucial phrase.
Google supports diversified anchor texts that will describe the exact same thing.
In case you merely make use only of the anchor text “Free MOT Check” in your website, then search engines like Google can perceive it as a sign of exploitation.
You must make use of varied anchor text, as mentioned earlier, using similar anchor text like “This Month Only Get An MOT Check Free”.
Just mix it up a bit or use similes, etc.
Using different but relevant anchor text links to other pages or posts on your website is much better than using the same exact phrase anchor texts for the same page over and over again.
However, be careful about using the same anchor text link for different pages. This could result in confusing the search engines unless you are very careful.
So, using lots of different, but relevant anchor text links going to one particular page is good, but using the exact same anchor text links for different pages is a bad thing to do for SEO.
Using anchor text for external back-links back to your website is a different kettle of fish entirely and I have a post about best practices for that as well.
Hopefully you found the article helpful on What is Anchor Text and Do I need to Use It.
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