What is Anchor Text & How to Optimize your Anchor Text Strategy for SEO?

Before, hitting on directly with What is Anchor Text, types of Anchor Texts or How to Optimize Anchor Text for SEO.

We all are aware that – Interlinkings are an important part in the process of SEO link building strategy.

You might have come across the text present in an article which has a hyperlink that basically redirects you to a certain website or webpage.

So what’s that text exactly for? It’s what we call an ‘Anchor text’.

Table of Contents

What is Anchor Text?

Anchor Text helps to highlight those interlinkings or Hyperlinks which when clicked, redirects the reader to other relevant web resources.

A clickable text in the sentence, for example, WIKIPEDIA helps you get to know about almost everything in this world.

So, WIKIPEDIA, in this case, is an anchor text.

Anchor Text Format

A general format that is used in anchor text:

<a href= “http://www.example.com”>Example of link building</a>

Types of Anchor Text

In order to have an organic link building, it is vital to decide on the types of anchor text which are useful for your platform.

This, not just helps to make your website more authentic but is also a more perfect solution from a competitive point of view.

1. Naked Anchor Text

A Naked Anchor text is simply a hyperlink used as the text itself. It is basically used by renowned brands which can easily put up links as text.

For Ex – thememantis.com

2. Picture Anchor Text

When you upload an image on the web or in your blog, Google will take the text contained in the image’s alt attribute as the picture’s anchor text.

Thus, it is important to change the ‘alt tag’ properties of the image before uploading it on Google in order to improve your rankings and focus on the targeted keyword.

3. Keyword Anchor Text

Keyword anchor text plays an important part in SEO.

When you make a particular blog or plan content for your website, your focus is on the researched competitive, high traffic fetching keywords.

And there is no better way to hyperlink on the target keywords!

The best way to do this is to put about 5-7% keyword density in your blog being hyperlinked relevantly.

4. Branded Anchor Text

A branded anchor text is similar to the naked anchor text as in this, a brand name can be used as a text to redirect to its own blog.

In order to authenticate your website, Google differentiates between an original trustworthy website and a spam website.

The more clickable anchor texts, the more the authenticity of your website.

For Example, TheMaverickSpirit is a brand name which can be hyperlinked to a relevant blog on the platform.

5. Exact Match Anchor

An exact match anchor text is basically the one in which an interlinking is done on the keyword which is an exact match of the redirecting or target page.

Exact match anchor text is the supreme method of link building, it has the power to increase the rankings of your page as well as it may also cost you a penalty if there are too many matching keywords.

Example: ‘Best URL Shorteners’ is the exact match anchor text which will redirect you to the page where all the best tools related to link shortening are mentioned.

6. LSI Anchors

LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing and LSI Anchors are termed as basic synonyms presented from the target keywords.

For example, if you have an article related to link building, the LSI keywords/anchor text may revolve around it like,

‘best link building tools’,
‘types of link building’,
‘link building techniques’,
‘link building strategies’,
‘best link building sites’ etc.

7. Partial Match Anchor Text

A Partial match anchor text is slightly different from the exact match anchor text as it includes a keyword that hints towards a linked-to page similar to the keyword and is not an exact matching of it.

For example: ‘Best Link building Strategies’ is the partial match anchor text if it links the page which covers the importance of link building and not necessarily the strategies.

8. Generic Anchor Text

A generic anchor text is simply used when there are additional links or CTA features in your blog or content on your website.

The most basic example of a generic text is ‘Click here’ which redirects you to the company’s other CTA pages on the web or another relevant blog.

What’s important to note here is not to use Click Here in excess and keep your profile looking natural.

How is Anchor Text Important in SEO?

Facts that prove Anchor Text SEO importance are –

Google ranks you higher on SERPs for a keyword or search term if you are getting a good amount of backlinks on keyword as an anchor text. Whether its internal links within the website or external links.
Google does push your content on top for all the LSI keywords in the anchor text.

Tip Here – Don’t use the same keyword externally or internally redirecting to one blog post or a topic. Use close search terms or Latent Semantic Keywords too. Coz do penalize your website or blog post for getting a high amount of links for one keyword.

Now, as your website’s Google rankings are affected by Anchor Text, when you hyperlink a web source to a text in your article..

..it is very important to note that Google crawlers do check the authenticity of that ‘Linked-Website.’

So, it is of prime importance to choose a proper platform which has higher rankings than your own website & is an authentic source of information.

You can’t really judge the seriousness of anchor texts until you know, that they may serve in a great way for –