Anchor text

Anchor texts play an important role in search engine optimization (SEO) and especially link building. But what exactly are anchor texts? And how do you create good anchor texts?

What is an anchor text?

Anchor text is the clickable text link (hyperlink) that takes visitors to a page. Anchor text is important because it guides visitors and helps search engines understand the relevance and content of the link.

You can recognize anchor text by the fact that it is typically blue and underlined. The mouse cursor will often change to a hand when you hover over it. This is the clickable text that takes you to another website or another location on the same page.

In HTML code, an anchor text will be surrounded by a <a>-tag with the href attribute, which specifies the URL of the page the link points to

In this case, “Google Ads” is the visible text the user clicks on and https://clickin.dk/google-ads/ is the web address the link leads to.

What types of anchor texts are there?

1. Exact match: The anchor text contains the exact keyword you want to rank for (e.g. “SEO consultant”).
2. Partial match: Includes the search term along with other words (e.g. “Professional cleaning in Copenhagen”).
3. Branded anchor text: Uses the company name or brand (e.g. “Click in”).
4. Generic anchor text: Contains general terms like “click here,” “read more,” or “see more.”
5. Naked URL: Uses the URL itself as anchor text (e.g. “www.clickin.dk”).
6. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) anchor text: Is the same as LSI keywords, namely related words or synonyms to the main keyword (e.g. “espresso machine” instead of “coffee machine).
7. Image anchor text: If an image is a link, the ALT text acts as the anchor text.

Why are anchor texts important?

While anchor text may seem like a small detail, it plays a huge role in the impact of both your external and internal links. It acts as a small but powerful signal that helps both search engines and visitors understand what awaits on the other side of a link.

For search engines like Google, anchor text is a significant factor in assessing a page’s relevance and authority within specific topics. This applies to both links between your own pages (internal links) and links from other websites (external links).

Anchor texts in link building

Links are one of the most important ranking factors in Google, and anchor text plays a big role here. To get the most out of your links, it’s important to use anchor text strategically.

Google’s Penguin update marked a major shift in the way anchor text is treated. The algorithm is specifically designed to identify and punish manipulative link practices.

Over-optimized anchor texts came under scrutiny.

Over-optimization and unnatural anchor text (e.g., too many exact match anchor texts) can trigger penalties. Typically, you will be penalized with lower rankings or removed from the index altogether.

Therefore, it is important to remember to vary your use of anchor texts if you want to avoid being penalized by Google.

Anchor text best practices within external links

When working with link building and anchor text, it’s important to keep Google’s guidelines in mind. The goal is to build a natural link profile that benefits both the user experience and your SEO.

Here are the most important best practices for using anchor text in external links:

• Relevance: The anchor text must be relevant to the content on the page being linked to.
• Variation: Use a mix of different types of anchor text to create a natural link profile. Avoid using the same anchor text over and over again.
• Natural language: Write anchor texts that sound natural and fit in with the surrounding text. Avoid stuffing keywords into the anchor text. For example, “Read more about our range of coffee machines” is more natural than “Click here to buy cheap coffee machines online“.
• Avoid over-optimization: Don’t use too many exact match anchor texts, where the anchor text matches your primary keyword exactly.
• Use branded anchor text: Include your brand name in some of your anchor text to strengthen your brand and build trust.
• Be careful with generic anchor texts: Generic anchor texts like “click here” and “read more” don’t provide much SEO value in the form of “link juice,” so use them sparingly.

💡 When dealing with external links, it’s always a good idea to perform a link analysis.

Anchor texts in internal link building

Anchor texts not only play an important role in external link building, but also when linking between your own content on the website (internal link building). Good anchor texts help create a good structure on your website and improve the user experience.

Search engines also use anchor texts and internal links to understand your website better and distribute “link juice” between your pages.

Just like with external links, where more backlinks from other authoritative domains indicate to Google that your page is trustworthy and relevant, internal links also play a role in showing authority. The more internal links a page has from other relevant pages on your website, the stronger the signal it sends to Google that this page is important.

💡 Think of it as a hierarchy: Your most important pages, such as your home page or product pages, should have the most internal links from other subpages. This helps distribute link juice and strengthen the authority of the pages you want to rank high in search results.

Anchor text best practices within internal linking

When linking between pages on your own website, it’s important to choose anchor texts carefully. They should not only be informative for users, but also give the right signals to search engines.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your internal anchor texts:

• Use descriptive anchor text: Choose anchor text that gives a clear indication of what the linked page is about. Instead of linking with “click here“, use, for example, “read more about our coffee machines“.
• Keep it natural: Make sure your anchor texts fit naturally into the surrounding text. Write for people, not search engines.
• Vary your anchor texts: As with external link building, it’s important to vary your anchor texts. Use a mix of different types, such as exact match, partial match, and branded anchor texts.
• Link to relevant pages: Make sure the pages you link to are relevant to the page you are linking from.
• Use anchor texts to highlight important pages: You can use internal link building to guide both users and search engines to the most important pages on your website.