Best Practices for Anchor Texts to Improve SEO

July 18, 2023 | By Ilfusion Team

Anchor texts, or link texts, are the words or phrases used to create hyperlinks within a body of content. These links are clickable to help readers easily navigate from one page to another.

Anchor texts can also play a key role in improving your search engine optimization (SEO), particularly in link building. When used correctly, it can bring more visibility to your content and lead to a higher ranking on search engines, among many other benefits.

Anchor Texts and Their Role in SEO

Anchor texts provide both search engine crawlers and human readers with relevant contextual information about the content of the link’s destination.

In addition, anchor texts can also help search engine crawlers better understand a website’s content structure and internal linking strategy. This makes it easier for search engine crawlers to properly index a page and its content.

As a result, anchor texts can ultimately be instrumental in improving SEO in a variety of ways:

Increase page rank: Relevant anchor texts can help websites rank higher in search engine results and lead to more organic traffic.
Better keyword targeting: Anchor texts can be used to target specific keywords and improve the search visibility of a website.
Boost link-building efforts: High-authority and relevant anchor texts can help boost link-building efforts and help build credibility.
Enhance user experience: Anchor texts can make it easier for readers to navigate through a website and find the information they are looking for.

Types of Anchor Texts

There are different anchor text options that you can use in your content:

Exact Match Anchor Texts: These are keywords that match the target page’s content and are used to help boost a website’s ranking for that specific keyword. For example, if the target page is about “best practices for anchor texts,” the anchor text will be exactly the same.
Partial Match Anchor Texts: These keywords are related to the target page’s content but are not completely identical. For example, instead of using the exact phrase “best wedding cakes in Texas” as an anchor text, a partial match would be something like “wedding cakes in Fort Worth, TX.”
Branded Anchor Texts: These are anchor texts that include the brand name or website domain of the target page. They can be used to boost brand recognition and create more visibility.
Generic Anchor Texts: These are broad terms used to describe the type of content on the target page, such as “learn more,” “click here,” or “read more.”

Best Practices for Using Anchor Texts

To maximize your SEO efforts, it’s important to use anchor texts correctly and strategically. Here are some best practices for using anchor texts to improve SEO:

1. Use descriptive text

A clear, descriptive anchor text can help indicate both to search engine crawlers and human readers what the linked page is about. This makes it easier for crawlers to understand your content and rank it accordingly.

A descriptive anchor text should include keywords related to the target page and should be relevant to the linked content. For example, if your target link is about “The 5 Best Asian Fusion Restaurants in Texas,” an appropriate anchor text would be something like “top fusion restaurants in Texas.”

2. Keep it natural

It’s important to make sure that anchor texts are used naturally and don’t appear spammy. Anchor texts should only be used when it makes sense to do so and should not be overused.

Spammy anchor texts can look like this: “Click here to learn more about SEO anchor texts.”
Instead, use natural-sounding phrases such as: “Learn more about how to use anchor texts to improve SEO.”

3. Avoid using the exact same anchor text multiple times

Using too many exact match anchor texts can result in search engine penalties, as it may appear spammy and unnatural.

To avoid this, try to use a variety of anchor texts and mix up the keywords used. For example, instead of using the exact phrase “Asian fusion restaurants in Texas” for every link, you could use other variations such as “best Asian fusion spots.”

4. Keep generic anchor texts for CTA buttons

Call-to-action (CTA) buttons are ideally linked using generic anchor texts to encourage readers to take action. When used in the body of the text, generic anchor texts like “click here” are too broad and vague to provide any meaningful SEO benefits,

It is thus advisable to use generic anchor texts sparingly. For example, if you are linking to a case study page, a more descriptive anchor text would be “learn how our SEO strategy increased organic traffic by 25%” instead of simply “click here.”

5. Avoid naked URLs

Naked URLs are URLs used without anchor texts, such as https://example.com. While it’s okay to use a naked URL in some circumstances, such as when sharing links on social media or emailing, it’s important to use anchor texts when possible for SEO.

Naked URLs are not ideal for SEO because they do not provide the same level of context and search engine optimization benefits as anchor texts. Anchor texts are more descriptive and can help search engine crawlers better understand the nature of the link’s destination.

Boost Your Link Building and SEO Strategy

Anchor texts can be a powerful tool for improving SEO and link-building efforts, and with the right strategy in place, you can maximize the benefits and improve your brand’s overall digital marketing efforts.

Ilfusion can help you with any of your SEO needs. With our experienced team of digital content and online marketers, we can help you create a comprehensive SEO and link-building strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

Tags: anchor text, external links, internal links, link building, search engine optimization
Filed in: Articles