What Is Anchor Text And How Can You Improve It?

Anchor text is a key element of  SEO that is often overlooked by content creators, writers and marketing managers alike.

When it comes to climbing the SERP rankings and driving valuable traffic to your website, optimised anchor text could be the key that you’re missing. If you’re new to the world of SEO and don’t know the first thing about anchor text, don’t fret! We’re here to explain everything there is to know and provide our best tips on how you can utilise your anchor text to improve your rankings and drive more traffic to your site. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

What is anchor text?

So what exactly is anchor text? Put simply, anchor text serves as clickable text (or in other words, a hyperlink) within web pages and blog posts that allows users to click through to find more information and offers additional relevant content. This text not only guides users within their online journey, it also helps search engines to analyse content in terms of topic, relevance and value. Therefore, ensuring that your anchor text is optimised for both users and search engines is a fantastic strategy for gaining traction for your website.

Best practices for improving anchor text

When it comes to deciding on your anchor text, we have a few tips to help you get the most out of your links. Whilst these tips will definitely get you on your way to climbing the SERP rankings, they are not rules that are set in stone and therefore, you can veer away from this guidance if needed.

Conduct keyword research 

Firstly, it’s absolutely essential to conduct thorough keyword research to identify the target keywords that are both relevant and high-performing within your niche field or industry. This is a crucial step as it will inform your overarching SEO strategy, so be sure to spend adequate time on this step.

Once you’ve identified your keywords, you can try to incorporate them into your anchor text. More often than not, it is best practice to incorporate your target keyword into the anchor text itself. For example, if we wanted our anchor text ‘SEO services’ to link to our SEO services page, and SEO services is our target keyword on this occasion, this anchor text would classify as an exact match.  This is best practice for anchor text as it makes it extremely easy for search engines to analyse, understand and index your webpage.

Be descriptive and relevant 

Whilst incorporating your target keywords into anchor text is best practice, it is not always possible and can come across as ‘spammy’ if you overdo it by stuffing as many keywords into your anchor text without describing what the text is linking to. Therefore, it is best to focus on being as descriptive as possible to ensure that users and search engines understand what the anchor text leads to. By using descriptive phrases that accurately represent the linked page’s content, you’re setting your webpage up for success.

Avoid excessive repetition

As discussed above, anchor text that feels contrived, unnatural and very repetitive is a barrier that stops users from clicking through to linked pages and also doesn’t provide any additional value to search engines. By getting creative with your anchor text, you can entice users to click through and inform search engines of what the linked page is all about.

Embrace natural language 

With the evolution of voice search and a more casual online tone of voice thanks to the growth of social media, embracing natural language is a great way to incorporate anchor text within your content. Not only does it help your SEO efforts as search engines are seeing an increase in informal search queries, it also ensures that your anchor text flows seamlessly within your content and doesn’t feel unnatural or forced in any way.

Ditch generic phrases 

Generic anchor text phrases such as ‘click here’ are your enemy! These phrases don’t provide any information about the linked page’s content and don’t entice the user to click on them either. Be sure to use engaging phrases that incite action whilst incorporating keywords and phrases where possible.

Focus on user experience 

Finally, we’d highly recommend focusing on user experience where possible. When we say this, we mean focusing on creating a seamless user journey that offers invaluable information and an enjoyable experience. Whilst it’s great to incorporate keywords within your anchor text where possible, if doing so negatively impacts the user experience, it’s definitely best to steer clear!

Now armed with the knowledge of anchor text optimisation, you’re ready to supercharge your SEO efforts, elevate your online visibility and attract the right audience! By implementing best practices, creating engaging link text and continuously monitoring performance, you’ll be well on your way to SEO success.

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