What is Anchor Text and how to optimize them?

Author: Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant, honored by PROskore Power Ranking as the No. 1 social media consultant in the US. His area of ​​expertise is business development, online marketing and also an SEO expert who has advised many Fortune 500 companies, government organizations and many other A-class celebrities. .

If you are a Marketer on the Internet, then you must know the power of using "anchor text" in SEO . Although these are extremely popular phrases, many Marketers have not really understood their meaning after the updates of Penguin and Hummingbird algorithms of Google. Anchor Text is an important part of SEO and greatly affects your page rank on the search engine.

If used correctly, you will see your page rank climbing daily. If used without thinking, natural search traffic will disappear in just 1 night or you will be penalized by Google. The following article will help explain what Anchor Text is and how to use it effectively .

Anchor Text is an important tool for SEO

What is Anchor Text and why is it important?

Anchor Text - is a piece of text that is linked to an address or other document file on the website. In short, it is a clickable text in hyperlink. For example, in the following sentence: "Quantrimang is an example of Anchor Text," the word "Quantrimang" is an Anchor Text. You can create an anchor text using the following HTML code:

Anchor Text

As well as very important backlinks in SEO, anchor text also plays a huge role. It supports the search engine, which helps search engines to know linked-to pages. Previous update of Penguin 2012 algorithm, Google used anchor text to understand if a website is relevant or not. Now anchor text is a great way for search engines to penalize websites for excessive spam or optimization.

Types of Anchor Text

In order to optimize the anchor text, you need to understand clearly the anchor text types. This will help create pages with different types of anchor text.

1. Generic Anchor

As its name suggests, this is the usual anchor text like " Click Here " or " Go Here " (or " Click Here " in Vietnamese). For example, in the sentence " Click here to download eBook " then " Click here " is the Generic Anchor. Common words used in this anchor text include:

1. Click here
2. Xem thêm
3. More info here
4. About the author
5. Additional info
6. Check this out
7. This website
8. The page here
9. Over here
10. Over there
11. Here
12. This page

2. Branded Anchors

This is the type of anchor text that uses a brand name as a link text. This is also the safest way when your website has such exact domain. Big sites and brands like Best Buy or Moz are the biggest sites with Branded Anchor Text.

3. Naked Link Anchors

These are the anchor text pointed to the page by simply using the URL path. For example, http:/// moz / com / or www.moz.com are Naked Link Anchors.

4. Brand + Keyword Anchor

Using both keywords and brands in anchor text is another safe and effective method. This way is simply that you combine your brand name and keywords. Examples are " SEO servies by Moz " (or "Moz's SEO Services").

5. Image Anchors

To diversify options using anchor text on the page, you can consider using image anchor text. In the image, Google will read the "Alt" tag and at this time, the "Alt" tag will act as the anchor text . If you leave this tag blank, it will turn into "noText" anchor. An example of HTML code uses images as anchor text.

6. LSI Anchors

LSI stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. It basically represents different versions of the main keyword, or synonym. For example, if you are targeting the "Flower Shop" keyword, the LSI keywords may be "Flower Shop Online", "Florist Shop", "Florist Online" . Or with the word "Link Building" the words LSI keys can be " link building tools ", " link building techniques", " link building instructions " . You can find relevant results at the bottom of the search results page as shown in the pictures. photo below.

Search for the keyword "download learning apps"

See related keywords with the main keyword

7. Partial Match Anchor Text

These are anchor texts with a portion of keywords in the link text. With the above "Link Building" example, the keyword could be " guide to using link building " or " learn about link building " . With the example in the above image, it could be " learning application. " useful "," learning app for teachers ". The code for this type of anchor text is as follows:

match match ANCHOR

8. Long Tail Anchors

This type of anchor text is similar to the above "partial anchor text" but differs in that they are longer. The example in the "link building" keyword above may be " anchor text is an important part of link building " or "these rankings are the result of using anchor text".

9. Exact Match

This is the most important type of anchor text , they play an important role in the page rank and may also be the reason you are penalized by Google. As its name suggests, this type of anchor text uses text that links to the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you target the " learning application " keyword, the anchor text is also the "learning application".

Anchor Text optimization trick

As mentioned earlier, optimizing anchor text for a website will be a move that requires skill and sophistication. Some Marketers make mistakes because of excessive optimization which makes them inevitable. Here are some helpful tips that can help you optimize your anchor text without penalizing Google.

1. Use Anchor Text related

For efficient use, anchor text should relate to the content you place them. The more the article relates to the keyword, the better the page rank. For example, if you target the "link building" keyword, then writing a post on link building topic will be the best option. If looking at the keyword " plumbing service in Hanoi ", the article on how to find the best plumbing service in Hanoi is better than the general article about plumbing.

2. Use a variety of anchor text in a smart way

The distribution of anchor text can help increase or lower your page rank in search results. It is difficult to say what is the best way to distribute the anchor text, but according to the experience of this article writer, the distribution rate below can create natural anchor text for the page.

1. Branded Anchor Text - 40%
2. Unique / Other Anchor Text - 25%
3. Naked Link Anchor - 15%
4. Brand + Keyword Anchor - 5%
5. Partial Match Anchor Text - 5%
6. Generic Anchor Text - 1 to 5%
7. Long Tail Anchor Text - 2 to 4%
8. Exact Match Anchor - less than 1%

Better yet, you should carefully research and understand how to distribute, use the anchor text of the leading pages in your industry. That may bring suggestions for distributing anchor text on your page.

3. Do not link to strange pages

The obvious fact is that if the authority site that links to your site is very useful for SEO. Remember that the page you link to plays an important role in ranking pages in the search engine. This is the time to talk about co-citation. Make sure your anchor text doesn't lead to strange pages or spam pages just because you want to create more backlinks for both parties. Instead of spending time on such pages, focus on healthy, quality and relevant pages for your industry.

Avoid linking to strange sites, spam pages

4. Avoid using internal links with keyword-rich anchor

Although internal links are highly recommended, please avoid using keyword-rich anchor (the anchor text that contains the keyword you are targeting, Exact Match Anchor Text is also in this anchor text format). Using this tool too much can cause negative effects. Use healthier alternatives like spreading keywords in sentences. For example, instead of using " link building definitions ", you can choose to use " learn about link building definitions ". This means creating long anchor text and spreading the keyword in it.

5. Write relevant guest-post articles

Some marketers argue that using guest-posts (blogs with relevant content to allow visitors to post) is no longer useful, but they are still effective in creating effective profile links. Writing for a strong domain with tier 2 links will produce the best results. When starting a guest-post campaign, select the domain that has more than 30 Domain Authority (DA). It is best to use LSI and Partial Match Anchors in these posts. Needless to say, you must also create relevant content, using co-occurance and co-occurance.

6. Follow the anchor text

When building backlinks, tracking the anchor text you used is very important. Otherwise, it is like you close your eyes without knowing where you will go. Need to manage, organize and ensure that you do not over-optimize your page with keyword-rich anchor. You can keep track of them on Excel spreadsheets and avoid abuse of already-used options.

7. Get the link from the appropriate page

The problem here is not the page with the relevant content (which is obvious to do) but the "right site". As mentioned earlier, having links from quality sites is great for link profiles. You need to focus on getting the link from the Domain Authority (DA) above 30, Page Authority (PA) above 35, Trust Flow on 10 and make sure to rate Trust Flow on Citation Flow around 1: 2 only.

Conclude

Following the update of the Penguin algorithm and the 2016 SEO strategy, the use of Exact Match Anchor should be reduced to below 1%. You need to be careful when using this type of anchor text if you do not want to be penalized. The most safe and effective anchor text types are Naked Link Anchor and Branded Anchor. Focus on building links with quality content and using different types of anchor text, combined with co-cited and co-occurring types of links.