SEO

What is Anchor Text in SEO?

Anchor text is a term for a part of a link that is visible to users and it is important for SEO for many reasons. What you write as anchor text, for both internal and external links, can positively or negatively influence your rankings.

In this post, you’ll learn what is anchor text and how to optimize it correctly by avoiding over optimization that can lead to Google penalties.

We’ll also examine the differences between creating anchor text for internal and external links and what to consider when building incoming links for your website.

What is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is the part of the link that is clickable and visible to users. It is placed between the opening <a href> and closing anchor tag </a>. Here is an example of an anchor text:

<a href=”https : // example .com”>This is an anchor text</a>

Here is another example of anchor text in Google Search results.

What does the Anchor Text Do?

The anchor text gives a strong indication to both search engines and users about the page you’re linking to.

A hyperlink that you add to your site can either point to other pages on your site (that’s an internal link) or to pages on other websites (that’s an external link).

In both cases, by providing for a meaningful anchor text, you help search engine crawlers and users understand what the target page is all about.

Here is another example of an anchor text used for an internal link. By looking at the value “on-page SEO”, you know that if you click the link, you will read more about the topic.

What are the Different Types of Anchor Text?

There are different types of anchor text you can use when creating a hyperlink.

If you are new to SEO, you first need to understand the terminology so that you can follow the guidelines outlined below.

Branded – using your brand name as anchor text, for example: Morning Dough

URL – using the permalink of a page without text, for example: https://www.morningdough.com/seo-strategies/what-are-seo-strategies/

Domain name – using your domain name as anchor texts, for example: reliablesoft.net

Generic – used very often, for example: read more, or click here

Exact match keywords – using keywords for the link, for example: “You can learn more about SEO Keywords and…”

Partial match – using keywords with additional text, for example: “You can download our SEO checklist.”

Page Title – using the page title as is, for example: “The Ultimate DIY SEO Tutorial (Step by Step) For Beginners”

 

Read more here.