Do you know about anchor text, why it is important to optimize, and how it enhances the performance of your SEO? This article is all about guidelines related to anchor text.
The following are guidelines you must follow to optimize your post’s anchor text and to enhance the effectiveness of SEO.
- What Actually Anchor Text Is?
- Different Types Of Anchor Text
- Making Efforts To Produce Relevance Without Matching Anchors
- Anchor Text That You Should Use
- Ranking With Few Backlinks
- Where You Should Use Anchor Text
- Guide For Anchor Text Optimization: Domains Of Exact & Partial Match
- Fixing The Issues Related To Over-Optimized Anchor Text
You can become an optimization pro of the strategies related to anchor text. If you want to learn more about anchor text optimization you can contact SEO agency Dubai for such services. So, keep reading the given information!
Contents
What Actually Anchor Text Is?
Any text in the link which is visible to you is anchor text. This text allows you to click on it and it looks like a link in HTML.
For example: <a href=”http://www.mywebsite.com/”>my cool website</a>
You can use this word for all types of links either they are internal links, external or hyperlinks. Now, the question is why can you use this term for all the links?
This question is important and the answer is that anchor text greatly affects the performance of SEO. You can say that it can enhance or reduce the performance of SEO.
You must know the anchor text’s history or all the information about it before going to optimization.
Anchor Text History:
In 2011, you just had to make links to get a higher ranking. These links had key phrases that contain the anchor text. Google decided to give the first information about the Penguin on 12 April 2012.
And it was that, if you use keyphrases with anchor text, your ranking will be broken. So it is important to know how you can optimize anchor text using the best strategies safely? Firstly, you have to learn about anchor text types.
Different Types Of Anchor Text
Following are the types of anchor text.
1. Anchors That Have Brand Name
Some anchors contain the name of a brand. These anchors refer to branded anchors. For example Nathan Gotch SEO etc.
An example of a sentence is that “You can get search engine optimization guidelines and strategies on Gotch SEO”. It’s safe if you are using these anchors because they have a domain of brand.
Be careful if you have domains that are partial or exact. Search the link profile of any brand and see the power of anchor texts (branded anchors).
2. Generic Anchors
CTA’s (call-to-action) are sometimes used as generic anchors. For example, go here, this website, or click here.
3. Anchors That Are Naked Link
If you see a raw URL on any website’s anchor text then you can call it a naked link.
For Example:
- mysite.com
- www.mysite.com
- https://www.mysite.com
4. Use Of Images (No Anchor Text)
Many brands use this awesome strategy. Sometimes you forget to add anchor text in posts or articles. You can simply use an image to make no text anchors.
You must try this amazing idea!
5. Image Anchors
Google has many images that are linked. So it uses anchor text as an alternative text for such images.
6. Keyphrase Anchor And Brand
You can use your keyphrase and name of the brand to make your anchor text valuable or diverse.
7. Variations Of Keyphrases
If you want to expand your anchor text profile then use key phrases. It helps to catch relevance for your post or page.
8. Anchor Texts That Are Partial Match
These anchors are not different from variations of keywords. The main difference is that you put generic words in the keyphrase that is primary.
9. Exact Match Anchors
You can say that these anchors are greater than other anchors. These anchors have real power that can enhance your page ranking.
But keep in mind that your website can be penalized if you don’t know how to use these anchors in the right way. This anchor exactly matches with the keyphrase that is your actual target.
Making Efforts To Produce Relevance Without Matching Anchors
Google ads text around the link you have pasted on it to give it relevance related to the topic. The anchor text that is present in the link will also be used by Google to hit the target or goal.
It’s a simple strategy that makes good sense. You have to do the following things:
- Search relevant good website
- Obtain backlinks that seem relevant with your page (target page)
- Do not put primary keyphrase away from your link
- Add intelligent and good anchor texts
- You must know that relevance will give you success in the strategies of link building
Anchor Text That You Should Use
Do you want to analyze your anchor text or its distribution? Use Ahrefs for this purpose. You have to go to the explorer tool of the website. Now, put your domain and click on ‘Anchors’ to start analyzing your anchor texts.
You can copy the anchor texts of people who are your competitors but this strategy has some issues. If you copy the anchor text of an authoritative website, then it would be risky for you because it can break your page or website.
It happens because your website is not allowed to do this. So don’t copy the anchor texts of your competitors if you don’t have permission to do that. Some websites have authority, and they can use aggressive anchor texts.
You can use percentages to get good results. It also helps you to avoid penalization.
Here are these percentages:
Branded Anchors= 70%
Partial Match Anchors= < 5%
Naked Link Anchors= 20%
Exact Match Anchors= < 1%
Generic Anchors= 5%
Ranking With Few Backlinks
Use anchor text cycling. It’s the best strategy to rank with few backlinks. Follow the given step of this cycling process.
- Your target page must have an exact match anchor.
- Use anchor text variations sometimes that are unoptimized on your website.
- Examine the progress of your website by tracking its rankings.
- You can use another anchor that is the exact match anchor on your website.
Where You Should Use Anchor Text
You have a great chance to rank your page high with every link by adding anchor text.
You must use exact anchor text with a unique type of link. Follow the given guidelines for it.
Always use anchors that contain keyphrases if you have a link in the content body. If you are looking for the bio link of any author then you cannot use exact match anchor text in it. Instead of it, you have to use a branded anchor in this case.
You can use partial or exact match anchors in case of resource pages. If you are using your resource title, then it will prove effective for you.
Moreover, you can use partial or exact match anchors in the case of PBNs. Use unoptimized anchor texts for non-editorial links.
Don’t redirect extra things to your website and make a new website for unoptimized anchor texts. It will help you to manage your anchor text from a 301 redirect.
Guide For Anchor Text Optimization: Domains Of Exact & Partial Match
If you are a beginner then don’t use partial or exact match domain much. Use the following given rations if you have an exact match domain.
- Naked Links= 70%
- Partial Match= 1-5%
- Generic= 20
- Partial Match= 1-5%
- Branded or Exact Match Anchors= 1-5%
- LSI= 5%
Fixing The Issues Related To Over-Optimized Anchor Text
Following are the best ways to fix the anchor text that are over-optimized.
- In the case of spammy sites, don’t use anchor texts that are commercial. If you find such anchor text then remove it.
- Make backlinks on your website that are unoptimized. You have to make these links with branded, generic, and naked anchor texts.
- You can use a recovery trick. This is a trick of 301 penalties.
If you have any questions related to this article then mention it in the comment section because we always welcome queries. We will respond to you quickly after some time.