Actionable Tips to Optimize Anchor Text for SEO
Did you know that having the correct anchor text on your website can significantly help you rank on Google? It is a significantly pivotal aspect of SEO. While it is one of the most important things every content marketer should know, many are still confused about how they can seamlessly optimize it in content to drive more traffic.
What Is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is the highlighted and clickable word or phrase of a link. It should give your readers and search engines an idea about the topic of the embedded link.
Can You Optimize It For SEO?
Over the past few years, the best practices of anchor text optimization have changed considerably. It is time to learn new tips to get the most out of your links in 2020.
- Stay on Topic
If you want to optimize anchor text to boost SEO, relevancy should be one of your priorities.
Your anchor text should consist of words or phrases that best describe the topic of the webpage the link goes to.
Using an irrelevant anchor text with an internal link will harm your ranking.
Anchors with irrelevant links behind them lead users to inept content, which Google does not appreciate.
- Distribute Anchor Text in the Right Proportions
While many experts still cannot come up with a standard value for the term “right proportions,” recommendations do exist. According to some studies, the best formula is:
50% branded anchor texts
15% WebsiteName.com
10-20% Naked URL
10-15% Page or Blog Post Title
1-5% Generic anchor texts
However, you need to do a thorough analysis of your niche and competitors. You should reverse-engineer the anchor text cloud of the websites ranked at the top, and only then can you start adjusting your site’s anchor text cloud.
- Add Anchor Text Where Users Pay the Most Attention
While readers will click on anchor text that they find descriptive and valuable, they often skim pages and might miss your links. Therefore, the heading, first few paragraphs, subheadings, and imagery become focal points. These are the best spots to add anchor text to improve click-through rates and engagement.
- Use Anchors on Deep-Level Pages
Most newbies in SEO only focus on adding links to their homepages, landing pages, and product or service pages.
An anchor text cloud that is purely built around these pages will not look natural to search engines. You must link to worthy, shareable content like blogs!
Adding anchors to these relevant, deep-level pages will help create a natural, versatile anchor text cloud while encouraging your visitors to navigate more pages on your website.
- Do Not Link to Spammy Websites
Google pays close attention to the websites you link to. Always check your outbound links and make sure to remove poor-quality sites. Even if you’ll get some reciprocal links, associating your page with them has the potential to ruin your page’s rank in the long run.
- Engage in Guest Blogging
Anchor text relevance can make or break a guest blogging campaign. If you are guest posting with the intention of pushing up your “dedicated web hosting” keyword, add links to pages that talk about web hosting.
Use LSI and partial-match anchor texts. This will help you get a more natural-looking anchor text cloud, which satisfies most search engines.
- Do Not Overdo Anchor Text Optimization
Google does not favor overly rich anchor text. This clearly indicates manipulation of links, which will result in penalties.
As mentioned earlier, keep your anchor text natural and spread it across your inbound links in the right proportions. For example, instead of using “web design company” in every guest post, try writing “the best web design firms,” “companies that design websites,” and more.
Anchor text optimization will continue to evolve as it adjusts with Google updates and it is quite to keep up with these changes without the help of a professional. Stay on top of your game. Make sure your anchor text is natural, not overly optimized, relevant, and points to high-quality websites. Do not hesitate to contact us for help. Through our comprehensive SEO services, we can help you create good anchor text with quality links for you to rank on Google.
