Anchor text shapes your brand’s perception and how visitors receive your content. It’s also a defining factor in how search engines assess your content. Therefore, if you’re aiming for approval and favor from both your audience and search engines, it’s crucial to keep it natural. Your visitors invest valuable time searching for answers when they land on your page, so providing them with a positive experience is essential. Similarly, search engines scrutinize anchor texts and the surrounding content when indexing and ranking pages. Make sure you give them something noteworthy. Here are the top 5 best practices for anchor text that can contribute to the SEO boost you’ve been striving for.
Natural Anchor Text over Manipulated
Rather than engaging in the manipulation of target keywords for the sole purpose of gaining an unfair advantage in organic rankings, prioritize the creation of natural and descriptive sentences to serve as anchor texts. It’s essential to craft anchor texts that seamlessly integrate with the topic and provide valuable context. Remember that search engines consider anchor texts, the surrounding text, and the overarching issue around which the content is centered. Repeatedly using the exact text solely because it matches a keyword or closely resembles it can adversely affect the credibility of your strategy.
Anchor Texts Should Add Real Value to the Content
Within the SEO community, a prevailing practice involves employing various types of anchor texts to link to a website’s pages. While this approach may seem logical, akin to the adage of not placing all your eggs in one basket, the best anchor text strategy still revolves around using what feels most organic. Instead of adhering rigidly to a mandate of employing multiple anchor texts, including branded, exact match, LSI, naked, and others, consider focusing on what naturally blends into the content and genuinely enhances its value.
Help Out Your Visitors
Imagine you’re engrossed in intriguing content that promises to enhance your page’s organic rankings and traffic. Suddenly, you encounter a blue link in the middle labeled ‘read more.’ At this point, you might ponder, ‘Read more about what exactly?’ You’re torn between the desire to learn more and the uncertainty of whether it’s worth diverting from the current topic to decipher information that may or may not be relevant. To ensure a seamless reading experience for your visitors, avoid putting them in this dilemma. Instead, utilize anchor text that explicitly conveys what the reader will discover at the other end and assures them it will enhance the current topic, ultimately aiding their understanding and experience. The goal is to eliminate surprises and provide a clear path for your visitors.
Length Matters, but There is No Right or Wrong
The right length of the anchor text depends upon what needs to be communicated. It could be slightly longer, it could be shorter, but as principle, avoid using sentences that go on for more than a line. And the right length of anchor text is whatever that doesn’t disturb the flow of reading of the visitor. For example, the better version of How Focusing on User Intent Can Leverage Link Building in 2022 would be Focus on User Intent to Leverage Link Building in 2022. It may only be a difference of a few words, but it does end up making a lot of difference.
Anchor Text Should Visually Stand Out
While blue links are the conventional choice, there are more effective and visually appealing methods that SEOs worldwide have embraced to make anchor texts genuinely stand out. Consider incorporating your brand’s colors, seamlessly aligning with your website’s design, to create anchor texts that capture visitors’ attention. When executed by the aforementioned best practices, these colorful anchor texts become irresistible invitations to click.
Your anchor text strategy and content strategy are closely intertwined. Lackluster content won’t compel clicks, and poorly executed anchor texts won’t fare any better, regardless of the quality of your content or its presentation. In conclusion, prioritize a natural and user-centric approach to anchor texts, and you’ll greatly benefit your visitors and your website’s performance.
