Types Of Anchor Text and Their Relevance To SEO

We all know what SEO is. It stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is a well-known technique used to increase the visibility of one’s website. Among other things, there is one factor in particular that is associated with good SEO. It is called ‘anchor text’. An anchor text is basically a clickable link that appears on any page. It heavily influences the outcome of Google SERPs (Search Engine Page Results) such that the link that it is connected to appears higher up on the list of search engine results.

We see a lot of anchor texts on the internet on our usual day at work or at home. They mostly appear in the form of ‘click here’, ‘download this’ and ‘next page’. Some sites also put anchor texts in the form of words and link them to pages providing more information on those particular words. Using common link descriptions such as ‘click here’ and the others is not so advisable anymore as such common words make it difficult for your page to appear higher up in SERPs. If you want to see good rankings for your website, then you should probably switch to using targeted keywords instead of generic keywords.

For example, instead of putting up ‘click here to learn more about anchor texts’, you should put up ‘click here to learn more about anchor texts’. Using targeted keywords or brand keywords instead of generic keywords can make all the difference in the world. It can make things easier for search engine crawlers by enabling them to find the keywords quickly in their directories. Now, let us try a small exercise. Open Google search, type in ‘click here’ and check out the results you get. There is a good chance that most of the links will direct you towards Adobe reader. What do you think this means? It means that a majority of links that say ‘click here’ in the internet are linked to adobe reader. This also means that the rest of the links that say ‘click here’ rank lower in SERPs because the adobe reader anchor texts have taken up the earliest of result pages.

But when doing this, we also have to understand that we can’t change all our generic keywords to targeted keywords. Google’s new tool, Google penguin or Google disavow is here to take care of all bad links and if your site or blog has more than 20% of targeted keywords, it is likely to become a target of Google penguin. You might be wondering what the proper combination of keywords might be. Well, the perfect combination is to use 40% generic keywords, 40% brand keywords and 20% targeted keywords. Brand keywords can be something related to your company or brand’s name. It can also be your website URL. Targeted keywords can be anything as long as it’s pertaining to your site. Lastly, a generic keyword is the one which says ‘click here’, ‘download this’ and so on.

Now, the newer your blog, the more important it is to carefully pick your anchor text keywords. This is because new websites are easily targeted by Google penguin. Hence, if your blog or site is new, you should list down your keywords before using them. For old sites, however, there are free tools available which expertly lists the optimum proportion of keywords for the site. The importance of anchor texts in the world of SEO is paramount and if you want your website to rank high, you can use anchor texts to your advantage. It is time you reach out to a larger audience with the help of anchor texts.

Larry is an SEO expert who provides freelance consultations at SEO India. He feels that the field of SEO is ever evolving and one needs to adapt to the latest happenings.