What is Anchor Text?
The clickable text in a hyperlink is known as anchor text. According to SEO best practices, anchor text should be related to the page you are linking to instead of generic. The label or title of the link is another name for the anchor text. The words in the anchor text play a part in determining the page’s ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
The most prevalent type of links on the internet are naked URLs, often known as URL anchor texts. Using anchor text correctly might help the linked page rank for certain keywords in search engines. Different browsers display anchor text differently.
Types of Anchor Text
- Exact Match: The target webpage’s intended target term is the exact match anchor text.
- Phrase Match: The variations of a term are similar to partial match anchors. The main difference is the inclusion of generic terms around the main keyword phrase.
- Partial Match: This kind of anchor text is comparable to phrase match label text. The only difference is that a variation of the term is used instead of the same wording.
- Branded: The anchor text is a broad, general term that does not contain the target keyword.
- Naked URL: A “naked” link is one that uses a bare URL as its anchor.
- Image Links: When linking to an image, Google uses the ALT text of the image as the anchor text.
Why is Anchor Text Important?
Both users and search engines are given context through anchor text. When a user clicks on a link, the link’s label describes what she will see on the linked page. Search engines, on the other hand, use the anchor text to index and rank websites.
Relevance becomes important at this point. Your website’s users may leave if the content being referred to is unrelated to the current issue since they had a terrible experience using it. Due to the linked content’s lack of user-additive value, search engines will rank your website poorly.
How to optimize your Anchor Text?
Make it obvious how to discern the anchor text.
Ensure that the anchor is visibly identified and clickable so that users are aware of it.
Don’t deceive your audience.
Always deliver the agreed-upon content when linking to other websites.
Keep your links’ relevance in check.
Remember to check your links frequently and keep them current if you provide stuff that must be read quickly.
If you use naked anchors, clean up your URLs.
Long, complicated URLs are not popular. Short and uncomplicated is best.
