What Is Anchor Text? Meaning, Types & How to Optimize

Do you know what is Anchor Text? Or how many more things do you still need to learn? Because there is much information out there to share with you about Anchor Text. Nevertheless, depending on the amount of information you absorb will determine how you do SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

• Build dozens of links with Anchor Text keywords to reach Google’s top.
• Avoid building keyword anchor text; you will never be penalized by Google.

Get started now!

1. Anchor Text Overview

Anchor Text is no longer a strange term for those specializing in SEO, right? Nevertheless, for those new to SEO, you still need to be informed more about the overview of Anchor Text to understand better. If you are ready, let us learn about Anchor Text immediately with me in this article!

What is Anchor Text?

Anchor Text is the visible text that redirects to a new web page/URL when you click a hyperlink. Usually, Anchor Text is also known as link label, link text, or link title. To avoid boredom, in this article, we will alternately use other names for Anchor Text, and you can also familiarize yourself with the words (which will help later!). You often don’t know what page or URL you’re being “transported” to because URLs differ from Anchor Text. Thanks to the blue text or words or underscores, you can quickly identify the link title. E.g.:

Displayed in the article: What Is SEO: A Beginner’s Guide to On-Site Optimization

URL: https://everranks.com/what-is-seo-a-beginners-guide-to-on-site-optimization/

Here, “What is SEO” is Anchor Text.

Why is Anchor Text important?

Anchor Text will always retain its importance if the backlink is still effective. Before the 2012 Google Penguin update, Anchor Text was one of the easiest ways for Google to understand the relevancy of a website. Web admins can use link titles to improve the results displayed on Search Engine Results Pages__SERPs.

Google Search Console will help website owners to optimize by allowing them to see the most popular link title in the links to their website. However, from 2015 onward, Anchor Text was one of the factors that caused Google to penalize spam and over-optimization. 

Is Anchor Text becoming useless?

Completely wrong! 

Link labels are even more helpful than before. You need to be using the link label properly! First, you must go through the types of Anchor texts to understand better and apply them in appropriate situations.

How Does Anchor Text Affect SEO?

Anchor Text is a significant part of SEO, making your website structure look evident to search engines like Google. When search engines understand internal links through Anchor Text, it will be easier to get you to the top because it provides the whole context of your website.

When you link to other content, Google uses the link text as a report on the topic of the linked page. If the link text matches your keyword phrase, Google will show which articles are most relevant to that topic and will rank for that keyword phrase. So yes, Anchor Text is a ranking factor for Google. Besides, Anchor Text is also very important to your users. It clarifies the value of a particular link and tells them where it leads them.

Note: Using target keyword phrases while applying Anchor Text can keep users on your site longer and deliver valuable conversions.

2. Common Types Of Anchor Text

Before jumping right into how to do it, you must understand all types of anchor text to create a “natural” link. I will share with you about 12 popular types of Anchor Text today so that you better understand the definition and how they work and can easily apply them to your articles.

Brand Anchor Text

Any link title with your brand name is a brand anchor text. Attention to the sentence: “At EverRanks, you can raise your SEO skills.” Alternatively: “Come to EverRanks, and you get reputable, quality SEO services. ” Branded Anchor Text is the safest link label if your website is not an exact domain name. To understand its power, refer to the percentage of brand title links in the total number of ways to create quality backlinks of big brands.

E.g.:

• Amazon
• Ahrefs

As you can see, most large websites use Brand Anchor Text because of its ease of use and increased brand awareness.

Anchor Text (Generic Anchors)

Most of you have come across this type of Anchor Text a lot. In this form, we will encounter genres such as:

• “Here”
• “Visit Here”
• “See more”

This is the world’s most popular and most used type of link label today.

Naked Link Anchor text

Naked link anchor text is also known as Anchor Text URL. You need to leave the URL name and link to the website you want. This is the form of a link label that links to your website through the URL.

VD: https://everranks.com/, www.everranks.com, everranks.com

Moreover, Google considers this a safe Anchor Text. This is a small strategy that I see big brands use often. Whether it is on purpose or not, it is a good idea. Go back to the previous “Brand Anchor Text” example image. You can see that these brands all have “no text” anchors. Note: Do not fill in Alt text. Insert the link title into the image. Moreover, I “forgot” to insert a link title inside the blog post title. Both methods have the same effect.

Image Anchor Text (Image Anchors)

I always use Image Anchors in my SEO campaigns because it is an excellent way to diversify the Anchor Text. Some SEOs claim that link labels will not count as images. But in my experience, yes! Replace the image below:

Google uses the “ALT” tag as a link title in an image. If you leave it blank, you will get the link title” noText,” as mentioned above.

Anchor Text Brand + Keyword

This is a great way to stay “safe” to build a natural and diverse list of link titles.

I will use “EverRanks” as my brand; my target keyword is “Professional Website SEO Services.” My brand label + keyword link will be: “EverRanks professional website SEO service. ” Combine your target keyword and your brand name.

Related Anchor Text

LSI (short for Latent Semantic Indexing) refers to related keywords or variations of the main keyword. Therefore, if I were to target “SEO services,” some LSI keywords would be:

• “Professional SEO services”
• “SEO website”
• “Website SEO services”

Finding LSI keywords is very easy. You can use Google’s suggestion tool or Google Keyword Planner. Let me guide you a little to make it easy to understand. Or you can type directly in the search bar about your industry or service, and Google will automatically suggest relevant keywords that users search for.

If you have never heard of LSI keywords or what LSI keywords are or do not know much about this type of keyword. Then do not worry. You can immediately refer to this article: What are LSI Keywords? How to use LSI keywords to increase SEO Traffic.

Anchor Text Partial Match

Partial Match Anchor Text (Partial Match Anchor) is an anchor Text similar to LSI. The most significant difference lies in the fact that you are the one who made it. This link title will differ from the link labels suggested by Google or keywords with high search volume. Here are some examples of the exact keyword “SEO services”:

• “SEO services website quality is reputable.”
• “Learn about reputable SEO services.”

I often use link label partial matching because it is a natural link to another website.

Long Anchor Text

The long link title (at EverRanks, I usually call it link title bullshit) is an extended, more protracted version of a partially matched link label. For example: “EverRanks SEO service is the best and most effective of 2023.” 

See, I see why I called it a crappy link title. Also, Google has a pretty helpful section for you to know questions that customers often search for, such as:

Accurate Anchor Text

Oh, I know you enjoyed this part because it has a lot of influence in boosting your keyword rankings. However, 90% of Vietnamese SEO-ers abuse it, causing Google to penalize it. Example: If “SEO services” were my target keyword phrase, my correct link label would be “SEO services.”

Anchor Text keywords in the field

It is the Anchor Text that says cover or detail of your field, like :

• Increase variety for the link title.
• Help Google understand the area of ​​​​the article you want to cover more deeply.
• Easily SEO tops your target keywords without fear of over-optimization.

3. Why Does Google Like These Anchor Texts?

Simply put, Google is a big fan of relevancy. More related words will make Google love the website even more, especially in this age of Google Rankbrain.

Let me take an example. At EverRanks, when I do SEO this somewhat competitive keyword “SEO services” to both diversify the Anchor Text and help pull this keyword to the top, I used the link labels:

• “Search Engine Optimization.”
• “Digital Marketing__SEO”
• “SEO”

The keyword I need here for SEO ? is “SEO service. ” So the keywords that cover my field are SEO, Digital Marketing, Marketing, and search engine optimization. Moreover, the exact keywords about the field are: Onpage SEO, backlinks, internal links, and what are external links. Anchor Text is synonymous but does not contain SEO keywords. This link title is the Anchor Text, such as “SEO company” or “SEO expert” If you are SEO, the exact keyword is “SEO service.” Because at this point, these link titles are also synonymous but only contain the exact keywords that need SEO, preventing over-optimize from happening and promoting the correct link title.

At the same time, it also helps you SEO thousands of keywords in one article. I will show you how EverRanks has applied link titles in the section below.

4. How Much Anchor Text Density Is Reasonable?

After the release of the Penguin algorithm update, Google has paid more attention to keywords in Anchor Text. Having many links on a web page containing the exact anchor text is easy; Google will suspect and judge your link as unnatural. So how much Anchor Text density is reasonable?

How much link title density is ok? My answer is OPTION!

Yes! For each type of link title, you need to consider its density to escape the penalty of Google Penguin safely.

Remember that: This is what I currently find that works and is safest. You should research and experiment to get the best ratio but stick to this foundation.

Branded Text Anchor + Bare Link Text Anchor (70%)

70%? Why does it take up so much? This is simply what a natural website would do.

Google always wants a reputable and quality brand that provides practical value to users/customers. Not a company that is deliberately manipulating search rankings to reach customers.

The fastest way to see if a website is spam is to look at the link label.

General Anchor Text + Image Anchor Text + No anchor (10%)

Link labels “here,” “no text, “visit website” will make your link label more diverse and increase the safety of your website like never before. Note: Do not always use “here,” “here,” “here,” “here,”… all! Try to diversify your words; I know you are good at English!

LSI + Anchor Text partial match (12-14%)

This is the link title to help google understand your website/article better, promoting the principal and related keywords very quickly.

Anchor Text in the field + Long Anchor Text (1-3%)

As I said, Google is a big fan of link titles that help it better understand your niche.

Moreover, crappy link titles (long link titles) can help increase your link title density.

Anchor Text Accuracy (5 – 8%)

I understand that most of these link titles strongly influence your keyword rankings. But calmly make the right decision. Now your website can still be top with these exact title links over 20, 30%. However, think carefully! “In the same game and everyone is in violation, the one who violates the least will have higher priority.” 

This exact 30% link title can still get to the top.

Correct! In short, most of the areas you SEO are doing, so you can be. Profoundly speaking, Asia’s Google is still far from the Google of Europe and America. Among Google, Southeast Asia, Google is classified as the “dumbest”.

So you can use the link title density of other countries in 2012. But, sooner or later, when Google upgrades, your website will also be swept. That’s why dozens of case studies I share with you still stand despite all kinds of Google updates. Prevention is better than cure.

5. Contextual Link_Build LSI Anchor Text

A contextual link, also known as a contextual link, is a type of link placed in the content of the text through Anchor Text—contextual Links link pages within a website or other web pages. Knowing how to use Contextual links properly will bring you high credibility and popularity with users and search engines.

Why is the contextual link the most effective among all links (menu link, footer link, single link)?

Do not worry because there are too many SEO terms! Contextual links could be more effort to understand.

Because you cannot mass-use anchor text with keywords, you will need a way to make your links relevant (context).

I am not joking when I say this because I have used this co-occurrence technique on numerous projects and the EverRanks case study below.

I always make each of my links relevant, even if it is not using keyword anchor text or even if it is a medium-relevant site for my niche.

So how can you do that? Very simple!

Let the link label revolve around your target keyword. The best link labels always have the closest meaning to the keyword.

However, it is only sometimes possible to do so! Make it natural, and do not try to let too many keywords revolve around your anchor text unnaturally.

Here are three examples for you to understand better:

Anchor Text

Target keyword: “SEO services.”

Link title: “Here”

“If you require an SEO service, take a look here.”

And do not forget or use “here” too much to bore the reader. Diversify your words to create interest and encourage users to click on your link immediately!

Brand Anchor Text

Target keyword: “overall SEO services”

link title: “Overall SEO services”

“EverRanks overall SEO service”

Tips: Understanding Topic Cluster and image SEO methods helps you deploy Anchor Text more efficiently and effectively.

Anchor Text link naked

Target keyword: “SEO services”

Anchor Text: “everranks.com”

“At everranks.com, with SEO services, we will make you elevate your brand”

Using co-occurrence is necessary for any linked title, even the correct one. The greater the article’s relevance to the link title, the stronger your backlink will be. Because Google is completely capable of understanding the relevancy of a link without you throwing hundreds of link titles into its search bot.

6. Strategies For Using Anchor Text

Anchor Text is considered one of the essential factors in the SEO process. Anchor Text not only helps search engines identify the keywords of a page. An article that uses a variety of Anchor texts of the backlink will help SEO get more keywords to the top.

There are five main types of links EverRanks has used.

Social network backlinks

These backlinks are created by creating accounts on major social networking sites and registering backlinks to the landing page, such as Facebook EverRanks.

Creating these social networking sites and letting Anchor Text be the URL, brand, or general anchor will significantly increase the density of Anchor tags and help SEO dominate Google Maps.

Most of these backlinks are nofollow, so it also helps to diversify the dofollow and nofollow density which is very useful.

Backlink forum

These backlinks help Google understand you are trying to be part of a community. EverRanks uses Anchor Text URLs similar to social backlinks when using the forum.

These backlinks help Google understand you are trying to be part of a community.

Blog comment

Similar to types 1 and 2, when I use this link title, I usually insert the link title as a naked link/my name or as a link title in the domain. Check out how I built blog comment backlinks here.

Backlinks from Web 2.0

Like the first three types, I use this type mainly to increase the density of the link label Url, brand, and general link label. Because when these densities account for 50-60%, I usually use these four types of backlinks to increase it while using PBN to go for exact Anchor Text.

Private Blog Network (PBN)

Private Blog Network is the primary method I apply in building super-quality backlinks. These are also the main backlinks strongly influencing EverRanks’ keyword rankings. A small note: If you need help understanding PBN, find out why it is so powerful and understand the part I will discuss next. Because of all the first four backlinks, EverRanks all use Anchor Text as the brand/URL and general link title to increase the density of this title link. 

7. How To Use Anchor Text Effectively In SEO

Using Anchor text effectively in SEO is complex. If you have followed from the beginning of the article, you will see that the use of Anchor Text is quite complicated. Which type of Anchor Text should I choose? How much density is reasonable? Allocation of landing pages appropriately?

Concise anchor text

There is no specific convention on the length of an anchor text. However, keep the link text in the article as short as possible, making the anchor text more natural, user-friendly, and SEO-friendly.

Do not link to malicious websites

You should learn carefully about the website to which you will place the link because Google is stringent in controlling connections. If you, unfortunately, link to one of the malicious websites and share incorrect information, you will not escape a Google penalty. Google will think that you are an “accomplice” of that malicious website because you have indirectly led users to a website with poor content quality.

You need to remove your links to untrustworthy sites immediately, check the site’s Alexa rank, and only link to sites with a score of 100k or less. In force majeure, you must link to a malicious website to add more information to your article, and you can use do not track links. This way, Google can understand that you want it to be independent of your SEO.

Make sure the words used as anchors are relevant to the topic

Always ensure that the anchor text used in the article relates to the topic of the article you are writing. Anchor makes sense regarding links and helps users have a better experience when searching for information. So, Google has used anchors to learn about your website.

Many of you want to diversify your Anchor Text by using random keywords, but you need to ensure that the keyword is relevant to the topic you are writing about; otherwise, it will become clickbait and annoying for users when directed to another page unrelated to what they need.

Pay attention to the surrounding text

After many different updates, Google now pays more attention to natural human language and the context used in the text.

Assuming you are reading a piece of text online using Anchor Text, before deciding to click on Anchor Text, you have read an article of content very carefully.

Google is just like us. Google bots will scan words in whole sentences instead of just scanning Anchor Text. So you should limit repeating the same anchor word even when linking to different websites.

Optimize ALT tags (image content description tags)

ALT tags, when optimized, will have the following benefits:

• Assist blind people in understanding what the content of the image is talking about.
• Help Google bots understand what your idea is about.
• If you know how to take advantage, your image will function like an Anchor Text.

The way to get a reasonable ALT tag is to choose a primary keyword and combine it with a descriptive sentence about the specific image. You must ensure the ALT tag is as descriptive and natural as possible.

8. Frequently Asked Questions About Anchor Text

Here are the frequently asked questions about Anchor Text that EverRanks receives. 

How to create Anchor Text?

To create a link label, you need to memorize a short HTML code:

<a href=”https://everranks.com/”>EverRanks SEO</a>

If you use WordPress, you only need to highlight the text and click the link button in the toolbar. In addition, you should also check out the video that I put below. It will help you better understand how to create Anchor Text! And if you have any questions, leave them in the comment section, and I will answer them.

How Google Works

Google will determine through 4 steps:

1. You build backlinks.
2. Google indexes your backlinks.
3. Google will store these backlinks in your website data.
4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 until Google has enough data for its algorithm to analyze.

Google will “decapitate” you if its data proves you are manipulating search rankings. Assuming you’re doing SEO from “SEO services”:

• Google sees that your article content is talking about SEO services.
• Google sees that out of 100 backlinks pointing to your website, there are more than 40 backlinks with Anchor Text as an “SEO service.”

Honestly, now the kid knows that you’re trying to manipulate the search rankings of the word “SEO services,” shouldn’t Google?

What is Anchor Link?

Anchor Link is a link on a website attached to a text that allows users to redirect somewhere on the same or different webpages. Or, it is a hyperlink that moves you to a new website/URL. In the example link label displayed in the HTML code:

<a href=”https://everranks.com/”>EverRanks SEO</a>, the Anchor Link is https://everranks.com/

Anchor Text is passed when using 301 redirects.

One of the questions I often get asked when I share SEO on Youtube and Facebook is that when 301 redirects website A back to website B, website A’s backlink will point to website B, but will the anchor text be passed? The answer is yes. This means that if you 301 redirect a website with spam Anchor Text, it WILL TRANSFER to your new website. This also means that if you 301 turn on a website that is penalized by Google for over-optimizing the link title, chances are high that your new domain will also suffer.

There are two ways to avoid this:

Method 1: Make sure your new website has a large amount of brand anchor text/URL or generic link title so that you can handle this problem when you hand it over.

Method 2: Create multiple brand/URL or generic title links for the new domain and then transfer it (specifically, you can refer to how EverRanks does below)

I recommend you do it both ways.

Anchor Text and Internal Link

You must consider anchor text when adding a relevant link to your article. By thinking carefully about how and why you link these articles to improve your internal linking structure, you can make it easier for users and search engines to navigate your site.

To get the most out of internal links, try to only add links that provide real value to users. Write helpful anchor text for your readers and keep them on your site longer.

Please do not link to make it relevant and valuable to the user. And, of course, no spam!

Anchor Text and Backlink

Anchor Text will always retain its importance if the backlinks remain effective.

First, you need to distinguish the difference between nofollow and dofollow links.

Regarding HTML, the only difference is that the nofollow link contains extra code. In this example, a nofollow link would look like this:

However, even though it’s small, that code makes a massive difference through Google’s algorithm.

• Nofollow: Tells Google not to consider backlinks when determining SEO value for either page. As of March 1, 2020, Google started using nofollow links as a cue to assess a site’s position in the SERP.
• Paid: Tell Google that this link was obtained through some agreement between you and the publisher.
• UGC (User Generated Content): Tells Google that the user placed the link (and all content) on this page.
• Dofollow: Ask Google to give credit and trust the page you’re linking to, and consider that page when scanning through your links.

Natural Anchor Text và Unnatural Anchor Text

When users click on links to your website, they will inevitably receive lousy, impactful anchor text that does not clearly define your page’s topic. However, just like bare URLs, these appear naturally and go unnoticed by search engines. On the other hand, a lack of apparent URLs that use too much anchor text or many anchor text backlinks from one direction are signs of unnatural anchor text inclusion. Google can penalize your sites if they are spammy and don’t deliver the real benefits users need.

Create helpful content to get Natural Anchor Texts to your website.

By now, you already know what Anchor text is. 

This is everything I know about Anchor Text and the skills I apply in SEO projects. This knowledge will help you achieve excellent top results in the future.