Anchor Texts are very important as far as SEO is concerned. Anchor Text refers to the text or words used in a hyper link which are click-able and lead to another page on the web when clicked by a user. Anchor text is very useful for both the users as well as for the Search Engines. A relevant text link encourages the user to click on the link to find more information of what he or she might be looking for, or continue to a page where they could perform an action, like make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter etc.
The basic purpose of an Anchor Text is to help the users as well as the Search Engine Spiders find related pages which they can follow and get more information from. An example HTML code which you can add to your page to create a hyperlink is given below:
<a href=”http://www.websitename.com”>Anchor Text here</a>
Anchor Text is also known as Link Text in SEO. On a webpage, a hyperlink is by default displayed a little differently than the normal text on the webpage. In most cases, it is highlighted by an underline, and is blue in color. This makes the links to stand out on a page, and the users are able to identify them and click on them easily. The style of hyperlinks can also be controlled with the help of CSS Style sheets.
Anchor Texts and SEO
When linking web pages by using Anchor Texts, it is essential that appropriate keywords are used as the Anchor Text to give more importance to the link, instead of meaningless keywords like “click here” or “more information”.
For Search Engine Optimization purposes, if you plan to link to a page of “blue widgets”, then a sentence such as “Find out more information about blue widgets”, should use “blue widgets” as the linked anchor text or hyperlink instead of “more information”. Using related Keywords as Anchor Texts gives an idea to the Search Engines about the theme of the linked page. Using your main keywords in the anchor texts of incoming links to your web page will help your page rank high on the search engines for that keyword. This rule applies to both internal links from your website to the desired webpage, as well as from external links coming to that webpage from different websites and web pages on the web.
Controlling the Anchor Text of incoming links can be a difficult task, as you can never have direct control on what other websites are saying about you. But changing internal links on your website is something which can be done easily. Also, incoming links can be controlled by a webmaster, by starting a links campaign which focuses on building links to a webpage of the site using appropriate anchor texts. Webmasters and website owners can communicate with the linking site and ask them to link to the webpage with appropriate anchor texts. All of this comes as part of the off-site optimization and link building tips, which are discussed in the link building section.
Tips for Anchor Texts
When you get links for a website or webpage, there are certain points which you should consider, which can help your site or webpage rank high on the search engines. Tips for anchor texts are given below:
- Use your target keywords as Anchor Texts instead of phrases like “click here”
- Improve Internal Linking of your website pages by adding in-text links in the content, using keywords as anchor text
- Use relevant keywords in the anchor texts to tell the readers and search engines of what information they will find on the page
Benefits of Internal Linking
Internal Linking is a very important factor for any website as it helps the website pages to be inter linked together, which provides ease of navigation to the user and also helps in proper indexing of the website.
Internal links in the content body of a website help build the internal link structure of a website. Using long tail keywords as anchor texts for inner and deep pages helps improve rankings for those long tail keywords in the SERPs, as competition for long tail keywords is low. Proper internal linking of the website helps the search engine spiders index deep pages of the site easily, and also help the users to land on the page by following the links which the inner pages have received from other important pages of the site.
Use of a website navigation and footer also helps improve internal linking of a website. It provides ease to the users and website visitors to browse around the website, like for example a link to the home page of the website from every page of the site from the footer or navigation will help the user click on it and land on the website home page easily. Proper anchor texts should be used for linking the inner pages a site together as it plays a major role in the search engine optimization of a website.
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