Anchor text is the term used to describe the “clickable” text in a hyperlink. Clicking anchor text takes the user straight to the linked page or document. Anchor text is clearly differentiated from the surrounding text, often by underlining or different colored text.
Anchor text is an important part of SEO and digital marketing. Anchor text is used to “anchor” the links that organize your site and send visitors to it. Used well, anchor text helps both people and Google understand where each link goes. This article provides a brief definition of SEO and continues with an in-depth discussion of the use of anchor text, with an emphasis on creating backlinks.
SEO – A Brief Definition
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an important component of digital marketing that focuses on bringing organic traffic to your site. SEO best practices help you create content that earns organic (unpaid) search traffic.
The primary objective of SEO is to convince search engines like Google to recommend your content as the best solution to their problem or the best answer to their question.
Google handles most searches on both desktop and mobile. When a user asks a question, Google attempts to offer the answer. When a user needs to solve a problem, Google attempts to offer the solution.
SERPs (search engine results pages) are the lists of results Google shows for a search. Your content’s position on a results page is its ranking. SEO is how you work toward a higher ranking without paying for ads.
What is anchor text?
Anchor text is the clickable words in a link, and Google uses those words as a clue about what the linked page is about.
When a user types this query: “What is anchor text?” the SERPs that Google returns are influenced by the use of the words “anchor text” in the links on the sites displayed. Anchor text meaning encompasses much more than the “clickable” words used as text to link to another document or location.
What is anchor text in digital marketing?
As previously noted, SEO is a critical component of digital marketing. A good answer to “What is anchor text in digital marketing?” is that anchor text is a commonly neglected but powerful SEO tool that can help your site achieve higher rankings in SERPs.
Google sees links as important sources of information. Internal and external links are part of the criteria that search engines use to determine whether your company can provide a solution to a user’s problem, or answer a user’s question. The anchor text used for your links is an important part of Google’s ranking criteria.
Internal vs. External Links: External links point from one domain to an entirely separate domain. Internal links only point within your own specific website or domain.
How to Create Anchor Text for Internal Links
Internal links are links to another page of one domain. Google uses internal links to find and organize the information on your company’s site. Help Google find your pages by linking to them from your homepage and your sitemap. Linking this way helps both Google and visitors find information on your site. Internal links from your homepage also pass some of its authority to the pages they point to.
Both Google and users will be confused if you use the same keyword to link to different pages. A website in which every anchor text has the keyword “chocolate” will be impossible to navigate. In this case, chocolate would be easier for everyone to find if the keyword “chocolate” was taken out of the anchor text.
A note: if you link to the same page more than once from one page, make every link’s anchor text clear on its own. Google has not published how it weighs repeat links, so don’t count on the second link to add anything.
If you sell men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, your anchor text might look like this:
- Link from your site’s homepage and sitemap to pages with clothing for men, women, and children.
- Link from each of these pages and the sitemap to the pages with various types of clothing, such as tops, bottoms and footwear.
The clothing example is simple, but the idea holds: use plain descriptions as anchor text when you build your site’s structure. Google needs all of this information in order to index your site and determine its relevance.
Using keywords as anchor text might help your site be more easily indexed, but be cautious. Avoid repeating the same keyword and pay attention to your anchor text ratio. Google’s own link guidance says that if you are forcing keywords into anchor text, it is probably too much, and keyword stuffing breaks Google’s spam policies. Here’s an example of keyword stuffing:
How To Create Anchor Text for External Links
External links are both links from your site to another site and links from another site to your site. Both types of external links are important sources of information to Google and to users.
When linking to another site, link only to trustworthy and reliable sources of information. The document or site you link to should provide value to your customers.
Anchor text should be relevant to your page and the page you link to. For example, if you are quoting and linking to definitions, use the source of the definitions as anchor text. For example:
Be sure to link to the page you are referencing, not the site’s homepage. Linking to the exact page matters in every area of your site, including your blog. Google determines and ranks the relevance and credibility of all your target links.
Backlinks
The external links that influence your ranking the most are backlinks from other sites to yours. When reliable, relevant sites link to yours, they pass authority to your site, which can help your ranking. Links from sites that are not credible or relevant to the linked page can hurt your site instead.
The natural way to get backlinks is to earn them by standing out as trustworthy, relevant, and reliable. Here are some honest ways to earn high-quality backlinks:
- Listings in reputable local and industry directories (skip low-quality link directories)
- Useful, niche-specific blog posts and guides that other sites want to cite
- Original data, photos or tools that journalists and bloggers can reference
- Profiles on real business platforms you actually use, such as your Google Business Profile
- Local news coverage and community events
- Industry associations and local groups you belong to
- Real partners and suppliers who list the businesses they work with
Google’s spam policies treat forum comments or signatures with optimized links, low-quality directory links, and paid links (including sponsorships or donations made to get a link) as link spam, unless the paid links are marked rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”. Skip those tactics.
Backlinks are weighed by their relevance to your industry and the reliability of the linking site. The anchor text other sites use when they link to you is one of the clues Google reads about your page.
Be careful in using exact keyword match anchor text when creating backlinks. Using too many keywords can cause Google to suspect spamming and lower your site’s ranking.
FACT: In an Ahrefs study of its page index, only 2,997 of about 20 million pages with no linking websites got more than 1,000 search visits a month. The same study found a clear link between the number of websites linking to a page and its search traffic, though a correlation alone does not prove backlinks cause higher rankings.
What are the types of anchor text?
The main types of anchor text are branded, generic, naked URL, image, keyword variation, brand plus keyword, partial match and exact match.
SEO best practice is to vary anchor text for all links. Here are some different types of anchor text that can be used for both internal links and backlinks.
- Branded
- Generic
- Naked
- Image
- Keyword Variations
- Brand plus Keyword
- Partial Match
- Exact Match
Branded:
Branded anchor text is a good way to backlink to your site. If your brand name is “Elysium Properties,” use “Elysium Properties” as anchor text.
- An example of using a brand name as anchor text is: “You can find your home at Elysium Properties.”
Generic:
Generic anchor text is generally a call-to-action (CTA). Examples of CTAs used as anchor text are: “click here”, “here”, and “this website”. Here is an example of a CTA link:
Naked:
Naked anchor text uses a raw URL as the clickable text. Sites often link this way when they mention your business in a list of resources or in an email signature.
Naked anchor text in an email signature might look like this:
Jason Alexander
jasonalexander.com
Image:
When an image is a link, Google uses the image’s ALT text (the written description in the image code) as the anchor text. A useful infographic that other sites share, with a link back to your site, is one way to earn image backlinks. Infographics are successful in marketing because they simplify data and make it easier to understand and retain. Here is an example of ALT text:
Google uses ALT text to understand an image. When using an image, be sure to write the ALT text in a way that both describes the image and is relevant to the content on the page. Careful ALT text helps Google understand both the image and the page it links to.
Keyword Variations:
Using different variations of a target keyword can diversify your anchor text and drive relevant traffic to your site. Some examples using the keyword “anchor text” are:
- Learn more about anchor text.
- What is the anchor text ratio?
Brand plus Keyword:
Brand plus keyword anchor text pairs your business name with a word that describes what you offer. Sites often use this type naturally when they mention your business in a review, a local guide or a news story.
A link with anchor text using the brand “Genevieve” with the target keyword “snack” might look like this:
- “Find your favorite snack at Genevieve fine foods.”
Partial Match:
Partial match anchor text is similar to keyword variation. The difference is that you are adding phrases around your target keyword. The phrases you use should be generic. An example of a partial match anchor text using the keyword “lawnmower”:
- “You can learn more about this great lawnmower at HomeSaver.com.”
Exact Match:
Exact match anchor text uses only your target keyword as the clickable words. Google’s spam policies list keyword-rich anchor text in paid or mass-produced links as link spam, so use exact match anchor text less often than the other types. Using exact match anchor text, the above example with the keyword “lawnmower” would look like this:
- “You can learn more about this great lawnmower at HomeSaver.com.”
What is Anchor Text Ratio?
Anchor text ratio is the term used to describe the distribution of various types of anchor text used in links. Here’s a graphic from moz for reference:
The best way to find a niche-specific anchor text ratio is to use an SEO marketing tool to analyze the anchor text of the top SERPs in your niche. Google does not publish an ideal anchor text ratio, so treat the patterns below as rough guides, not targets.
Homepage:
As far as Google is concerned, your homepage is important for brand building. Google interprets backlinks to your homepage as confidence in your brand’s reliability and trustworthiness.
Most backlinks to a homepage naturally use your brand name, your URL or generic words. A smaller share use keyword variations, brand plus keyword or partial matches, and very few use exact match keywords.
- Most: Branded, Naked, Generic
- Some: Keyword variations, Brand plus keyword, Partial match
- Very few: Exact Match
Inner Pages:
Google learns about inner pages through backlink anchor text as well as internal anchor text. A good breakdown of backlink anchor text ratio for an inner page places a bit of extra emphasis on descriptive words.
Backlinks to an inner page more often describe what the page covers, so keyword variations, brand plus keyword and partial matches tend to make up a bigger share than they do for a homepage. Exact match anchor text should still be rare.
- A large share: Branded, Naked, Generic
- A bigger share than on a homepage: Keyword variations, Brand plus keyword, Partial match
- Rare: Exact Match
Overall:
For many small businesses, most backlinks point to the homepage, because that is the page other sites mention when they talk about the business. Your homepage is also where visitors get an overview of your business and what you offer. There is no official target share, so focus on earning links to whichever pages are most useful.
Using Images as Anchor Text
When using an image as anchor text, write your image’s ALT as you would any anchor text. Be sure you write it in the type of anchor text you wish to use while keeping it descriptive and informative.
An example of the ALT on an infographic about chocolate chip cookie recipe is seen below. You’ll see the good alt text vs. the not-so-good:
Anchor Text html
Simple anchor text html consists of three basic parts:
- Anchor Tags: a, /a
- Hyperlink Target Destination: href=”destination name.domain”
- Anchor Text: “anchor text example”
If you would like to learn about html coding or anchor text html in particular, HTML.COM offers html coding for beginners and examples of html coding for anchors.
How can diib help you fine-tune your anchor text?
The meaning to anchor text and how to correctly use it can be confusing. diib tracks your backlinks and their anchor text, and flags changes you may want to act on. Some of the other features in diib are:
- Bounce rate monitoring and fix recommendations
- Broken pages where you have backlinks (404 checker)
- Keyword, backlink and anchor text monitoring and tracking tools
- Core Web Vitals monitoring
Get a free 60 second site scan.
FAQ’s
Anchor text is set when you create a link. In most website editors, you highlight the words you want people to click, choose the link option and paste the address of the page you are linking to. In HTML (the code behind web pages), the clickable words sit between the opening and closing anchor tags.
A URL anchor is the part of a web address that starts with a # sign and sends the reader to a specific section of a page, such as #chapter3. The section’s heading carries a matching id, so clicking the link scrolls straight to it. The “In this article” menu on this page works this way.
An empty anchor is a link with no clickable text, either because the text was left out or because the link wraps an image. When an image is a link, Google uses the image’s ALT text as the anchor text. A link with no text and no ALT text tells people and Google nothing about the linked page.
Anchor text ratio is the mix of anchor text types, such as branded, generic, naked URL and exact match, in the links pointing to a page. Google does not publish an ideal ratio. Most natural backlinks to a homepage use your brand name, URL or generic words, and exact match anchor text should be rare.
Exact match anchor text uses only your target keyword as the clickable words, and it still tells Google what a page is about. Overusing it is risky, because Google’s spam policies list keyword-rich anchor text in paid or mass-produced links as link spam. Use your brand name and descriptive variations more often than exact match.
