Anchor text has long been one of the major factors when undertaking a link building campaign; let’s make sure we all understand what anchor text is and how to use it.
The anchor text is the wording that hyperlinks one page to another on the web, basically it’s the wording that actually links the page, so if the phrase “anchor text link building” links to a page about a link building, that’s a vote for that page for that phrase to move up the Google rankings.
Google use anchor text to understand what a page is about and if other websites find the page a good useful, relevant source of information or products.
SEO best practises for using anchor text
As Google has grown it has started using more complex metrics to determine its search results, over the years the one factor that has stayed the same in having good relevant inbound links, for Google to understand this relevancy it helps if the anchor text linking to your site hyperlinks using anchor text related to the phrase you wish to rank for.
Let’s use a simple example, say John smith writes a blog about internet marketing, while John is researching internet marketing he reads a very useful article about the best practises when employing a link building company, of course John will wish to share this information, after John has written a sample blog about the page he then hyperlinks to this page saying “great link building company”, John has just voted for another site to move up the Google rankings for “link building company”.
Don’t overbuild on one phrase
Over building on one phrase can cause a Google penalty, naturally, other sites would not always link to you using the same phrase, some sites may hyperlink to you saying “click here”, “more info” or even just your website URL, each link still helps grow your overall site authority.
The best way is to use long tail link building methods, choose related phrases containing your chose anchor text, for example, if you wanted to rank for “anchor text link building” using a phrase like “how to build anchor text links” or “cheap anchor text link building” will not only help rank you for your chosen term but will also help grow the long tail rankings on the site while making sure you link profile looks organically grown.
Where is the hyperlink pointing to?
Just linking to the same page over and over will of course flag up, naturally people will link to different pages on your site so your link building campaign should be diverse, link building through lots of phrases to many different pages within your site will help Google understand there is a wealth of useful information in your site that people want to link too.
Over link building to one page can also cause a small Google penalty.
In Summary
Google need to see lots of different anchor text linking to lots of pages, this will give you a good natural linking profile with the chance to rank for lots of phrases.
For more information about anchor text link building contact our team via the form on the contact page.