Apr

21

Anchor Text Usage and Optimization

Filed Under SEO 

What’s Anchor Text ?

Anchor text is the visible hyperlinked text on the page. Here’s an example:

<a href=http://www.daily-seo.com>Your Anchor Text</a>

Here’s how it looks on the page:

Your Anchor Text

Instead of using only hyperlinks, anchor text is used for linking to other sites, and also for internal linking.  It is a part of natural linking. Let’s use a short paragraph to compare each case:

1. Using regular hyperlinks for linking:

I have purchased a book named Insider’s Guide to SEO which is located here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0875730515/qid=1114100690/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-4269811-0605718?v=glance&s=books&n=507846  I love Amazon and I buy all of my books from Amazon, visit Amazon http://www.amazon.com/ .

2. Using Anchor Text for linking:

I have purchased a book named Insider’s Guide to SEO . I love Amazon and I buy all of my books from Amazon .

Using Target Keywords in Anchor Text

Using anchor texts have several advantages such as; visually it looks good, it’s a natural linking practice, and so on. But most important part is getting maximum profit from Anchor Texts by using your target keywords in it.

With the example above, we have used the book’s name as our anchor text. This anchor text backlink will add value to that specific page on amazon. Instead of using Insider’s Guide to SEO , if we have used check this book , this backlinks would still be valuable for that page, but it would carry its value to the keyword "Book" which is not our target keyword.

So always try to use your keywords in your anchor text.

Anchor Text Variation , Best Practice

We will use an example to explain the importance of anchor text variation .  Your site is ready, and you start submitting to internet directories, how would you proceed about choosing anchor text options.

First choose your main target keyword. Let’s use daily-seo.com as our example.

Our main target keyword is SEO , is it a wise choice to use SEO as anchor text on every backlink ? No, in this case, this action will act against natural linking. You should create combinations of anchor texts, and use different anchor texts for different backlinks. Example:

  • SEO
  • Daily SEO
  • Daily SEO Blog
  • SEO Search Engine Optimization
  • SEO Blog
  • SEO Tutorials
  • SEO News

Always try to use your main keyword as your anchor text for more than 50% of the backlinks.

Comments

One Response to “Anchor Text Usage and Optimization”

  1. Fitzgerald on April 21st, 2005 6:20 pm

    Hey, Matt. Great post and very informative. But you know if you are going to recommend Amazon books you should join their affiliate program (and get paid). Maybe if you stop by my blog http://affilinfo.blogspot.com/ you might see some helpful ideas.

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