Not everyone in the online marketing industry is familiar with anchor text links and how it comes to play with search engine optimization. Little do they know that having great internal links with anchor text based on targeted keyword contributes a lot to the overall search engine marketing success of their campaign.
Before we dig deeper on how anchor text links greatly help in ad campaigns, let us first identify it.
Anchor Text refers to the visible words used in a link to direct someone to another website, blog or article. Simply put, this is the visible text of a hyperlink.
How does it work?
Most of us are aware that having links from top ranking sites pointed to your own website is a great contributor to improved page rankings. However, not everyone in the industry is aware of the rapidly increasing importance of having and using relevant anchor text to external links pointing to one's own website. This also applies to a website’s internal links.
To have quality anchor text links that can help boost your search engine page ranking, it is important to do keyword research. This will provide you with a significant list of targeted keywords for all your content contributors.
With this being said, using a keyword tool will not only help you determine the best keywords to use but will also show you the effective keywords used by competitors on the same niche. A great tool like KeywordSpy is just what you need to accomplish this task. With KeywordSpy, the set of keywords that you need is just a click away.
After you have done your research, you are now ready to proceed to the next step - converting your targeted keywords to keyword-rich anchor text.
Avoid vague or misleading text content.
By force of habit, and I've seen this in almost 95% of the articles, websites, and blogs that I have visited and read, most online marketers and bloggers use the phrase “click here” to direct a reader to another page. Most often than not, you'll see words such as “here” or “click here” as anchor text links, on blogs, articles or websites, instead of using relevant keywords.
Here are two examples of anchor text links, if your topic or website is about the keyword research tool KeywordSpy, as the reader sees it:
Click here
Both the anchor text links above will direct you to the KeyworSpy website’s pricing page, however the first example is more formal and respectful to readers, SEO friendly, and relevant.
When you code a link, you should always keep in mind that people click on the anchor text for them to be taken to the page where you want them to be. It is one way of reaching out with respect to readers of information the website owner offers. This is also a favor to the blog or website owners that we are linking with. Who wants to be referred to as “click here” or would want to rank high for the search terms "click here"?
When anchoring text links, always keep in mind that aside from search engines, real people are the primary audience of your links, thus it is important that words used in your anchor text make sense to both readers.
Keyword Relevance and Anchor Text
Keyword-rich anchor text is relevant to having higher rankings in the SERPs as search engines mainly focus on what you have written in your anchor text. The trick is to use the words that you are targeting as keywords in your anchor text links as web spiders use your clickable text to determine relevance and authority as they pursue links from site to site or from post to post.
Let’s take another set of examples to show how to incorporate keyword relevance to anchor text:
1. Here's a typical "click here" anchor text example:
To familiarize yourself with our product, you may sign up for a free trial account by clicking
here.
2. This one is a better example when anchor texting keywords:
To familiarize yourself with our product, you may sign up for a
free trial account.
3. The example below shows an anchor text link using more targeted keywords:
To familiarize yourself with our product, you may sign up for a KeywordSpy free trial account.
Does that sound easy to you? Well, it should be, as the principle behind this type of link is simple. However, it requires a lot of self discipline for you and for the people who contribute content to your website. It could take time to get rid of the habit when you have all gotten used to using lame anchor text keywords such as “click”, “here”, “part 1”, and the likes. Relevant and descriptive keywords are the way to go as they not only improve search engine ranking but also generates more web traffic.
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
It won’t take too much of your time as only a few seconds is needed to incorporate some relevant words in a link. Strategically using these few words could make a lot of difference in terms of relevance, to an SEO’s perspective, and to readers who upon reading your link readily gets an idea where exactly you are trying to direct them.
This is also a way to show respect to a blogger if you are trying to link with him/her. It is highly recommended to maintain your positive relationship with other website owners while at the same time follow sustainable and productive SEO practices.
Nota Bene:
As a final note, for purposes of search engine ranking and search engine optimization (SEO), you have to use only one form of URL Protocol in all of your anchor text links as it basically boils down to consistency in link saturation.
For example, you have to choose either http://keywordspy.com or http://www.keywordspy.com as your anchor text link.
