What is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is clickable text that leads you to another location on the web. In the example below, the blue words are the anchor text. Also included in the image below is the source code. In this code you will see that the linked text is enclosed in an <a> tag which defines an anchor. Next is the “href” or “hypertext reference” (in orange) that specifies the destination link of the text.

Anchor Text Examples

Exact Match

This type of anchor is the exact keyword or phrase that you are trying to rank for in an article.

Ex: “This article discusses the impact of anchor text on SEO.”

Branded

This type of anchor uses the brand name as the anchor.

Ex: “SwiftLeadz connects a live person to your leads in seconds, drastically increasing your conversion rate.”

Naked Link

This type of anchor uses the URL in its “naked” form.

Ex: “SwiftLeadz (http://swiftleadz.com) connects a live person to your leads in seconds, drastically increasing your conversion rate.”

Generic

This type of anchor uses a generic word or phrase. Commonly used terms are “click here”, “this site” or “find it here”.

Ex: “Click here to learn more about the author of this article, Philip Herman”

How Anchor Text Influences Search Engines

Now that we have looked at a few examples of anchor text, let’s talk about their effect on your search engine ranking. Anchor text is very important because the search engines determine the most relevant keywords a web page should be ranking for by its backlinks around the web. For example, if I want my LinkedIn article to rank for “anchor text and SEO” I would make those keywords anchor text leading to my article. If my LinkedIn article appears enough times for this key phrase, it may start to appear in the searches when someone keys in that term.

Keep in mind that there is such a thing as too much. If an excessive amount of a site's links contain the exact same anchor text, the search engines may see it as suspicious and mark it as spam. However, a good SEO understands that you can achieve better results by diversifying the types of anchor texts rather than using the same match type every time.

I hope you feel better in your understanding of anchor text and its effect on your SEO. Let me know if you have any questions or comments in the box below!