What is anchor text?
Anchor text, a link label or title, is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Anchor texts play an important role in search engine optimization (SEO). The words in anchor texts can help determine the ranking a particular page will receive from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Anchor texts provide context to the user and let them know what they will find on a webpage if they click on it.
Anchor texts are usually made up of keywords relevant to the topic being discussed and help give users and search engine crawlers an indication of what to expect when clicking through on a link. When optimized correctly, anchor text can send targeted traffic to specific pages and should be used strategically to maximize SEO efforts.
Best practices in writing anchor text include:
- Make sure the anchor text is relevant to the destination page; it should accurately describe the context of what visitors will find on the landing page. It is important for website accessibility (WCAG) and allows users with disabilities easily navigate the website.
- Use keywords in anchor texts to help search engine crawlers identify and index the webpage, as this can help improve ranking.
- Avoid using generic and ambiguous words such as “click here” or “read more” as anchor texts, as these do not indicate what visitors will find when they click the link.
- Anchor texts should be concise and informative. Try to keep them under 60 characters so they don’t get truncated.
- Anchor text should vary depending on the destination page; avoid overusing identical anchor texts for multiple pages, as this could lead to a penalty from search engines.
- Use natural language in anchor text instead of stuffing your link with exact-match keywords; search engines prefer natural language that flows organically within the content.