While going through an article online we tend to come across highlightedor underlined text. If the content on the page is a road, then anchor text actslike signboards to the text. It leads to a linked website or resource when clicked. Search engines make use of an algorithm to locate relevant content. When the internal linking is done in relevant places, it indicates to Google that there is a valuable piece of content here. The context as well as relevancy matter. Since the Penguin update, Google takes a closer look at keywords in the anchor text. Optimizing it effectively is therefore very necessary. Hence, our Jacksonville SEO experts have listed out some strategies to help your do so.
Strategies to optimize anchor text for SEO
- L
ink text to relevant sources
The relevancy of the link has more importance than you can fathom. Whena user clicks on a link expecting something relevant but reaches a page that isunrelated, it creates a poor user experience. This reduces traffic to your site and that is definitely not what you want for the future of your website. Searchengines are really concerned about user engagement and irrelevant linking willnot settle well with any search engine.
2. Provide thekeyword link description
While the internal links are being created, you can always takeadvantage of the link description. When hovering over the link, it gives theuser an idea in brief about what they may be clicking on. This has improved user experience benefits as well as the advantage of providing the search engine with greater context. This has SEO benefits for sure. Internal anchor links are helpful but only if used sparingly and relevantly. These optimization techniques are very prevalent according to Jacksonville SEO Company.
3. Avoid using thesame anchor text more than once
Earlier, when SEO was still setting up, one could get away with sendingall their anchor texts in one word. That won't work now but still, it happensmore often than you may realize. Most sites have a balanced anchor text distribution but all their target anchors end up being the exact same word!This could be happening naturally but that probability is quite slim.
4. Utilize thetitle tag as an anchor
Social media optimization recommends that your website uses the SEOtitle tag as an anchor. The SEO title tag is filled out with the typical SEO management plugins and this is what helps determine how the title of the pageis displayed in the SERP result listing. This anchor text is known to occur naturally quite frequently. The biggest advantage of using a title tag as the anchor is when it is optimized correctly. The text should be full of keywords. While referencing, keywords receive a lot of attention and it gives you theadvantage as statistically it is the same common anchor.
5. Make sure theanchor suits the link type
Links originate from multiple categories of sources. People tend to useURL anchors when creating a list of links. Most people use images for sidebarlinks. It is proven that most people don’t know what an alt tag is, they generally leave it blank. This is the reason there are so many empty anchor texts. People use a link with the URL or SEO title tag in forums. With blog comments, mostly a name is used as an anchor.
6. Break up akeyword phrase
If you are stuck in rankings no matter how many links you may throw atit, you may not be able to find a solution immediately. The best possible wayis to break up the keywords. There is no surety why but this always tends to work. Maybe because it looks more natural. An anchor type appearing frequentlyis the combination of Target keywords with URL. This helps reduce the risks of penalty but at the same time sneak in more target anchors.
Optimization of anchor text is a function of niche-specific target anchortext distribution and the URL that is being linked. When the URL has thekeywords in it already, there is less room for sending anchors for the same keywords.
7. Make sure URLanchors vary
The goal while building links on your own is to mimic the anchor textprofile. This is created naturally and the goal is to mimic it in a way whereit seems you aren’t building your own links. This is a reason for creating a diverse profile with various categories which are in accordance with the niche average. Jacksonville SEO Company states that the anchors for links in the body of the article are actually called contextual links, try to describe what they are linking to naturally. Mixing longer phrase anchors every now and then goes a very long way.
8. Use languagethat is user-friendly
In the attempt to rank local terms, people tend to typically createbacklinks with those keywords least realizing how this looks in the article.The SEO’s job is to make it seem as if people are linking to the site on their own accord and not because of the interference of the SEO. It is clear no website will naturally link in this manner.
9. Using synonyms
Along with avoiding over-optimization, the use of synonyms helps inreceiving credit for the keyword. Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is built into Googleto match the synonym in the algorithm. Every time you search for something on Google, it puts the specific work in bold that matches your keywords searched. This occurs every time you use Google to search for something and yet it goes unnoticed. To be smart in internet marketing, whenever you are about to reach the limit of your keyword, try using synonyms instead. It is a proven fact that surrounding the text with adjacent keywords or synonyms is really a goodstrategy. This helps make the content more relevant.
10. Avoid overstuffingkeywords
One very common mistake, according to the Internet Marketing Service is overstuffing the internal anchor text with too many keywords. Simplicity is key. Keeping the text simple and making sure that the sentence containing the link has a flow to it so that it goes a very long way with search engines. Another thing to avoid here is making use of the same words as the URL being linked. While writing the content, you want to make sure to use single keywords along with longer key phrases for the internal anchor text. Google becomes suspicious if too many links contain the same anchor text. This also ensures that the content is relevant across various keywords and phrases. On a website, the most annoying thing can be having a lot of anchor text links in the same sentence. This is one thing you surely want to avoid. Refrain from overdoing the anchor texts even if it is relevant. If the site is structured with sentences packed with anchor text links, first off, it will cause a lot of confusion, and secondly, your site comes across as a spam site to the users as well as the search engines.
Conclusion
There are a lot of misconceptions about the advantage of anchor text. Itisn’t clearly understood to everybody what it actually is. Staying on topic is key formaintaining relevancy and trust in the text. Maintaining a consistent structureof the page is equally important. The best strategy while creating anchor text that helps the SEO is keeping up a varied and unique approach. experts at Jacksonville SEO firm strongly suggests testing and tracking anchor texts. It is definitely a huge task and very time-consuming but tracking your anchor texts is the only way to test the effectiveness of your SEO. Internal anchor texts have proven to be of good use. They can give a better experience to the user and adds SEO benefits to the content on your page. The important catch here is the usage. Anchor texts need to be used sparingly. Making the site more user-friendly should be your first goal. The anchor text should be used in a way engaging the user most effectively. If you plan to spam the user with the internal links, then itsurely won’t be appreciated. Moreover, it is a sure way to get penalized.
The concept of anchor texts is nothing new but that doesn’t mean theyaren’t important. Knowing various types of anchor text is crucial in order tocreate an effective tool to be used for the content on your website. Hopefully, these strategies will help you use relevant anchor texts on your page to make it user-friendly and impactful. Here is a complete guide on howyou can rank efficiently on Google that you can refer boost your overall SEO.
