There’s a lot of conflicting information about anchor text out there.
One site tells you to focus as heavily on your keywords as you can.
Another tells you to stay as far away from any kind of anchor text and backlinks as possible.
And another says anchor text doesn’t matter.
What are you supposed to believe?
Knowing what anchor text can improve your SEO strategy isn’t always easy – especially when you have a dozen conflicting messages trying to tell you what to do.
But in 2018, it’s essential to optimize your anchor text to attract more attention from search engines.
To help you out, let’s start from the very beginning.
Here’s what anchor text is, how it helps (or hurts) SEO, and what you can do to keep it optimized.
What is anchor text?
Anchor text is the clickable words that appear in place of a hyperlink.
For example, this is anchor text.
Anchor text allows you to add links within your content contextually. It also gives readers – and search engines – a better indication of what they’ll find on the other side of the link.
The anchor text usually relates back to keywords associated with the contents of the link.
However, not all anchor text is created equally.
Let’s take a look at the different kinds of anchor text you might find online.
Exact Match
An exact match anchor text is when the anchor text directly matches the words or phrases associated with the link’s contents.
Here’s an example of anchor text within an article.
If the writer was hoping to target the keyword “chatbots,” this would be an exact match.
Partial Match
A partial anchor text match appears when your targeted keyword is within the anchor text, but it’s not an exact match.
Check out this example.
Say the marketer’s targeted keyword was “guest posting.”
Using “a series on guest posting” is not an exact match, but it does still include the keyword.
This means it’s still targeting the keyword you’re trying to rank for, but it seems more natural.
Branded
Branded anchor text is when the anchor text features the company or individual’s name.
Here’s an example.
This type of anchor text is frequently used when you’re linking to a company’s homepage.
Generic
Usually, anchor text is somewhat hidden within the content.
However, generic anchor text typically stands out and is obviously a link.
Here’s an example.
This kind of anchor text usually associates with a call to action.
Generic anchor text is also sometimes called “natural” anchor text.
Images
Images can also be anchor text.
This text occurs when you click on an image, and it brings you through to a link.
However, the actual anchor text associated with the image is the alt text that you include.
LSI Keywords
LSI keywords, or Latent Semantic Indexing keywords, are words or phrases that closely associate with the keywords you’re trying to target.
These might be different names for the same principle or product, or other keywords closely related.
Here’s an example.
The keyword “micro-influencers” is related to influencer marketing, without being a partial match.
Blog Title/Post Title
When the name of the anchor text you’re linking to is the full name of the blog title, page title, or content title, this is simply called Post Title anchor text.
Check out this example.
Like the example, this kind of anchor text usually appears when marketing a course, referencing a specific blog post, or showing off a page.
Naked URLs
A naked URL doesn’t have any anchor text at all.
Instead, it’s just a link to a page featured on your site.
Naked URLs may contain the “www” or might just be “Domain.com.”
Here’s an example from Sprout Social.
The anchor text for this link is the link itself.
This can still appeal to keywords because subdomains typically include keywords.
They can also appeal to branded keywords, including the company name in the domain.
How does anchor text influence SEO?
Anchor text helps search engine crawlers and readers identify what the contents of the link contain.
As more and more websites link to a particular page with various forms of anchor text, the search engine can begin to get a better idea of what kind of content the site provides.
In a way, anchor text is like a keyword that others use to describe your content.
However, it isn’t simple enough to just use anchor text directly associated with the keyword you’re trying to rank for.
In the past, Google relied heavily on anchor text.
Unfortunately, this allowed marketers, writers, and webmasters to do something called “Google Bombing.”
This led to pages ranking for keywords that weren’t related to the content that was appearing.
The most famous example of this is in 2007 when a search for “miserable failure” would result in articles about President George Bush.
In fact, now when you search “miserable failure,” you get results about the Google Bomb.
Google responded to this error in anchor text with the Penguin Update, which they launched in 2012.
Like most updates, the search engine released Penguin to help identify spammy listings and remove them from their rankings.
There are two particular triggers for Penguin.
First, links that seem to be purchased, resulting in a number of similar links appearing on low-quality websites around the same time.
Second, links that appear to use keyword stuffing.
This stuffing means that if your anchor text matches your keywords too directly, it could penalize you.
Julie Joyce from LinkFishMedia described anchor text’s importance to SEO by saying, “A site that has 75% exact match anchors has to look unnatural… when I overdo it and it works, it doesn’t stick.”
The idea is that if a website is linking to your content naturally, it will use a more diverse keyword phrase.
While keyword stuffing may help you get results quickly, any change in ranking will only be wiped away when Google discovers this strategy.
So, if you can’t link to the keywords that you’re trying to target, how should you use anchor text to improve your SEO?
Let’s take a look.
How to optimize anchor text for SEO in 2018?
When trying to control your anchor text, there is one thing you want to keep in mind – relevance.
To show Google that your anchor text and link is not black-hat, you need to prove it’s natural – even if it is strategic.
Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
1. Only include links when anchor text fits naturally.
One of the biggest reasons Penguin was first introduced was to stop website owners from adding anchor text just for SEO purposes.
This means they’re on high alert for anchor text that doesn’t seem like it fits.
With the Penguin Update, sites who over-optimized their anchor text saw severe penalties that hurt their web traffic.
To avoid this, you want each anchor text you include to fit naturally within the content.
For anchor text to be SEO friendly, it should be succinct and relevant.
You want your anchor text to describe the contents of the link as accurately as possible in as few words as possible.
Here’s how:
Using the anchor text “start a blog” then links directly to a page about how to start a blog.
It’s direct, to the point, and only features three words.
However, you also want to avoid using an exact match to your keyword as often as possible.
Are you confused?
You don’t have to be.
When trying to decide what to use for anchor text, consider what part of your sentence might spark your reader’s interest the most.
For example, if there is a statistic in your sentence, this would be a great place to include your anchor text.
Check out this example from a Kissmetrics article.
Both readers and search engine will know you’re linking back to that site because it backs up your claim – not because you’re trying to stuff results for that keyword.
The same idea applies to quotes.
As mentioned, anchor text should be direct and to the point.
If you’re linking to an entire quote, this is usually much too long for anchor text.
Instead, make your anchor text the individual’s name or the resource you pulled the quote from like Oro Inc does on this blog.
Here, we have two bits of anchor text.
First, her name is anchor text pointing the reader to her Twitter. Second, there is anchor text pushing the reader to Kate’s blog.
Again, this can show that you’re using that link to support your data or claims.
Relevance is also crucial for anchor text and links.
First, the anchor text you choose to display on your website will influence what Google believes your page is about.
While it’s okay to have a few links that may seem out of context to a search engine, you want most of your anchor text to be within your industry.
If you’re in the finance industry and all of a sudden you have anchor text about baking cakes, this might be a red flag to Google and Penguin.
When adding links and anchor text, first think if it is necessary.
Does it provide value and help make your argument stronger?
Or are you just trying to squeeze in another link to meet some imaginary quota?
Don’t add links just for the purpose of adding links.
Instead, work links into your content as naturally as possible.
2. Make sure you diversify your types of anchor text.
Anchor text variation might be one of the most significant factors when it comes to using links for SEO.
When all your links are one style, this could cause a red flag.
For example, if the only anchor text you use throughout your entire website is exact match keywords, it might seem like you’re not putting genuine thought into what you’re linking to.
A natural link profile will include many different kinds of links.
Let’s take a look at what you want your optimal anchor text profile to look like.
It’s essential to begin by saying that an anchor text profile should look different depending on if you’re a national or local website.
Your homepage and internal pages of a website will also look different.
Let’s cover a national page first.
Serpstat recommends you break down your anchor text distribution like this.
The majority of your anchor text should be branded.
In fact, over half of your anchor text should be branded. This includes anchor text that is branded with a keyword.
You should also notice that exact match anchors are incredibly small.
In fact, you only want exact match anchors to make up about 1% of your entire link distribution.
A partial match should only be about 2%.
Maybe surprisingly, naked links should also make up a sizeable chunk of your link distribution.
Now, let’s take a look at how your sub-pages should compare.
SEOJet breaks down a website sub-page link distribution like this.
Notice how branded anchor text is much, much smaller than the homepage portion.
For sub-pages, “page title” anchor text had a significant influence on top ranking pages.
This influence typically occurs because page titles usually include the keywords you’re targeting, but they aren’t seen as “exact match” anchor text.
This allows you to easily target keywords within your anchor text without penalties for seeming unnatural.
But you’ll also see that “exact match” keywords are used much more frequently within sub-pages than they are on homepages.
Now, let’s compare this to a local homepage anchor text profile.
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/anchor-text-seo/
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