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Anchor text

What is an anchor text?

An anchor text is text to which a link is attached. It usually appears in a different color than the surrounding text and is often underlined. Good anchor text tells the reader what to expect when they click on the link. Placing anchor text correctly increases the chances of someone clicking on your link, but it also helps the search engines by giving them more context.

What does an anchor text look like?

An anchor text describes the article linked to a text. Search engines can understand that the link is relevant to the article if the URL and text are related. For example, if you wanted to link to this article you could use the following anchor text: What is an anchor text? So you link to other articles on your page without making it seem unnatural to the reader.

Different types

An anchor text is relevant to both your internal links and your inbound external links. External websites can link to your website through a variety of ways.

  • Branded links: a link with your brand as anchor text, for example: Are Agency.
  • URL: Just the URL of your page without further explanation. Please note, in most cases this method is not very efficient:
    Https://are-agency.be
    .
  • Web site name: written as: Are-agency.be.
  • Article title: the exact name of an article: what is an anchor text?
  • Exact keywords: focus on keyword/search phrase as anchor text.
  • Partially matching keywords: use variations of your main keywords to create a readable link.
  • Related keywords: not an exact match to your keywords, but a keyword that is reasonably related to your main keyword.
  • Generic links: try to avoid links such as click here and read more. Tell visitors what the links are about without making them guess.

What should you pay attention to?

  • Relevance.
  • Don’t spam with anchor texts.
  • Use as few generic links as possible.
  • Don’t stuff your anchor texts too full of keywords.
  • Never mislead your visitors!
  • Use anchor text that looks like links, don’t try to work around this with special designs. Underline and adjust your color if necessary.