Anchor Text: What is Anchor Text and Why it’s Important in Website Design and SEO
Anchor Texts is considered to be one of the important factors for increasing your search engine ranking in Google. The content and words you choose do matter and it does affect the websites Google Search Ranking. Anchor text are the words used to describe a link or download.
Here is an example of anchor text: SEO and Website Design Company. The link goes to the homepage of this website. The words used to describe the link are “SEO and Website Design Company”. This tells the user what to expect if they were to click that link. It also describes the link to Google, who collects that information inside of their databases and helps the targeted website to rank for those keywords.
Mostly, anchor texts link to web pages. At times they do however link the initiation of downloads. These types of link can lead to things like documents. They can be PDFs or Zipped files any other file types you may find online. This is one reason why experts suggest on clicking anchors from those sites that can be trusted.
Sometimes anchor text is used to conceal the true document or link it is attached to. This can lead to a crazy amount of pop ups or even malware or viruses contained in downloads. Sometimes your mouse can help you see the true path of such links. Simply hover over the link and a small popup window will show you its destination. Do not click it unless you are sure about it and the URL is legitimate.
Anchor texts: How to Use Them Properly.
- Anchor text inform the reader what to expect before they click on the link. Anchor text or words are considered to be information on what is to be found on other side of the link. They are to be considered as highly important in both reader interaction and SEO.
- Googles Algorithm is notified on the type of content that is used. The algorithm makes it a point in checking if you are involved in spam content or unsecured documents or websites. It also understands if the anchor text seems to describe the link well, and that can lead to the targeted websites ability to rank for those exact keywords.
SEO and Keywords in Anchor Text
Google uses keywords to understand websites. Web pages can have an improved ranking when anchor text is used properly. Per Google, anchor text should provide descriptions in objective format of the link and align with the pages meta data.
It is best when the anchor text comes from a third party, such as CNN describing and linking to your website because of a recent news story. This carries that third party domain authority to your site and helps with your websites overall credibility.
Google also states that anchor text provides help to its search engine algorithm by making crawling pieces of content that otherwise cannot be indexed within its search results. Some of these content types include:
- Programs
- Databases
- Images
- Applications
- Documents
It is to be noted that anchor text does play an important role in rankings in search engines for n a large scale.
Anchor Text for Optimization in SEO
For optimizing anchor text, Google uses best practices which may not involve their algorithm being used in your favor. Instead of just of reading the Google text as stated, Googles web crawlers scan and look at the nearby words and sentences to see how well they match up. That is why optimizing the use of anchors should involve the use of better user experience and not to conceal the actual links purpose.
In the case you link to a website that spreads wrong information or misleads people, you could get penalized by Google. You could have good intentions, but if the site is not authoritative – the link can create a bad reputation for you and affect your websites reputation. You need to link to websites as a mark of reference. You can even also put a “no follow” link, meaning that you do not support or endorse this site and you do not wish to be counted for SEO by Google. You can find these types of links commonly used in blogs comment areas.
Anchor text and Using Relevant Keywords
The use of relevant keywords is important. You need to make sure that right anchors are used to relate to the topic. Choose your anchor text carefully. You should also have your links using different sets of good, relevant keywords to maximize your exposure with Google. Google uses information from anchors to better understand web page content. The importance of it is so that they can be used for ranking keywords in the right way. You need to pick those anchors that provide sense and information for the link and create a positive and credible information for the readers of the blog or website they are created on.
Another way to use anchor text is to link your readers to other pages within your own site. These can be references to your websites other content or to advertise a special you are running. SEO experts agree that this type of use of anchor text is invaluable to a websites authority. It also engages your users and keeps them on your website longer, creating more credibility to your users. Google ranks the time spent on your website as well so what’s good for your users, is good for your ranking.
To conclude, the use of anchor text is important for improving the health of your websites overall SEO. Anchor words helps Google to learn when websites are used for the operation of spam and which are used legitimately.
Anchor text or links provide information for readers on where to get the described anchor text information and what to expect on the other side of the links that are available within your content. When used properly, anchor text is SEO gold. They are the best way to create backlinks and you should start using them today.
