Guide to Anchor Texts

What is anchor text?

Any content or text in the kind of a hyperlink that guides to link when clicked is known as anchor text.

Anchor text can be included by HTML in the given way-

<a href=” https://websitename.com” > my website </a>

With this code, the text “my site” will certainly guide to https://websitename.com. Anchor texts are necessary as long as the concept of backlinks is existing. Before the Google Penguin 2012 upgrade, anchor texts were utilized thoroughly throughout a site. One would use a significant variety of exact match anchor texts and also the web site would still rank.

After the very first Penguin update came across in 2012, the web sites that were adopting unfair means of link structure were targeted. The link profile of the websites was evaluated to find out unfair link building. This could conveniently be done by the anchor text. If you intend to place your site for the keyword phrase “internet marketing firm” and 100% of your backlinks have the anchor text “internet marketing firm” it is obvious that you are attempting to do spamming.

How Penguin Algorithm works-

1. You create a backlink
2. Google will index it
3. Google will place all these links in its database for your website, what is known as a “link profile”
4. Now the Google algorithms analyze this link profile

The link profile is then compared to the on-site keyword optimization of your website. You have full chances of getting a penalty if the website is optimized for “online marketing company” and the maximum number of backlinks are with the same anchor text.

Types of anchor texts

1. Branded anchors

Any anchor text that has business or trademark name as the anchor is branded anchors.

For instance- LinkFire SEO gives best SEO reseller services.

2. Generic anchors

Such anchors are made use of in CTAs or call-to-action texts like “go here”, “go below” or “our website”.

3. Naked link anchors

When an url is used as anchor text, it is a naked link url. For example-

• https://www.linkfireseo.com
• www.linkfireseo.com
• linkfireseo.com

4. Image anchors

You can include a link on the photos on your internet site where the alt tag will certainly be thought about as the anchor text.

5. Brand + Keyword anchors

It is a safe way to develop a natural link profile. For instance, let us take linkfireseo as a brand name and link building as a target keywords. The variants of anchor text will be-.

• linkfireseo Ahrefs.
• Anchor text by linkfireseo.
• linkfireseo web link building solutions.

6. LSI anchors

LSI is a short term that stands for “Latent Semantic Indexing”. It means the different variations that can be used for your keywords. So if the target keyword is SEO, the LSI keywords can be-

• Define SEO
• How to do SEO
• Advantages of SEO

There are many free SEO tools available online, such as the LSIgraph, where you can find quickly your LSI keywords.

7. Partial- Match anchors

These anchor texts are quite similar to the LSI keywords. The big difference is that LSI keywords are generated with tools whereas partial-match keywords can be generated manually.

Some examples can be-

• Link Building Guide
• Guide To link building
• Best article for link building

8. Exact Match Anchors

It is quite clear from the name itself that these anchor texts are the exact keywords for your website. These keywords have the capability to improve your website rank. But if used too much, your site can get many big penalties.

The correct usage percentage of anchor texts

Now that you know the types of anchor texts that you can use, you must also know the idle usage of these keywords. To make sure you do not attract any Google penalties for overuse of keywords, follow the figure given below.

Anchor Text Cycling 

The process of anchor text cycling consists of 4 simple steps-

1. Target your page with an exact match keyword.
2. Then target your website with exact match keywords that are not optimized.
3. Keep a track on website ranks.
4. If necessary, target your website with another exact match keyword.

Follow these steps correctly and you will surely have good content on your website. You will not need a lot of exact match keywords.

Placing Anchor texts

To make sure the assurance of your link building strategies, it is very important to understand where to position your links. Several Search Engine Optimization professionals quit using a platform for link structure once it is decreased the value of by Google. This is wrong.

Platforms such as article directories, web directory sites, as well as a news release,  have been cheapened due to the fact that people started making use of commercial anchor texts to rank their site. Yet these resources are still a wonderful way to send authority to your site till you make use of the right anchor text. We will now go over the various types of backlinks with the anchor texts that need to be used.

1. Editorial links

You get such a type of backlink by placing your web link on content in an all-natural way on a good authority website. These links might take initiatives and also investments to get. Therefore spend only on excellent websites where you can obtain a natural anchor text.

2. Guest posting

Excellent guest blogging websites enable you to put your link on their site. Make sure you select a niche relevant guest posting site. See to it that the anchor text you use is not overly optimized.

3. PBNs (Private Blogging Network)

If you use PBNs to obtain backlinks for your web site, make certain you utilize exact and also partial match anchor texts. Attempt to obtain maximum advantage of the expired domain.

4. Foundational Links

It assists to improve your site authority by making your anchor text profile thinner. The anchor text that you ought to utilize here is naked, top quality, and also generic anchor text. You can make use of the provided platforms to produce fundamental backlinks-

• Profile Links
• Business Directories
• Social Bookmarking
• Blog Commenting
• Forum submissions, and more.

How to recover from a penalty

There are some good backlink strategies that can help you recover from any penalty.

1. Remove links from spam sources

If mistakenly you have put your website link on poor quality and low DA websites with your keyword as anchor text, delete it right away! If deleting is not possible, just disavow them.

2. Anchor text dilution

Make sure you create natural backlinks for your website that are not overly optimized. Make use of branded, generic and naked urls here. The idea is not to use a very keyword rich anchor text. The link building platforms that have been mentioned in the “foundational links” section above can be used for this.

3. Disavow

When nothing works in your favor, this is the only way left. This method is used when your site has been hit with a very Negative SEO or some backlinks are difficult to remove.