We all know by now that quality relevant links pointing to your site is an important ranking factor in search engines. When commencing a link building strategy for your chosen keywords, it is important to consider your anchor text. Anchor text is the visible text that contains the link to a web page e.g SEO. As a user you will know if you click on that link you will go to a page with information about SEO.

Historically people made the mistake of linking up their company name, or a prime example is “to find out more about SEO click here“. This link will work from a usability perspective, but a search engine would not know you want to rank for SEO, although it appears effective, there is no benefit for your rankings.

Use Anchor Text Wisely:

• Keep the user experience in mind with internal linking, make sure the link is relevant and not there for the sake of adding a link.
• Links will only add value if they are related to the page they are on.
• Links within the copy are more valuable than within the footer or another secondary area of the website.
• Vary your anchor text when carrying out external linking. To many incoming links with the same anchor text will shout that you are trying to manipulate rankings!
• Leave a snippit of code on your contact page with your desired anchor text in, that way if someone wants to add a link to your site from theirs, you are getting the most benefit.

As with all ethical SEO practices don’t abuse anchor text, anchor text is an important way of highlighting to search engines what you wish to rank for, and at the same time has help your users understand and navigate your site.