Are you an online businessperson? If yes, then you understand the role anchor text plays in SEO. While it is a popular phrase, most internet marketers do not understand what it refers to following Penguin and Hummingbird updates by Google. As such, anchor texts play a vital role in SEO and have a powerful influence on your rankings in search engines.

If utilised well, anchor text can help to improve your site's ranking. But if misused, this can lead to the disappearance of your organic search customers and worst of all; expose you to the danger of being punished by Google.

Anchor Text and the role it plays in SEO

This is a text connecting to another document or location on the web. More understandably, this is a text found in a hyperlink and can be clicked on. A good example of an anchor text is Wikipedia. Attributing to the importance of backlinks in terms of SEO ranking, anchor text is critically vital. Adding an anchor text to your content allows search engines to establish the details of the connected-to page. Prior to the Penguin update in 2012, Google made use of anchor texts to determine the relevance of a certain website. Currently, these texts enable search engines to punish websites for violating their rules including over-optimization and spamming.

Different types of anchor texts

In order for you to successfully optimise your anchor text, you must have clear knowledge on the different types of these texts. This is vital in the sense that it allows you to develop a link profile containing an array of organic anchors. https://www.linksmanagement.com/natural-anchor-text-distribution-formula/ offers you an insight on the various types of anchor texts and how you can optimise them for SEO.

Here are a few examples to help you make out the difference and their role in SEO.

1. Generic anchor texts - Going by the name, these are common anchor texts such as "go here" or "click here". For instance, in this sentence "to get your free eBook, click here," the phrase "click here" is the anchor text in question.

2. Branded anchor texts - These refer to anchors that use the name of the brand as text. This type of anchors is considered the safest except for sites that are an actual match domain. Popular sites and brands such as Moz and Best Buy contain the most number of these kinds of anchor texts.

3. Naked link anchor texts - These refer to anchor texts that backlink to a given site by making use of the URL. Good examples include www.moz.com/ and https://moz.com/

4. Brand +keyword anchor text - Yet another efficient and safer way of creating a powerful anchor profile is by using both brand and keyword anchor texts. This is created by combining the brand name and your keyword selection. An example of such includes "SEO services offered by Moz."

5. Image anchor texts - If you want to expand your anchor profile, image anchor texts are considered the best choice. In any given image, Google regards the "alt" tag as an anchor text and therefore leaving it blank results in a "noText" kind of anchor.

6. LSI anchor texts - This is an acronym for Latent Semantic Indexing referring to different types of your primary keywords commonly known as synonyms. For example, if you target is a flower shop your LSK keywords may include Florist Shop, Flower Shop Online or Florist Online and the like.

7. Partial match anchors - When keywords are partially included in an anchor text, this is considered as a partial match. Such examples include find more info on link building or suitable guidelines for link building and the like.

8. Long tail anchor texts - Save for their length, they are more or less the same as partial match anchor texts. Good examples include these ranking results are due to anchor text and anchor text plays a critical role in link building.

9. Exact match - These are considered as the most crucial type. Apart from helping to enhance your site's ranking, Exact Match anchors are also seen as the reason behind your being punished by Google. This type of anchor texts matches exactly with your target keywords. Thus, if your target keyword is Shopping Online, the anchor text will be Shopping Online.

How to enhance your anchor texts

Well, it is a tricky affair trying to optimise your anchor texts for your site. Over-optimising your anchor text could land you into problems with Google. Below are a few tips to help you improve your anchor text without flouting Google rules.

• Ensure that your anchor texts relate to your content. This is vital when it comes to improving your rankings in search engines
• Be wise when distributing the various types of anchors as doing otherwise could have a negative impact on your site's ranking in search engines.

Bottom line: Having understood what anchor texts are, it is good to ensure that you achieve the most out of them by sticking to the SEO best practices. https://www.linksmanagement.com/natural-anchor-text-distribution-formula/ gives you an opportunity to understand and utilise anchor texts effectively in order to move your website to another great level.