Most Effective Practices For Anchor Text Optimization

Anchor texts are hyperlinked, clickable words in any content. Your site’s rankings on search engines will improve remarkably once you start working on anchor text optimization for internal as well as external content.
History of Anchor Texts
Till 2011, companies gained high rankings by utilizing keyword-rich links as anchor texts. In 2012, Google launched the Penguin update, due to which businesses that had exact matching keywords suffer slides in Google rankings. Companies started utilizing anchor text optimization strategies to recover their rankings.
Types of Anchor Texts And Their Usage
Zero/basic/generic/un-optimized

1. Phrases that are not related to the content in any way such as click here go here, check this website.
2. They add no SEO value to your content
3. These are most suitable for use in sites that need zero anchors like paid and traditional directories, profile links and press releases.

click here to buy shoes.
Naked

• URL links such as https://www.website.com
• They are easily noticeable and interrupt users
• These are not optimal

com

• Anchors like com
• Shorter and reader friendlier than naked links
• They are not optimal.

Exact match/aggressive/money anchors

• Anchors that utilize exact match keywords that you are trying to rank for
• These are popular and effective, but risky
• They should be used occasionally in Google Ads, for guest posting in high domain sites or while linking to high-value exact match resources

buy shoes
Partial match

• These are variations of exact match keywords
• They look more natural than exact match anchors
• To ensure easy Google crawling, surround these with primary keywords

buy shoes online
Diversified/LSI(Latent Semantic Indexing)

• Keywords which are semantically related to a topic. Words that people are likely to search for, related to a keyword.
• For example, a keyword such as shoes might have LSI keywords such as boots, high heels and boots
• Handy for creating authoritative content which passes natural language processing

buy stilettos for women
Long-tail

• Three to four-word phrases which are very specific to the product you are offering
• For instance, where to buy shoes online
• Useful for targeting specific consumers but have a lower reach

where to buy shoes online
Branded

• Utilize brand names
• Effective

Company Name
Keyword+brand name

• Combine keyword and brand name
• Many might pass off as money keywords and are therefore risky
• Use occasionally

Stilettos by Company Name
No text

• Images with no alt text
• Doesnot help SEO as it cannot be ready by Google. But if linked to your site, they can help to create a diversified backlinks profile

Blog post title

•  Utilize the exact blog post title of the article that you want to link to
• Useful

Ten Tips to Choose Comfortable Stilettos
Suggesting search options

• Utilize Google’s suggested options for a specific keyword
• Effective since search options might include useful LSI keywords

Effective practices for optimization for better SEO results

• Verify the existing link profile using tools such as Ahrefs backlink checker
• Check the SEO value of anchor texts by utilizing anchor tet distribution tools such as Search Engine Reports
• Remove toxic links and fix over-optimized anchor texts
• Vary the anchor texts that you have
• Use anchor text naturally which add value and doesnot confuse readers
• Link with high-quality sites and avoid toxic sites
• Write quality guest posts on websites with high authority blogs
• Follow anchor text strategies of competitors that have the same domain and page authority
• Don’t copy anchor text strategies from very high domain websites since they have gained trust over the years and may get away with many exact matching keywords

This infographic shares details on anchor text optimization practices which you can use to improve the website ranking.

Infographic Source: https://www.pagetraffic.com/blog/anchor-text-seo-optimization/