Improve Interlinking With 12 Types of Anchor Text

Link building and interlinking as been the foundation of SEO since day one. It can be one of the hardest tasks to pull off depending on your niche but also one of the most rewarding when done correctly. Improving linking can give your site a welcomed organic boost and is always one of my first tasks when looking at a new client site. I would always start with checking their link profile, removing poor quality links, looking for link opportunities, salvaging broken links and a lot more. When link building and interlinking is done correctly passing on link juice throughout a site it not only makes Google bots and Bing Bots happy but improves your user experience.

What are anchor links?

An anchor link is a link on a page that takes you to a specific place on that page. Anchor links can be helpful when you want to direct a website visitor to a specific spot on a page, a specific page or file download.

Keeping a good mix of links

While anchor text may seem simple and straight forward, small optimisation strategies like varying your link types can give you huge rewards and give you a competitive advantage. Using a mix of anchor text links internally and externally allows you to optimise better for semantic search, optimising different search behaviours and stages in the users search cycle, improving not only reach first-time visitors but encouraging repeat visits. To help you vary your links and build a solid anchor linking strategy we put together the 12 anchor types you should be using on your site.

Types of anchor links

1. Keywords:

You already know this one. It’s the phrase you are trying to rank for on any given page.

2. Keywords plus:

This anchor text contains one of your keywords but also some other text with it (i.e. “try this SEO software”).

3. Brand:

The anchor text is just your brand name (i.e. Coca-Cola).

4. Brand plus keyword:

The anchor text is your brand name with a keyword (i.e. “used cars from Autotrader”).

5. Partial keyword:

The anchor text contains a part of your full key phrase you’re trying to rank for (i.e. “try this software”).

6. Full URL:

The anchor text is literally the URL the link is pointing to.

7. WebsiteName.com:

The anchor text is the URL written as “YourWebsite.com.” 8.

Home URL:

The anchor text is the home page URL even if the link is pointing to a sub-page.

9. URL with www’s:

The anchor text is the full URL without http:// (i.e. www.searchenginejournal.com/subpage).

10. No text:

This is an image link with no alt text.

11. Page Title/Blog Post Title:

The anchor text is the meta title of a page or blog post.

12. Natural:

This anchor text has no reference to any key phrases (i.e. “this website” or “here”).

Anchor your site

Do you use any of these types of links internally or externally to your site? Or is this completely new territory for you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Contact us

If you want to know more about improving your linking profile don’t be shy we’re happy to assist. Simply contact us here

Tags: How to, SEO