SEO Tips: Anchor Tags

Hyperlinking is the lifeblood of distributing content or linking to other relevant and valuable information outside of the current page or website.  A very common occurrence is when authors use generic anchor text for their links (prime example: click here).  It’s something nearly everyone has done and is still done by many people out of habit (I’m even guilty of it from time to time).   Anchor text is yet another important factor in SEO, and it’s our topic of discussion in today’s SEO Tips series.

The Importance of Anchor Text

What exactly is the function of anchor text when linking to other pages and/or websites?  Anchor text should be used to tell visitors and search engines basic information about what is being linked.  Typically, so long as the anchor text is relative to the site it’s being linked to and is easy to understand, both visitors and search engines will benefit best from this, as information is more precisely accessed by visitors and indexed by search engines.  Below are a few examples of what and what not to do when writing proper anchor text.

Bad Example:

To read more about jQuery, click here.

Good Example:

For those of you interested in learning more about jQuery, we’ve put together a collection of 5 jQuery tutorials for beginners.

The reason why the first example is bad is because it offers the visitor no specific information on where the link is going to, even though it can be assumed that it is about jQuery.  The user has no idea if the link is going to the jQuery official website, a website that uses jQuery, or an online store that sells books about jQuery.

The second example is good example because not only does the content present itself in a more detailed manner, but it sets up the author to use a portion of the link’s title in the sentence.  It’s a good habit to naturally write content that not only caters to your audience, but makes it easy to insert relative links with text you’ve already written.  The anchor text tells visitors and search engines that this is an article that provides information on 5 jQuery tutorials, and the rest of the sentence explains what type of tutorials are covered in the link.

There’s even a slightly better version that could be used…

Best Example:

For those of you interested in learning more about jQuery, we’ve put together a collection of 5 jQuery tutorials for novices.

The example is almost identical to the good example, except I replaced the word beginner with the word novice.  Typically, I would make a change like this while proofreading and editing my article before I publish it.  The reason why I made the change is because the anchor text now matches the title of the article I am linking to verbatim, and it makes sense grammatically in the context I am using it in.  The good example still works, but sometimes there are better alternatives.

Anchor Text Best Practices

In order to write stunning anchor text, consider the following:

• Avoid using click here as anchor text because it is generic and offers no description to the reader or search engine
• Avoid using text that is in no way related to the content the link leads to (relates to the first bullet point, as well)
• Don’t use anchor text that is comprised of a lengthy sentence or paragraph.  Keep it short, organized and simple.
• When styling links with CSS, make sure anchor text styling sticks out and doesn’t resemble plain text.

Remember, comments are awesome, and you should leave one after reading this article. ;)