Tips for Using Natural Anchor Text

Houston writers spend a lot of time researching keywords and considering each variation carefully. You’ve done the same for your website. Then you hear that you should use those keywords as anchor text.

But what is anchor text exactly?

Anchor text is merely the words that you use to link to another page. The words contain the URL (http://) that, when clicked on, take the reader to another webpage. Search engines use anchor test to determine whether or not the information you link to is relevant to your page.

If anchor text helps search engines determine the relevancy of a website and rank it, shouldn’t every keyword be anchor text?

Just a minute. If you make every keyword, or even just your main ones, anchor text, your page will appear over optimized and spammy. Spam is not natural.

Day to day speech is spontaneous. You don’t repeat the same word or phrase over and over. Natural anchor text takes the same form as ordinary talking with a friend or co-worker.

So how do you incorporate natural anchor text in your website to entice search engines to reward you? There are a few things that you have to do first, and then you can go on to using anchor text more naturally.

1. First, do a thorough spring cleaning on your website. Is content repeated? Do you have pages that don’t have a lot of content? Are there some pages that are not performing? If you have pages with duplicate content, no content, or pages that are not performing, set them so that they do not get crawled by the search egines.
2. When researching keywords, don’t go for an exact match. Exact matches alert the algorithms to spammy content. Instead, try related keywords or use a thesaurus.
3. Look at the anchor text you currently have. Can you use long tailed keywords where you are currently using generic keywords? An example would be Arabian Horses vs. Egyptian Arabian horses or Dahman Shawaniyah Arabian horses. Or use your brand name with your keyword – Desert Jewel Arabian Horses. Using your brand name helps your company gain relevancy and rank.

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4. Don’t use anchor text on your home page.

5. Use “stop” words in keyword phrases. “Stop” words, such as the, is, at, which, on, how to, etc. do not break up a key phrase. The idea is to split up your keywords.
6. Use the naked URL more often. Don’t embed it in words.
7. Imbed your key words and phrases in images, and always optimize your image “ALT” tag. (An example is the horse picture used in this blog. Use view/source to find my alt tag).
8. Don’t make your keywords, anchor text or not, more than 3% to 4% of your total word count.
9. Don’t forget your reader. Write like you are speaking to them without trying to sell them something. If a reader sees a benefit to him and that you are trustworthy, you’ll more than likely gain his interest, not to mention a sale.

Using natural anchor text is easy if you remember the reader, breathe, and write like you are talking to a person.

Houston’s SEO firm Directory One is an expert in natural anchor text. Call them at 713-465-0051 to get your anchor text optimized and on the right track.