What is Anchor Text? 4 points of importance in SEO and how to write

This text, called anchor text, doesn’t get a lot of attention, but if handled well, it can improve your SEO.

Anchor text is a string of characters that contains a link (hyperlink) . Also called “link text”.

With HubSpot, using concise, clear, and relevant anchor text for internal links makes it clear to Google that articles on a specific topic are connected, and all linked and linked articles rank well in search. We believe that it will be easier for people to enter, and we are building a topic cluster strategy based on this idea.

Therefore, careful consideration of anchor text is essential.

It’s an often-overlooked detail, but it’s still important when thinking about SEO.

In this article, we’ll explain what anchor text is, why it’s important, and how to write it.

Table of Contents

Anchor text is the text that links to. Clicking takes the user to the linked page .

In the example below, the string “What is anchor text? Optimization method and SEO effect” is the anchor text.

If you want your website to look like this, the HTML should look like this:

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For more information, see <a href=”https://blog.hubspot.jp/anchor-text”>What is Anchor Text? See Optimization Methods and SEO Benefits</a>.
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<a></a> is called “a tag”, and the part enclosed by a tag is linked. In other words, the part enclosed by this a tag is the “anchor text”.

In the above example, the string “What is anchor text? How to optimize and SEO effect” is linked to the article “https://blog.hubspot.jp/anchor-text”.

The role of anchor text

It has two main roles.

1. Improved usability

The primary function of anchor text is to tell users what the page is linked to .

For example, looking at the anchor text of “What is anchor text? Optimization method and SEO effect” given at the beginning, the linked page describes the effect of the anchor text on SEO and how to write it properly. I understand this.

Users can understand what the link is about just by looking at the anchor text, so they can navigate to the linked page according to the information they need.

2. Consideration for SEO

Search engine crawlers also rely on anchor text to understand what the link is about .

Therefore, it is important to set the anchor text so that the content of the link destination can be understood in order to convey the content of the link destination to the search engine.

Anchor text’s role in SEO is to tell search engines what the page is about .

Anchor text that properly describes the content of the link helps search engines understand and index the content of the linked page.

As a premise, search engine crawlers follow links (a tags) on each page to find and crawl content on the Internet. Crawlers rely on the anchor text to figure out what the link is about.

Therefore, use words that specifically describe the content of the page in the anchor text so that the crawler can understand the content of the page from the anchor text.

The important thing in setting up anchor text is that ” users and Google can understand the contents of the link destination from the anchor text “.

Here are 4 points for setting such anchor text.

1. Describe the content of the link destination in text

Text such as “here”, “click here”, or “continue here” is unhelpful because users cannot understand the contents of the linked destination.

For example, if you are linking to an article about SEO measures, the anchor text should be an expression that makes it easy to understand the content of the linked page, such as “Explains in detail the measures necessary for SEO.”

2. Enter keywords for linked content

In the anchor text, put the keywords you want to rank higher in the linked content.

If you practice “1. Explain the content of the link destination with text”, the anchor text should naturally include keywords, so you don’t need to be overly conscious. If the title of the linked content contains the keyword and accurately describes the content of the article, the title itself can be used as the anchor text.

However, avoid listing too many keywords because it is difficult for users to understand what the link destination is about, and search engines may consider it spam.

3. Write concisely

Anchor text should be short and concise enough to fully understand the contents of the link destination.

4. Make it look like a link

Anchor text can be overlooked by users if it looks similar to body text. Make it obvious that it’s a link by using a different color than the rest of the body text, or by using a different appearance, such as underlining.

You can also refer to the starter guide published by Google for tips on how to write anchor text .

Even in the production of blog articles, the optimization of anchor text tends to be postponed.

However, setting the anchor text so that it is concise, easy to understand, and clearly shows the relevance between the link source and the link destination will lead to enhanced SEO.