Sunday Morning SEO: What is Anchor Text and Why is It Important?

In a survey of 37 search experts, the 2nd highest SEO factor was the anchor text of links from other sites.  However, many webmasters who want to rank better on the search engines don’t know what anchor text is.  Fortunately, anchor text is an easy concept to understand.  In this post and next week’s post, we’ll look at what anchor text is and how to use it well for your blog. 

Simply put, anchor text is the text in a link.  Here’s an example.  The anchor text of the following link is the best blog in the world:

the best blog in the world

Anchor text is important because search engines use it in their algorithms to determine their rankings.  Here’s how it works.  Search engines are constantly checking the anchor text of your site.  Each time you get a link from another site, the search engines will note the anchor text of that link.  With each instance a word or phrase shows up in your anchor text, your chances improve for increasing your ranking for that word or phrase.

See Also
white and brown concrete house near trees at daytime

For example, let’s say you have a blog about movie reviews.  If you build a lot of links with the words movie and reviews in your anchor text, you’ll improve your chances of increasing your ranking for movie reviews.

Picture of Dee Barizo

Dee Barizo

Dee Barizo is the resident SEO geek. He used to work full-time for Sea Waves as a search marketer. He currently does freelance SEO work.

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