You must have noticed that several web pages that there are clickable blue words that will take you to another page These are referred to as anchor texts and they can help increase your websites popularity and page rank (PR)
Hyperlinked words on a webpage that are used to take a visitor to another page or site when clicked are known as anchor text. Anchor text is used to give a definition of a word, reveal an image, or to send the reader to another location on the website or the World Wide Web.
The anchor text tells the search engines what the page is about. If you use it in the right way you can increase your page rankings within the search engines such as Google.
Some use the words click here as the clickable text but that would only tell the search engines that the page was about click here. The best method is to use is descriptive anchor text to allow the search engines to understand what your web page is about and they can organize it in the right way for searching. Anchor text can throw a site into the top ten search results in Google for using a phrase that is not shown anywhere on the webpage.
Google Bombing had became a favorite past time for bloggers. They would use humorous or just random phrases that will get them noticed. If the phrase was rare it could land them a number one position in Googles search pages. If it was a more frequently used phrase the blogger may have to post hundreds of the links through anchor text to get noticed.
In 2007 Google added a new algorithm which decreased the impact of the pranks and bombs but it still recognizes anchor links as extremely important. If you are using Off Page SEO tactics to obtain link popularity through having partners link to your site create a HTML code for them to copy and paste, this way you are given the opportunity to create your own anchor text.
If your website only focuses on one thing you have to be careful not to over optimize that word. If you are only selling umbrellas you do not want to create all the anchor text links to be umbrellas. You could create an unnatural pattern with the search engines.
Anchor text is used with various techniques. You can use it in external links; any links from other sites could be optimized with appropriate anchor text to maximize results. Internal links are the most popular anchor links where you can have hyperlinked text to travel the site. Two of the most important places for anchor text is in your navigation maps and the links to your main web page.
The anchor text will be read by people as well as the search engines. You want to be sure that it is optimized for the search engines but it should be understandable to those who are looking at it. Remember to be descriptive and never vague, always make the anchor text make sense as to where the reader will be sent to when it is clicked.
Justin Harrison is an internationally recognised Internet Marketing Consultant expert who provides world class Search Engine Optimization to website owners. For more information visit: http://www.seorankings.co.za
