Backlink Anchor Text

What is a backlink? Another website pointing to your website. Another website can be another website you own or anyplace that is willing to allow you to place your link on their website.

What is Anchor text? The text that is associated with a hyperlink. Example: SEO for Dummies <<<< “SEO for Dummies” is the anchor text that is associated with the hyperlink http://centuryhouse.net

Why is adding Anchor text to a hyperlink important? Anchor text adds ‘relevance’ to the hyperlink. Common domain names are taken so adding an anchor will help a person know what the hyperlink is about before clicking on it.

Ok here are my experiences using Backlink Anchor Text

Variations of a keyword will usually bring up different search results. I’m #4 for the keyword ‘SEO for Dummies’, but you will not find me if you search for the keyword ‘SEO for Dummy’. If you search for ‘SEO for Beginners’ you’ll see me on page 2, but with the keyword ‘SEO for Beginner’ (without the s) you will not find me. Either they are two different searches or Google has a hard time placing the two keywords together. This also applies when you’re using State abbreviations like FL for Florida. Searching for ‘FL Senior’ will give you different results than searching for ‘Florida Senior’.

My thoughts are that a Backlink Anchor Text is and should be the same as a search query. So if you search for SEO you’ll  come up with a lot more results than if you would search for SEO for Dummies. The anchor text is looked at as a closed keyword phrase. Some examples of closed keyword phrases are when you use bold tags, attach a hyper link, or adding H1 tag. You’re not adding a bold tag, H1 tag, or a hyperlink to the whole page, but just a certain phrase. The same thing applies when you itacilize or when you underline a keyword. Open ended is when the whole article contains no HTML tags that will distinguish a keyword or phrase from the rest of the article.

Ok so an anchor text is close ended, and an article is considered open ended.

An anchor text is also an exact match that needs to attach itself to the same keyword or keyword phrase on your article. Another way to look at this is hitting CTRL+F, and searching for ‘SEO for dummies’. The search will only give you the  ‘exact match’ of the phrase you placed in the search box.

Here’s an example to demonstrate.

Anchor Text you’re using = Charlotte Newspapers >>>>(Your Article) “The Charlotte newspaper released important news today…”
Some people would think that this would be an exact match to the article but the Anchor text contains an ’s’. The article does not contain the letter ’s’ in the keyword newspaper.

Anchor Text you’re using = Charlotte Newspaper >>>>(Your Article)  “The Charlotte newspaper released important news today…”
This is an exact match of an anchor text with a keyword phrase in the article. The spiderbot registers the anchor text as ‘Charlotte Newspaper’, it follows the link, then finds ‘Charlotte Newspaper’ on the article making it an exact match.

In layman’s terms …. 1 fits into 2, but 2 does not fit into 1.  FL fits into Florida, but Florida doesn’t fit into FL.

So if the above is true then why do people use these types of anchor text for hyperlinks

SEO expert, SEM consultant, Adwords (they use commas)

SEO expert/SEM consultant/Adwords (they use slashes)

Local SEO expert who also does SEM consultation (they place a hyperlink on the whole sentence)

The problem is that “Local SEO expert who also does SEM consultation” is an exact match keyword that needs to be found on the page it’s pointing with an exact match! If it actually did work then I would just add a hyper link to my WHOLE ARTICLE, and I would be #1 for everything. Using slashes and commas in your anchor text devalues the link quality. Make SURE that the robots that crawl the anchor text links will find your exact anchor text on your page. Otherwise, the robot will devalue the backlink!  This is why the Google bomb requires thousands of backlinks in order for it to work. Usually the person’s page being bombed doesn’t contain the keyword being used in the anchor text.

One of the reasons why I rank for ‘SEO for Dummies’ is because I used that key term in my anchor texts over and over again. I didn’t add any variances to the anchor text. A lot of people would disagree with that, but I don’t want to be ranking for keywords that do NOT get searched.

Make sure to do your keyword research before writing ANYTHING. There are enough keyword tools that you should NOT be picking your own keywords. Always ‘consult’ with the tool to make sure it gets searched. Nothing hurts more than being #1 for a keyword, and not getting any visitors. Adding/removing the ’s’ in your anchor texts to make it singular or plural can be a HUGE difference in your rankings.

So if you use an Anchor text make sure the same exact match keyword phrase is in your article and/or meta tags. Is this required? No, but it sure helps out alot!

*some rankings have changed since post date as I am targeting different keywords