Anchor texts and SEO

Anchor texts are among one of the several hundreds of elements that are linked with optimizing your site for search engines. Anchor texts or Anchor tags have had a long  association with SEO. Though anchor texts are not given as much weightage these days, by search engines, as they used to be given earlier.

What is an Anchor text?

An anchor text is an “Anchor”, meaning, it connects two pages, it is the text link that connects one web page to another web page.

Example of an Anchor text html

For example, If I say, anchor text is one of the elements that should be kept in mind while for a web page. Writing the content becomes the  anchor tag, it tells the visitors what to expect in the landing page that links to the anchor tag.

Anchor text html tag:

Here is an example of the html tag for including an Anchor text:-
Visit the What is SEO page. In the above example “What is SEO”, will be a linked text linking to this page: http://seo-bestpractices.com/search-engine-optimization-seo-home/

Significance of Anchor texts in terms of SEO is pretty high, even though it does not enjoy as much hype, it is a good practice to use anchor tags when you wish to send  your visitor to another page. Instead of the boring “click here”, providing a very short description of where the link will take you, will get noticed even more. As always, overdoing anything is a bad practice, over-using anchors tags will not only be abusing it, it will also not be in tune with the Anchor text best practices. The best practices for anchor tags would be to use them intelligently, and only when you feel there is a requirement of describing the textual links.

Create anchor texts such that they compliment your content and help your visitors to navigate easily. If you do not feel the need for it, do not use it. My recommendation would be to use the anchor texts as and when needed while creating the content, but try to avoid using anchor texts whenever it appears forceful.

Traditionally, anchor tags used to be one of the major determining factors for search engines while ranking web pages. However, because of the increase in abuse of anchor tags by many webmasters, search engines modified their algorithms. Anchor texts are no longer as critical as they used to be earlier. But I still think  anchor tags are important because, they are user friendly, and they make the content of a web page more relevant. If you take care not to abuse this SEO element, anchor tags can add value to your website by contributing towards your web site’s success.