Anchor Text

I know most of you understand the importance of using the right anchor text, but I'm writing this with the newbie webmaster in mind and I'm including a few easy tips to get you started.

Basically, anchor text is used in a link (hyperlink) to describe the site or page that this link will take you to. It's a short keyword rich description of the destination website. For example, the proper anchor text for a direct link to my "become a degree broker" post might look like this: Be A Successful Degree Broker! It describes the content for the website, blog, post, page or any other url on the net that you're about to visit.

Easily the most common mistake that people make in writing their text is using very general words like "click here" or "visit us here" or similar, as it doesn't accurately tell the surfer where they are about to go. That may seem ok to you if you're thinking they just need to get there, but anchor text is about way more than just clicking a link. It's also used by search engines to figure out what a site is all about.

This is where it becomes important for you to never generalize your words. If you have a pet store website, then you don't want links pointing to your site that say "check this site out!" or anything like that. You want strong keywords used instead, like "Best Pet Supplies On The Net!" or whatever keyword phrase works for your situation.

One last point of caution I'd like to make is that most people who have a very basic understanding of how this works tend to overdo it by using the exact same phrase EVERY time and, at least in some search engines, this will actually get your site penalized instead of helping you. A good example is when John Chow asked everyone to point to his site using the key phrase "make money online" and, instead of a boost, he got the "Google slap" for his efforts.

The general rule of thumb, according to the biggest search engines, is to not use the same phrase more than 60% of the time. A good workaround for this problem is to use trailing or surrounding text that has your desired words within it. Example: If you want to always have "make money online" as your keyword phrase then just make sure those exact words are in your links BUT have other words with it to make unique link combinations each time, such as "Learn to make money online now!", "make money online blog ideas!" or similar anchor text combinations. You can be very creative this way and not get penalized for doing so. Have fun with it!

All the best to your success!