How to Use Anchor Text

3 Tips for Anchor Text

1. Be specific! 

Generic anchor texts like “here” and “cookies” are not helpful. Do not use them!

Think of anchor text as a keyword you’re trying to rank for. “Here” doesn’t describe what the link contains, and “cookies” is generic and competitive (chances you’ll rank for “cookies” in Google = very low).

Instead of using nondescriptive or highly competitive keywords for anchor text, be specific! The anchor text should provide clear context as to where the link will take the user.

Something like “soft almond sugar cookies” is better than just “cookies” because it tells the user exactly what they’ll get if they click the link.

2. Use “rankable” keywords!

Back to the “cookies” example. Search for “cookies” on Google, or enter it into KeySearch‘s Keyword Research tool. If you’re in KeySearch, note the volume and difficulty.

Does it look like something you’d be able to rank for? Probably not.

Instead, find a specific keyword with ranking potential to use as anchor text. This should be something that has a lower difficulty but is still relevant to your post.

Again, “soft almond sugar cookies” is more rankable because it’s less difficult to rank for and has a lower search volume than “cookies”.

3. Switch it up!

Instead of using “soft almond sugar cookies” each time I link to my almond cookies recipe from other pages, I switch it up with keyword variations. This increases its contextual value and helps my almond cookies rank for a variety of keywords.

For example, I might link to it using anchor texts like “almond extract cookies”, “almond flavored cookies”, and “almond cookie recipe”, rather than using “soft almond sugar cookies” every time.

How to Find “Rankable” Keywords

I talked about how you should use “rankable” keywords as anchor text above. Now you might be wondering, “How do I find “rankable” keywords to use as anchor text?“

Personally, I use KeySearch’s Organic Keywords tool (under Competitive Analysis).

If I’m looking for anchor text to link to an older post, I’ll enter the post’s URL into KeySearch’s tool and run a “Specific Page” report to see what keywords it’s already ranking for.

You can see in the screenshot above that my almond sugar cookies post is ranking for various keywords. I will choose keywords from the list to use as anchor text when I link to my almond cookies from other posts.

There are 3 things I keep in mind when picking keywords to use:

1. Relevance – does the keyword actually describe the post? In this example, I would not choose “Christmas almond sugar cookies” because they are not specifically Christmas cookies.
2. Volume – is there a decent search volume? It’s always good to know that people are actually searching that term.
3. Difficulty – is it somewhat easy for me to rank for? I don’t just take KeySearch’s word for this, I actually search the keyword in Google and think about if I have a chance of ranking for it. As my page authority increases, I’ll use more difficult keywords as anchor text.

Now if it’s a brand new post I’m trying to find anchor text for, it isn’t going to be ranking for anything just yet. So, how do we find keywords to use?

I still use KeySearch’s Organic Keywords tool for this. However, instead of running the report on my own post, I pick posts that are already ranking at the top of the search results for my target keyword.

For example, let’s pretend that my almond sugar cookies is a brand new post and my target keyword is “almond sugar cookies”.

I’m going to Google “almond sugar cookies” and look for a relevant post by another food blogger that’s ranking in the top 5 positions. I’ll plug that URL into KeySearch’s tool and follow the same criteria as above.

Sometimes I’ll repeat the process using another top-ranked post to gather more keywords.