Anchor Text – Optimize Links to Your Site

Although Internet users may not be able to define anchor text, they come across anchor text time and time again each day on the Internet.  “Anchor Text” is the visible hyperlinked text on a web page.  In plain English, in the sentence below, the anchor text is “free Etsy advertising”:

“Sellers can find ideas for free Etsy advertising in an article on HandmadeMarketing.org.”

When a user clicks on the hyperlinked text “free Etsy advertising”, they are taken to the article mentioned in the sentence.  The full URL of the article is http://handmademarketing.org/project-wonderful-advertising/, and we would call the text “free Etsy advertising” the anchor text.

Anchor text is usually used to tell readers the subject matter of the web page they will be directed to.  In our example, HandmadeMarketing.org readers would expect to see information about advertising if they visit the link.

The words used in anchor text impacts your search engine rankings. When a website links to your web pages, online businesses may think the link is all that matters.  Interestingly, there is a lot of weight is placed on the anchor text than the words on the page linked to.

To understand the power of anchor text, take an example that affected the Goolge search results for former President Bush.  For a considerable time, when an Internet user typed “miserable failure” into a Google search, the top search result was a biography of George W. Bush on the White House website.  If the words “miserable failure” could not be found anywhere on the result pages of the U.S. President, how could searching “miserable failure” produce these results?

Anchor text played a vital role in the above example.  This prank was made possible because Google searches more than the contents of web pages.  The search engine also counts how often a site is linked to and which anchor text is used.  This practice is called “Google bombing” – members of an online community link their sites to a particular site using anchor text as the fuel to dictate Google’s search results.  Adam Mathes, a blogger on the Internet, is credited with inventing the practice in 2001.  In Adam’s prank, he linked the phrase “talentless hack” to a friend’s website.

When reviewing the sites that link to your online shop, take a look at the anchor text used.  Is the other site using anchor text that reflects the content on your page?

Now review your own website.  Both external and internal links can make a difference in your amount of web traffic.  When you link to other areas of your site, which anchor text takes the reader to that page?  Rather than using “here” or other meaningless anchor text, consider using powerful anchor text.  After all, the inclusion of significant keywords in the anchor text can make a sizeable difference in the search engine rank of your web pages.

When writing text for your blog or website, make it easy for others to link to you using valuable anchor text.  Keywords in your writing will help others refer to your site using appropriate anchor text.

What SEO tips do you have for those who sell handmade online?  How do you increase traffic to your site or blog?  Do you have anything to add to the discussion of anchor text and its importance?

Share your ideas with HandmadeMarketing.org!  Tell us your ideas for how to sell handmade online.  If our editors include your information in an article, we’ll link back to your handmade shop!