Link anchor

What is a link anchor?

The anchor link corresponds to the text contained inside a hyperlink from which an Internet user can go to other specific content. The link can then correspond to an internal page of the website, to a section of the same page or to an external website.
The link anchor is also known as “ anchor ” in English. It is also a recurring expression in SEO , because it occupies a prominent place.

The interest of the link anchor for SEO

Search engines develop many algorithms in order to be more relevant in the results. If a web page is of interest to a visitor, there is also a good chance that it will appeal to Yahoo, Bing or Google. It's exactly the same principle regarding link anchors , allowing visitors to easily navigate the Internet in order to access quality content as soon as they change pages.

Firstly, the link anchor makes it possible to strengthen the internal link , that is to say the links between the Internet pages of the same site. It works on exactly the same principle as a menu. By using a carefully developed internal mesh, it is easier to structure the information. Navigation between pages is essential for the visitor, but also for search engines while respecting a certain consistency.

Among the different techniques used in internal linking, there is silo construction and semantics . The goal of both techniques remains to funnel link anchor juice to the most important pages.

But that’s not the only role of the link anchor. By pointing to an external site, the anchor link becomes a backlink . This time, it is not a question of prioritizing the information, but rather of redirecting a visitor to an external site. An undeniable advantage in SEO with the aim of building a netlinking strategy .

How to optimize a link anchor?

Now that you better understand how it works, it is important to use best practices to take advantage of it.

• First of all, the length of the link anchor matters. Ideally, it has a reasonable length of around 80 characters.
• In order to reinforce the semantic weight of an expression, but also to make it more readable, all unnecessary elements must be left outside the link. Then favor specific keywords.
• Uniqueness is also another concept to take into consideration. If you find yourself using the same link anchor several times in your articles, try to make them different to avoid them being too close. Otherwise, Google may only take the first link into consideration and not the others.
• Finally, moderation is essential, because the multiplication of links risks causing some confusion for the visitor. Try to limit the presence of one link anchor per 1000 words . However, this is only a guideline and it all depends on the type of writing you are working on.

As soon as you have to use link anchors , it is necessary to vary them by using natural anchors corresponding to neutral expressions like “ click here ”. You could also use branded anchors using the name of a brand like “Google”.

Another possibility is the use of optimized anchors using specific keywords . However, you should always use them sparingly to avoid attracting the wrath of search engines.

The last possibility consists of using enlarged anchors, halfway between naturalness and optimization.