Similar to the selection of link targets, the planning of anchor texts is an important element of a clean link marketing strategy – there is much to get right, but also much to get wrong. The key is to optimise your website for the desired keywords through the choice of anchor texts, without leaving a "fingerprint" for Google and risking a penalty in the worst case.
In this article we will cover the following topics:
- Types of anchor texts
- Competitor analysis
- Planning your own anchor texts
Different Types of Anchor Texts
Brand Keywords
A brand anchor text refers to the use of the brand name as the anchor. This can take the form of the URL, the brand or company name, and all variants thereof. This type of anchor text is very often used for the homepage and appears very natural. It also serves as a positive signal to Google that people are talking about your company, suggesting that your company is considered important.
The downside, however, is that a brand anchor text does not optimise for specific keywords.
Exact Match or Money Keywords
An "exact match anchor text" refers to using the exact keyword as the anchor text. These are the high-search-volume keywords that every website owner wants to rank for.
Examples:
- Mobile phone
- Loan
- Car
But also variations:
- Buy mobile phone
- Take out a loan
- Lease a car
These are the most important keywords of a single landing page in their purest form.
Since these are the keywords that every website owner wants to rank for, many tend to use them disproportionately often as anchor texts. On one hand, this optimises your own landing page; on the other hand, you risk getting on Google's radar and receiving a penalty. Therefore, these keywords should only be used sparingly as anchor texts.
Compound Keywords
These are made up of several keywords and can contain both brand and exact match components.
Examples:
- Buy Samsung mobile phone cheaply
- Take out a loan online directly
- Car at the best price
Compound keywords are therefore much more precise in their focus and better reflect user intent. They can also be informational in nature and are therefore not always transactional.
Generic Keywords
All keywords that do not fit into any of these clusters fall into this category.
Examples:
- Here
- More information
- On this page
Competitor Analysis
The most important rule in active link building is to always remain as inconspicuous as possible in order not to appear on Google's radar. Since nobody knows exactly how many exact match anchor texts are uncritical, we recommend analysing the competition at the start of any link marketing campaign.
We would like to explain the process of such an analysis in more detail:
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Selection of competitors
The first step is to select the competitors to be analysed in more detail. Ideally, 3–5 competitors from the top 10 search results should be chosen who share the same business model as your own.
If you want to optimise the anchor text distribution for your landing page targeting the main keyword "mobile phone", look at which competitors rank in the top 10 for that keyword. Choose pages with a comparable business model to your own. Newspapers or Wikipedia should not be selected, as these sites have a completely different anchor text profile than a commercially oriented site such as a shop or comparison portal.
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Querying the anchor texts
Now use a tool such as "Ahrefs" to query the anchor texts of competitors' landing pages and cluster them according to the anchor text types defined above.
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Setting intervals
Now that you know the anchor text distribution of your competitors – and that they have achieved a page-one ranking on Google with that distribution – you should set comparable intervals for your own anchor text distribution.
When using the competitor intervals you have determined, it is of course important to consider whether the number of links is significant. If a competitor only has 3 links, such a competitor analysis makes no sense. It only works when a sufficient number of links point to the landing page. Also, "outliers" should be filtered out beforehand, as they would distort the interval.
You should also bear in mind that large sites are evaluated differently to a freshly launched website. So do not compare your new project with a large portal that has been on the market for a long time. For older sites with high authority, Google is more tolerant regarding link and anchor text profiles. When in doubt, optimise conservatively and use fewer exact match anchor texts.
Planning Your Own Anchor Texts
The most important rule in active link building is to always remain as inconspicuous as possible and avoid creating a fingerprint. Therefore, even if it is very tempting, you should not work exclusively with exact match anchor texts.
The best and safest approach is a combination of all anchor text types. The following distributions are most commonly used in practice:
- Homepage: As a rule, brand anchor texts are used most frequently here.
- Categories, hub pages: Brand (15%), Exact (10%), Compound + Other (75%)
Of course, this is only a rough guideline that may vary from project to project. It does, however, illustrate what it means to avoid being too aggressive.