What is anchor text and what is “best practice”?
Have you heard the term “ankertekst” or “anchor text” and wondered what it is? Anyone who writes copy for websites creates anchor texts – perhaps without being fully aware of it.
An anchor text is simply the clickable text in a link – whether it’s an internal link or an external link. Other common names for this are “anchor tag” and “link text”.
What should the anchor text look like?
Many make the mistake of only using the word “here” at the end of the sentence as the clickable anchor text. For example: “Read more about what data-driven marketing is here”.
This has a negative impact on both user experience and organic visibility/SEO. First, the word “here” is easy to overlook, and it can be difficult to click on it if the website uses relatively small text.
For organic visibility, it is negative to only use “here” because Google/Bing want the clickable text to be descriptive of the content on the page being linked to. This makes it easier for the reader to understand what they are clicking through to.
The link should therefore look like this: “Read more about what data-driven marketing is here”.
The most important thing is to use natural and descriptive language. Both readers and Google/Bing will appreciate that. Ideally, keep the anchor text between 3 and 7 words.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does anchor text mean?
Anchor text is the visible and clickable part of a link. Other commonly used terms are “anchor tag” and “link text”.
What are common mistakes when writing anchor text?
A common mistake is to just write “here” at the end of the sentence as the clickable link. Another frequent mistake is not adding enough variation and not using descriptive words in the anchor text.
