Backlinks Can Harm Your Site: How to Write the Right Anchor

Intro

Not all backlinks are equal. Or it would still be more accurate to say that not all of them have the same impact on your site. Moreover, some can significantly harm your SEO. Thus, it's not just a matter of getting a lot of backlinks but obtaining them from high-level websites.

A good backlink strategy lets you get links from authoritative websites that users frequently visit and trust.

An excellent backlink strategy suggesting including a targeted keyword in the hyperlink can do wonders for your site.

So in this article, you'll learn the ins and outs of this complex but creative process.

How Can Backlinks Benefit Your Site

So, if you want backlinks to be on your side and benefit from it, use methods that correlate with Google's current guidelines. Otherwise, your site could be fined, downgraded, or even blocked. But enough sad things. Backlinks can't harm your site if they are qualitative. Moreover, proper link building helps build mutually beneficial relationships with other blogs and websites related to your niche.

For example, you can create a great infographic or other content and share it with industry experts, bloggers, or influencers. You'll eventually build and establish trust with their audience by earning their trust. In turn, it benefits your site. Increased referral traffic is an undeniable benefit you can count on.

Getting a great link from a website with high traffic relevant to your products or services is only a matter before your sales increase. When you combine effective link building with unique content creation in your strategy, you add extra points to your site's authority. And believe us, everyone will notice such a success: competitors, consumers, and search engines.

Anchor is…

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. The main rules in writing anchors are as follows.

• Make phrases as natural and readable as possible.
• Keep the usual word order.
• Most phrases should be 3-4 words (but this is not a strict rule).

Consider that the use of anchors affects the entire SEO strategy. Thus, their use must be correct. As you know, an anchor is placed between the <a> and </a> tags. In code, it looks like this:

< a href="/URL ">link text</a >

Since 2012, Google has been analyzing anchors due to the Penguin algorithm. It downgrades sites whose anchor list is full of direct entries of commercial investigation queries. Thus, all SEO specialists and link builders ensure that the anchor list is as diverse as possible, including as many informational and navigational queries.

Types of Anchors

The following main types of anchors are exact-match, partial-match, generic, branded, and naked links. And further, you'll briefly learn about each of these types.

⚓ Exact-Match

The text part of such anchors accurately reflects the main search query of the web document to which the link leads. Examples of exact matches can be words and phrases like "SEO," "buy a computer," "types of anchors," etc. It's also worth noting that exact-match links correspond to high-frequency queries. Hence, a particular emphasis on links with them is necessary if a high-frequency query promotes the web document.

⚓ Partial-Match

A high-frequency query is diluted with any other words. Also, some partial-match anchors may correspond to the medium or low-frequency key queries. It includes a variation of the keyword on the linked-to page. For example, "link-building strategies" leads to a link-building page.

⚓ Generic

It includes the address of the promoted page and, in some cases, may use words such as "here," "click here," etc. It’s worth noting that the use of these links is also appropriate because they are more natural, and secondly, the link mass of any site should contain links with different anchors.

⚓ Branded

It’s a brand name used as anchor text.

⚓ Naked link

It’s a URL used as an anchor.

For the success of your SEO campaign, it's crucial to find professional writers who can write high-quality text, understand the types of anchors, and have the know-how to insert them into the text correctly. Consider that you can find such writers on specialized writing services.

How to Work with Anchors

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There are a few rules that provide the best results for promotion and help avoid problems with search filters:

✔️ Place anchor links only on trusted sites with maximum traffic. Be sure to analyze the metrics of sites using Ahrefs or similar SEO services.

✔️ Watch for thematic relevance. It’s desirable to place links to sites related to topics. Cooperate with general subject resources, but consider that the content on the page must be associated with the site's theme.

✔️ Use the maximum number of sites — the more varied the list of websites, the more natural a reference profile.

✔️ Use as varied as possible anchors. How many and what anchors to use will be clear after a complete analysis of competitors.

How to Make the Correct Anchor List for Your Site

Before you promote your site with links, you need to complete its internal SEO optimization. Link building will be effective if the resource has no technical problems and naturally rises to the top 30 and top 20 for the main requests. Suppose all the work is done, and you can move on to the promotion links. So one of the main steps is to make the correct anchor list.

Competitive Analysis

Any work on marketing and SEO begins with the analysis of competitors. It also applies to work with anchors. Beforehand, it would help if you determined the pages to which you'll build up links. Then, you need to work with a list of competitors.

Analysis of each site is very convenient to perform in Ahrefs. Among the competitors at the top may be sites with a spammed anchor list. Why does this happen? The experts identify several reasons:

• The age of the websites;
• Very low competition in the niche;
• The fact that sanctions haven't had time to be imposed.
• Spamming without the use of commercial anchors.

In any case, a site with an over-spammed anchor list is an anomaly and should not be taken as an example. So how many competitors to analyze? Everything depends on the niche. But for a complete picture, it’s recommended to take at least three sites. You can determine the optimal ratio of anchors and the most appropriate phrases based on the statistics collected. Pay attention to the number of branded anchors of your competitors.

Branded Anchors

A quality anchor list consists of approximately 50% branded phrases. These are anchors that mention the company name. Also, it may be in different spellings and combined with other words. So branded anchors include:

• Anchors in the form of a full link to the company website;
• The name of the company, a registered trademark;
• The name of the owner.

Branded phrases can be made very diverse, allowing you to dilute the anchor list as a whole.

Conclusion

It's no secret that the link mass of the site is significantly considered in the ranking of search engines, and its volume and quality depend on the success of the promotion, so it is essential to know how to make the correct anchor links and write the right anchors.