Anchor Text Diversification. How & Why?

The past couple of algorithm changes had a big impact on the anchor text optimization best strategies

I do not want any beginners reading this to get lost so I will explain what "Anchor Text" is and it's importance in today's world.

Anchor text refers to the "Word" or "Phrase" that is linked within any piece of content. 95% of the time, it will be underlined and most of the time it will be blue. So if you are writing an article and would like to have an anchor text point to your website, you will insert the following HTML code within the content: <a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com”>Your Keyword</a>

Google caches and knows every link your website gets along with the Anchor Text that was used to link to you. Once Google starts to see you aquire many links via that Anchor Text, you will get loved back with a ranking boost.

The good old days are over when a couple of thousand of those links would get your rankings flying up as fast as Gangnam Style. Now Google is smarter and the past couple of updated frown upon such unnatural link building schemes.

Anchor Text diversity is essential if you are looking at your business seriously and want good results that would stick. If you already have a website, you must be wondering if keyword diversity is required in your case. You may consider the following process to know if you need that.

1

 Get a Report for Your Backlink Profile by Anchor Text

The first step is to know the amount of links you have for each anchor text. This could have been an impossible task but thanks to some free tools, you have all this information via tools like:

• Open Site Explorer
• Ahrefs
• Majestic SEO
• Cognitive SEO
• Google’s Webmaster Tools

2

Check Your Competition Backlink Profiles too.

Do the same process for a couple of your main competitors. See how many different keywords they are targeting along with the variation used for each keyword.

3

 Analyze and Compare your Anchor Text Distribution.

If you were searching for solid figures or ratios on the requird keyword diversity, I am sorry but there is none. However, you can establish your own guidelines based on what you can see from your competitors.

4

Repair Any Over-Optimized Keywords or Anchor Text Variations

 

 

When it comes to repairing, you are left with 2 options:

- You can focus on removing the links with the over-optimized anchor text.
- You can focus on creating links promoting different keywords to lessen the ratio of the over-optimized keyword.

Obviously, whatever the option you choose, it is not going to be an overnight project. It will take lots of time and focused effort, but with that you will definitely see an overall natural SEO performance and a much lower chance of hitting any future search engine penalties.