Before you start a links campaign for your website, or directory submissions, you need to decide the Keywords you will be targeting and the Anchor Texts which you will use for your links campaign. These anchor texts will use your important keywords in them which will help you in Search Engine Rankings for these Keywords.

Here are a few tips which will help you make your anchor texts.

1. Only use the most important Keywords in your Anchor Text

It is a good idea to do some Keyword Research using a Keyword Tool like Wordtracker to decide the most important Keywords related to the theme of your website. You should be using the popular search terms in your Anchor Texts which show up in the Search when you use the Keyword Tool.

You can find a very good Keyword Suggestion Tool at Digital Point.

2. Do not make the Anchor Texts too long

Long, rambling, keyword stuffed Anchor Texts make no sense and might actually harm you in Search Rankings. Search Engines might penalize your site for using a long keyword stuffed or spammy Anchor Text. Remember, your Anchor Texts should be short and to-the-point and should make sense.

3. Make your Anchor Text Useful

Don’t simply paste Keywords in the Anchor Text, separated by commas, like Keyword 1, Keyword 2, Keyword 3. This looks completely absurd and users won’t be interested to click on it. Your Anchor Text should be a coherent sentence or a short phrase which makes sense. Make your Anchor Texts natural.

4. Use Anchor Text variations

If you are targeting 5 or 6 important keywords, it is always a good idea to make 5 or 6 different Anchor Texts, each focusing on the targeted Keyword. You should use these variations when submitting your site to link directories.

5. Make different Anchor Texts for different Landing Pages

If you have several important landing pages in your site, which you want to promote using link building, make different Anchor Texts for each of these landing pages. Use a Keyword Tool and research for the Keywords for each of these landing pages. Then create 3 or 4 variations of Anchor Texts for each of these landing pages. You can then use these Anchor Texts to submit your site to Directories and Link Forms.

6. Relevance is most important

This might seem obvious, but relevance is the most important thing in Anchor Texts. If you are making Anchor Texts for a page for Blue Widgets, make sure you use Blue Widgets in the Anchor Text, instead of using keywords like Green Widgets, Cheap Widgets etc.

Remember, Search Engines also give importance to Relevance. If your anchor text has Blue Widgets in it, and your page also used the Keyword Blue Widgets in the Title, Content and Body of that page, the anchor text will work perfectly with that page.

These tips are useful for all sort of anchor texts, whether internal or from other websites. When you link to an internal page of your site, always use some meaningful anchor text like ‘Find more details for Blue Widgets‘, where Blue Widgets should be the link, instead of ‘Find more details for Blue Widgets here‘.

You can also find more tips for Anchor Texts by following these links:

Better Anchor Texts by John Chow

Anchor Text Optimization Tips