In today’s Tech News Tuesday episode we’re talking about anchor link text and why it is important. Anchor link text is the text that represents a link, and is usually underlined and a different color than the other text you see on websites, emails, or your newsfeeds. When you’re using anchor link text, and someone clicks it, it goes to the URL you choose.
Links in this episode: What is anchor text and how to improve link text?
Transcript
Welcome to the Get Digital Marketing Results podcast where we give you information and actionable tips to grow your organization.
Bob: Hi, I’m Bob Clark.
Donna: And I’m Donna Botti. We’re with Delos Inc and we make the web work for you. In today’s Tech News Tuesday episode we’re talking about anchor text.
Bob: We’re not talking about boating here Donna. Anchor link text is the text that represents a link, usually as an underline. You see this on websites, emails, and in your newsfeeds. When you’re using anchor link text, you can just write the URL directly (which in most cases isn’t a good idea) or write some text that will go to that URL when you click it.
Donna: So what makes a good anchor text and why is it important ? Well we’ve always suspected the anchor text helps in search engine rankings, and Google just recently confirmed that that is the case. So you’ll want to be intentional about what you write for your anchor or link text.
Bob: Use the article title, the company name, or the point you are referring to that is explained in more detail in the link. Avoid using “click here” or “read more” as your link text as it lacks context.
Did you know that Adobe Reader for years and years ranked for the words [click here] in search? That’s because everyone who had PDF documents on their site had a link to view this PDF and click here to download Adobe Reader.
Donna: Avoiding “read more” or “click here” is also important for accessibility. In our websites, we do use read more for featured articles and blog listings, but we also have hidden screen reader text that uses the entire article title.
When you are writing your content it’s important to link to other relevant pages within your site, and also external to your site. We’ve always known that this is important for search engines, but pay attention to the link text, Don’t get sunk by your anchor text.
Bob: That’s it for today’s episode. You can find a link to the Yoast.com article and a transcript of today’s podcast, at DelosInc.com/170.
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