Transcript
Hi guys, and welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea.
Today's conversation is staying organized with your anchor text. This is a conversation that I like to have, especially internally in my own company, because I'm a big believer in internal linking silos and anchor texts, and I feel like a lot of people don't truly understand anchor texts and I would really like to have that conversation today.
But before we begin, this is Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea, so we have our tea today, which is a Pu'Er Tea that I drink pretty much every day. It is housed in this Kirkland box, but it has nothing to do with Kirkland or Costco, I just put it in this container. But it's a Pu'Er Tea that I pretty much drank daily, to be honest. And the tea is a fermented tea, it's pretty dark when it's brewed and it has a very strong kick and I like to drink every day. Because of its strong kick, it can brew a lot. I can pretty much steep it, like, 20 and 25 times, so it doesn't really run out very quickly, and essentially, it keeps me going throughout the day. Well, let's go ahead and get brewing and get talking some SEO guys.
So when it comes to anchor text, I'm not going to define what anchor text is because I already have another video about that, what I want to discuss is keeping your anchor texts organized. So I'm going to go into the nitty gritty right now, so you're going to have to bear with me to follow along. When it comes anchor text, it is important that the internal links you build on your site, the actual anchor text you're using is very defined and relevant to the keyword trying to rank for. So again, let me use my classic pizza shop example.
If I have a pizza shop and I'm trying to rank for a pepperoni pizza and I have a specific page for pepperoni pizza, what I want to make sure is every time I've mentioned pepperoni pizza across the site, in my blog posts, I want to make sure that I'm linking to that pepperoni pizza page and the anchor text of that link says pepperoni pizza. When you are linking to the most important page, and in this case your most important page is your product page where you sell the product, the pepperoni pizza page, you want to make sure that across your site, you drive interlinks to that page, and then the anchor text says pepperoni pizza, or whatever the key word you're trying to rank that page for. Internal links and anchor text signal to Google that is the key word that that page is supposed to be about. That's why it's in anchor text.
The reason why this is so important, is not because of that concept. That concept easy to understand. Where people get messed up is when they expand a little bit more. If you're trying to rank for pepperoni pizza, your strategy probably entails writing blog posts about pepperoni pizza. So let's imagine you have a pepperoni pizza product page, and then you have 10 blog posts about pepperoni pizza and the blog posting range from the best thickness for pepperoni or the best places to enjoy it or the best styles of pepperoni pizza or the best ratio of pepperoni to slice, I don't know, whatever. Actually, I would love to write these blog posts, but these are all blog posts.
And what can happen is when people, they have 10 pepperoni pizza blog posts and they have a product page, what you need to make sure is your product page at the end of the day is the most important. So when you are linking to the pepperoni pizza page, always use the anchor text pepperoni pizza, but when you are in internal linking to the blog post pages, ensure that there is variation. Do not link to the pepperoni ratio blog posts with the anchor text pepperoni pizza, because that will confuse Google. They will say, "Wait, your product page, the anchor text was pepperoni pizza, but also this other page has the anchor text as pepperoni pizza, which one is truly for pepperoni pizza? And for you, the answer's obvious. It is the product page.
So when using anchor texts, ensure that there is enough variation where it's obvious so there's no confusion. So what I would do is when you link to that other blog post, make the anchor text longer. So instead of saying pepperoni... So if you're trying to link to the ratio the pepperoni ratio page, do not use pepperoni pizza as the anchor text. Maybe you can say, "The pepperoni slices in pepperoni pizza." That could be the entire anchor text. It's much longer and Google can tell then, "Oh, okay. Pepperoni pizza, that short succinct phrase, is meant for that product page, but this longer phrase was meant for the blog post." There's then no confusion. And at the end of the day, you don't have to perfect the anchor texts for these blog posts, because again, they're only supplementing the product page.
So again, when you're using anchor texts where people mess up is they moved too quickly. They're just adding internal links wherever they can and then they're not thinking about the anchor text. I am not saying to be over meticulous, but when it comes to internal linking, the product page or your most important service page or wherever it might be, it is very important to get the internal link of the priority page right.
And the other thing to make sure is, when you're interlinking to other pages, that doesn't use the same anchor text that is in alignment with the page that is the most important, because then that will confuse Google. Make the anchor text longer, until almost a sentence fragment, so it is very clear that fragments are for the blog posts because whatever it might be, but then the product or most important page, is a very succinct keyword phrase so that Google understands that the keyword phrase is assigned to that page that you're trying to rank for. And these other ones, though the keyword is in the anchor text, it's in a bigger fragment, so it's not as tied to that exact keyword phrase. So all in all, what I'm trying to say is, make sure, keep succinct keyword phrase anchor text aligned to the product page or your service page or whatever's most important, for all other pages. Don't mix them. Don't use the same anchor text, try to make it bigger or change it up a bit, just so there's no confusion.
So hopefully that will help you understand internal links. A lot of people get internal links wrong. If you want some more information about internal links, you can read some of the blog posts we've written. I write a lot of guest posts about internal linking, I'm a big believer in them. You can also reach out or comment in the video and I'd be happy to get back to you about internal linking. But hopefully you guys found that video valuable. If you did, please like and subscribe. I'm going to pour my tea out and I'm going to go ahead and drink my tea for today. It's getting pretty hot so this will be a nice little kick in the day. But if you guys found the video enjoyable, I hope to see you guys again soon in future videos, then.
Thanks everybody.