Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. Search engines use anchor text as a strong contextual signal about what the linked page is about — a link with the anchor text “local SEO services” tells search engines much more about the destination page than a generic “click here.”
Anchor text applies to both internal links and backlinks from other websites. For backlinks specifically, an unnaturally uniform pattern of exact-match anchor text (the same keyword phrase used repeatedly across many links) can actually look manipulative to search engines and carries some risk.
Healthy anchor text profiles tend to include a natural mix: branded terms, generic phrases, exact-match keywords, and partial-match variations, mirroring how people actually link to content organically.
Anchor text strategy is factored into both our on-page and link building work.