When other websites link to your pages (creating backlinks), both the text they use for the link (the anchor text) and how related their website is to yours (the link relevance) are really important signals for search engines. A strong backlink profile has a good mix of anchor text and links from relevant sources.
Anchor Text Diversity: More Than Just Keywords
Anchor text diversity means that the clickable words used for links pointing to a specific page on your site vary. Instead of having all incoming links use the exact same keyword as the anchor text, they use a mix of different phrases, including:
Branded: Your brand or website name (e.g., YourSite.com, [Your Brand Name]).
Naked URL: The web address itself (e.g., https://www.yoursite.com/).
Generic: Phrases like "click here," "learn more," "read this article."
Exact Match: The anchor text is exactly the primary keyword you want the page to rank for (e.g., "blue widgets").
Phrase Match or Partial Match: The anchor text includes your keyword along with other words (e.g., "learn about blue widgets," "get the best blue widgets").
Image Links: If an image is linked, the anchor text is taken from the image's Alt Text.
Why Anchor Text Diversity is Important:
Looks Natural: In a natural world, websites link to others using all sorts of anchor text. A backlink profile where almost all links use the same exact keyword looks unnatural and manipulative to search engines.
Signals Relevance for Multiple Terms: Diverse anchor text helps search engines understand that your page is relevant for a range of keywords and related phrases, not just one specific term.
Avoids Over-Optimization: Using the exact same keyword as anchor text too frequently for links pointing to a page can be seen as an attempt to manipulate rankings and can potentially lead to penalties or simply the links being devalued.
Link Relevance: Who Links to You Matters
Link relevance refers to how closely related the website linking to you is to your website's topic or niche. It's also about how relevant the specific page where the link appears is to the page on your site that it links to.
Why Link Relevance is Crucial:
Stronger SEO Signal: A link from a website that is highly relevant to yours passes much more meaningful context and authority for your topic. A link from a gardening blog to your article about pruning roses is very relevant and tells Google your article is a good resource on that topic. A link from a car repair site to the same article about roses is not relevant and likely won't help your ranking for gardening terms.
Drives Qualified Traffic: Links from relevant sites are more likely to send visitors who are actually interested in your content, leading to better user engagement.
Looks Natural: A natural link profile is dominated by links from websites within your industry or related fields. Getting lots of links from completely unrelated, low-quality sites is a strong indicator of manipulative link building.
How Diversity and Relevance Work Together
A strong and healthy backlink profile is built on links from relevant sources using diverse and natural-looking anchor text. Both factors work together to build your website's authority and trustworthiness in the eyes of search engines. Focus on earning links from websites that genuinely relate to your content and whose audience would find your information valuable. When building links or performing outreach, think about what anchor text would be most natural and descriptive in the context of the linking website's content.
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