Improve Internal Linking with an Anchor Text Glossary

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The following tip was kindly provided by Matt Leonard, follow Matt on Twitter or watch his awesome contributions on SEJ!

Suppose you’re trying to rank for a specific keyword or phrase. You have your page targeted, you’re focused and now it’s just a matter of time.

You’ll obviously want to optimize your internal anchor text, but how can you do that in scale and insure ongoing consistency? Can you be certain others contributing content know what the preferred anchor text is for a given page?

The answer is yes. You absolutely can, and must, leverage other departments to continue adding new links whenever naturally possible. If you have the advantage of new content, here’s how to rally the non-SEO troops.

Create a list of priority URLs in Excel, along with the preferred anchor text linking to each, and distribute it to anyone responsible for creating content. Make sure they understand the importance of precision. That way, there is never any confusion as to what anchor text should link to what page.

You’ll find it’s extremely helpful to others that may not have SEO first and foremost on their mind (they do exist). They will appreciate it since you’re giving them one less thing to think about. After all, can you really blame others for linking the wrong terms when you haven’t given them an easy-to-use list of the correct ones?

Is an ‘anchor text glossary’ part of your SEO arsenal? Is there actually any such thing as an ‘anchor text glossary’? Probably not, but please feel free to leave a better name in the Comments section below and I just may change the post name. Otherwise, please let others know if you have any related experiences to share. As always, your comment may be our next tip.