What is an 'Anchor Text' and does it have any SEO Benefit?

[Globalgraphics]

Hi - we have been building as SEO strategy but need clarification on what benefit  'anchor text' has for SEO rankings?

For example - we have been creating links from external sites to ours, but the anchor text is not our main search term. I.E - the Anchor Text reads 'web design', but the ALT TAG reads 'web design birmingham'.

Question is - if we wish to achieve maximum SEO rankings for the term 'web design birmingham', where should it appear....in the ALT TAG or the Annchor text'?

Many thanks!

Phil

[eli.boda]

The alt tag in links has no impact on SEO. So the answer is Anchor Text

Be careful though. I would suggest alternating the anchor text you target in your link building efforts.

Go for some naked urls and some branded anchor text in addition to the targeted keyword anchor text as this will make your link profile look more natural to google

[DarinPirkey]

Since the Penguin update this year, the anchor text portion of a link will matter less going forward.  Without getting too technical they basically turned off part of their algorithm to see if the results were better when they didn't account for anchor text.  It got better, "more robust" results so they changed the algorithm to interpret and use anchor text to better determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website.  (Sorry, I got a little technical there.)

Bottom line is link structure, quality of the link and relevancy of the link matter more than the actual anchor text.  Keep to relevant sites with good page and domain authority (use SEOMoz Toolbar to determine this) and you'll be fine.

[Debdulal]

_After the penguin update you have to be careful while linking with anchor text. It is now like following a middle path and this is the kind of anchor text policy I would like you to implement -

Natural Anchor Text: 25%
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Branded Keyword and Long tail keyword 30**%**
Example.com web design company in Birmingham
Example.com – best web design company in Birmingham_

Example.com Birmingham

Related keyword 30% One of the best web design companies in Birmingham

Award winning Birmingham based web design company

Creative web Design Company in

Targeted keyword 15% web design Birmingham