Internal links to blog posts

[gfiedel]

I am linking manually to blog posts in my site from my Home page. Our site isn't set up with an auto "Recent Posts" that shows on Home.

Should I use the exact blog post title as the anchor text or do I need to create something that is not an exact match to the title of the post?

[intSchools]

An exact match to the title of the post is useful for the user because there will not be any confusion when they arrive at the blog post.

You do have an SEO opportunity when manually linking. It is a good opportunity to maximise your keyword usage in your anchor text. Try using similar terms in your link -

• Title - "5 ways to rank higher on Google"
• Link - "Boost your search rankings with these great tips"

This should not create confusion for your user because the content is still being reflected. And it will allow to potentially rank for alternative, similar terms.

[gfiedel]

Thanks, Dan. Your example is what I was aiming towards and then hesitated, being caught between that and the exact match for user-ease approach.

You have not mentioned that exact match anchor text in this scenario is problematic in a Penguin sense, so I'm getting from what you say that I can go either way safely.

[intSchools]

No, it would not be problematic. Exact match anchor text is very usual on the homepage.