Anchor Text

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink — the text between <a> and </a> in the HTML. Instead of showing the raw URL, the anchor text describes where the link leads, for example “see our women’s running shoes” rather than a vague “click here”. Both people and search engines use it to quickly form an impression of what the destination page is about.

Why does anchor text matter?

Google uses anchor text — in both internal links and backlinks — as a signal about what the linked (destination) page is about. Descriptive anchor text therefore strengthens the relevance of your product and collection pages and is an important part of internal SEO and how link value is distributed. It also matters for accessibility: screen readers can read links out one by one, and “click here” makes no sense out of context. Be careful, though, about repeating the exact same keyword-rich anchor text in external links, since an unnatural pattern can look manipulative.

Common use cases

• Internal links in blog posts that point to relevant product or collection pages with descriptive text.
• Menu items and button labels in the theme, where the text should say what the user gets.
• Collection and page descriptions where you link on to related products.
• Images used as links, where the image’s alt text acts as the anchor text.
• Backlinks from other sites, where varied, natural anchor text is healthiest.

Shopify perspective

In Shopify you control the anchor text every time you create a link in the Rich Text editor (blog, pages, collection descriptions) and in the theme’s menus under Navigation. Avoid generic “read more” links and instead write text that describes the target page. When you turn an image into a link, remember to fill in the alt text, because it becomes the link’s anchor text. Keep anchor text descriptive but varied — not stuffed with the same keyword on every single page.