Best SEO anchor text ratio for backlinks

Want to hear a true story Reader?

It's a big reason why I wrote the SEO post I'm sharing with you today.

Here it goes...

Many moons ago, I hired an SEO agency to help me build backlinks to a website. Why? Because I fell into the mental trap that more backlinks was ALWAYS THE answer to EVERY ranking problem. (Which is completely false by the way.)

Well, I was quite naïve at the time and desperately wanted to hit #1 for a specific keyword. I was literally obsessed with getting to the top spot at all costs because the page earned a lot moolah through Amazon associates. (Another fatal mindset mistake which I may talk about in another email one day.)

Anyways...

The SEO agency explained that they had a secret method for ranking high on Google with link building, but could not tell me what it was. I just had to trust them and watch the magic happen. They kept reminding of the the fact that they ranked #1 for the link building keyword I used to find them on Google. So I was quite impressed and willing to roll the dice on them.

But over the course of 10 months, and multiple thousands of dollars later, the needle never moved for my website.

And each time I asked about the slow progress, the agency said, "You just need more links! We'll get more ASAP!"

Eventually I figured out what they were doing. I learned how to use Google Search Console to find the incoming links to my site and here's what I discovered:

The SEO agency was buying cheap expired domains, adding 3-5 pages of spun content, and an exact match anchor link to my website from the homepage. They literally built 100+ of these mini website clones which were pure spam and completely against Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

My heart stopped when I found this out.

So I immediately checked Google to see if the SEO agency's website was still ranking #1 for their link building keyword. And it wasn't. So I paid someone $5 on Fiverr to give me both an Ahrefs and Semrush report for that agency's site.

And guess what I saw.

About 3 months prior, their site had tanked in the rankings. Completely wiped off Google's index. AND the URL was redirecting to a new domain.

So I reached out my account manager to ask about this and he said, "Oh, we are just rebranding."

RED FLAG! RED FLAG!

So I strategically persuaded them to give me list of all of the websites they built backlinks to my site along with the login details so I could go in and make a few adjustments. I told them I didn't have the budget to pay them for the updates and was happy to make them myself.

And one-by-one, I went in and removed every single backlink they built to my site. It was excruciating tedious. But I had to do it. Because I knew that a massive Google penalty was on the way, not only for having the spammy cloned sites pointing to my website, but also because the anchor text ratio was 100% exact match. Which, is completely unnatural in a backlink profile and can get your website burned by Google.

Luckily, I got all of the bad backlinks remove before a Google penalty ever hit and cancelled that SEO service. And reflecting on that experience gave me inspiration to write and share today's link building post for you.

If you're building your own backlinks or hiring an SEO agency to help you with this task, then it's crucial to be educated on the topic of anchor text ratio optimization to keep your website safe.

And today's post gives you the best anchor text ratio for your backlinks as well as a list of tips for getting the most value out of your links.

Read it. Study it. Bookmark it. Or print it out.

Here's the link:

​Anchor Text Ratio Optimization for Backlinks​

Your SEO Mentor,
Stephen Hockman