Use Proper Anchor Text 3 6 Words Descriptive

Task Library

Enforce the house anchor-text rule on every link – 3-6 descriptive words that predict the destination – and purge generic anchors like 'click here' from the entire site.

Category: SEO & Content Architecture

Use this when writing any link – internal or external – and when auditing the site for the generic anchors that always creep back in.

Inputs

  • The page(s) being written or audited
  • Site-wide anchor report (crawl or LinkWhisper)
  • Each destination page's GCT, so the anchor can promise what the page delivers

Steps

  1. Apply the rule to every link: the anchor is 3-6 words and describes the destination – a reader should predict where the link goes before clicking.
  2. Ban the generics outright: 'click here', 'read more', 'learn more', 'this article', and bare URLs.
  3. Keep anchors keyword-relevant but natural – no exact-match stuffing; vary the phrasing across multiple links to the same target.
  4. Match each anchor to the destination's GCT: the anchor's promise is the target page's content.
  5. Audit site-wide: pull the anchor report and flag every violation, oldest content included.
  6. Fix flagged anchors in body copy, then re-run the report to confirm zero generic anchors remain; archive the report for the MAA loop.

Definition of done (QA checklist)

  • Zero generic anchors site-wide on the re-run report
  • All anchors 3-6 words and descriptive of their destinations
  • No exact-match stuffing patterns across repeated links to one target
  • Anchor report archived for trend tracking in MAA (/maa)
  • Linked back to the definitive article (/internal-linking) and relevant siblings

Example(s)

  • The /internal-linking definitive article sets this anchor standard as part of its Step 4 (create links with proper anchor text and placement).
  • Example needed – run the Meta-Article Prompt (/meta-article-prompt-template) after the first site-wide anchor cleanup.

File in the zip: skills/seo-content-architecture/use-proper-anchor-text-3-6-words-descriptive.md. Download the Task Library zip.

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