Damon Nelson
"Click here" shows up all over the web. It tells your reader nothing about where the link goes, and it tells Google nothing either. The fix is small, and Google has spelled out exactly what it wants.
What anchor text does for you
Anchor text (also called link text) is the visible, clickable text of a link. According to Google's link best practices for Google Search, that text tells both people and Google something about the page you are linking to.
Google asks for anchor text that is "descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant" to the page it sits on and to the page it points to.
The mistakes Google calls out
Words that say nothing. "Click here" and "read more" are too generic. A reader skimming your page can't tell where any of those links lead.
Links that run on and on. A whole sentence turned into a link is too long. Keep it to the few words that name the page.
Keyword cramming. Stuffing keywords into a link is a bad idea, and Google reminds us that keyword stuffing breaks its spam policies. Its test is simple: does the reader need these keywords to understand the next page? If not, cut them.
Links piled side by side. Several links chained right next to each other are hard for readers to tell apart. Give each one some room and its own context.
The words before and after a link matter too, so the sentence around it should help explain it. And when an image is the link, Google uses the image's alt text as the anchor text. Write that alt text the way you would write a link.
A quick before and after
Picture a made-up neighborhood bakery called Maple Street Bread Co. These are links its blog could get wrong, with a fix for each.
- Bad: "click here" / Better: "our sourdough baking schedule"
- Bad: "read more" / Better: "how we price custom birthday cakes"
- Bad: "best bakery cakes cupcakes cookies near me fresh bakery" / Better: "our cupcake menu"
- Bad: "if you want to know when we pull the bread out of the oven every single morning, see this page" / Better: "our morning bake times"
Each better version tells you what you will find before you click.
The same idea carries over to BoosterPages. Each pin is built from your page's title, featured image and short description, and the pin's text link carries your post's title. So a clear, descriptive post title becomes good anchor text on its own. Write titles a person would actually want to click.
Once you start looking, you will spot "click here" everywhere. The shift is simple: every link you write starts telling readers, and Google, exactly what is waiting on the other side.